Keeping Chamorro Alive

Keeping Chamorro language alive
by Haidee V. Eugenio
Pacific Daily News
August 20, 2016

Chamorro speakers on Guam are dwindling.

“I speak Chamorro and I want my children and husband, all born here, to also know how to speak the language. We’re hoping to close the gap,” Kayla Lujan-Espinosa, 27, said as she cradles her 3-week-old child and looks after her 4-year-old son at a community presentation on a draft master plan for a Chamorro immersion school program.

She and her husband Rufo, 30, have three young children they want to understand and speak Chamorro. The Lujan-Espinosa family is one of many whose members are born and raised in Guam, yet many of them don't understand, much less speak, Chamorro.

“From 1990 to present, we probably lost about 10,000 Chamorro speakers,” said Jimmy S. Teria, school program consultant with the Guam Department of Education’s Chamorro Studies and Special Projects Division.

“When I heard about a proposal to have a Chamorro immersion school program, I thought this will help my family learn the language,” said Kayla Lujan-Espinosa, who's originally from Saipan, a teacher at Talofofo Elementary School.

Despite their busy schedule, the family took the time to attend a presentation Wednesday at the Yona/Talofofo Senior Citizens Center in Talofofo on a draft Chamorro Immersion Master Plan developed by the Guam Department of Education’s Chamorro Studies and Special Projects Division. The draft plan is available for public review, input and participation.

No new generation

Most Chamorro speakers, Teria said, are over age 55, so they are considered a part of the older population.

“We haven’t created a new generation of speakers,” said Teria, one of the leading proponents of a community-driven Chamorro language immersion school program. He said the program would complement existing Chamorro language programs on the island.

Teria said the data is based from the U.S. Census of 1990, 2000 and 2010, which show the number of Chamorro speakers declining from 34,598 to 25,827. He said between 2010 and 2016, thousands more have been lost, bringing the estimate to 10,000.

“According to statistics, if you don’t have a younger generation speaking the language, your language is endangered. It’s very endangered at this point," he said.

Teria also cited the results of a survey done by Pa’a Taotao Tano in 2010.

“There is an indication from the data that the under-18 group struggles the most with the Chamorro language in overall comprehension,” Teria said. 

Dying, but not dead

Rosa Salas Palomo, another proponent of a language immersion program and chairwoman of the Guam Academy Charter School Council, said the time is now to slow down or reverse the decline in the number of Chamorro speakers.

She said community involvement is a key factor in making this happen.

“The Chamorro language is dying, but it’s not dead in Guam,” Palomo said. “We want it alive. It is still viable. We want it used in every aspect of the community.”

The draft plan, according to Teria, resulted from a community survey completed in March 2016 to gauge interest in a Chamorro language immersion program. There were 164 unique respondents and 88 of those agreed or strongly agreed that they would enroll their children at a school where only Chamorro is used for teaching, learning and socializing.

Teria is encouraging families, individuals and groups interested in reviewing or providing input to the draft plan, or learn more about the proposed program, to contact him at 300-5048 or 483-3713.

Puengen Minagof Nochebuena 2014

Puengen Minagof Nochebuena
by Michael Lujan Bevacqua
December 3, 2014
The Marianas Variety

THE Chamorro Studies Program at the University of Guam organizes numerous events and programs each year. We host or co-host forums, such as the female candidate forums and sexual harassment forums held earlier this year. We offer Chamorro language classes and over the past year Chamorro dance and weaving courses. We hold regular colloquia where people speak on issues important in a contemporary or historical sense to the Chamorro people, including last year’s “The Chamorro Experience gi Fino’ Chamorro” a lecture series in the Chamorro language. But amidst all these activities there are two primary events that the program organizes each year, I Inachaigen Fino’ CHamoru or the Chamorro Language Competition, each March on Charter Day and Puengen Minagof Noche Buena, a Chamorro Christmas celebration each December.

This year’s Puengen Minagof Noche Buena will be taking place this Friday, Dec. 5 starting at 5:30 p.m. in the Humanities and Social Sciences building atrium at UOG. It is a collaborative effort of the instructors and students for all the Chamorro languages classes at UOG in the Fanuchan’an (fall) semester.

Normally, the evening features a bilen-making competition, however this year is different. A bilen is a Nativity scene, usually featuring a baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, some shepherds and the Three Kings (Wise Men). Nowadays many people buy a set or use a set bought in previous years, but in the past a family would collect moss and wood from the jungle and build the scene themselves. In the past, classes would use found objects and natural or recyclable materials to build their bilens and they would be pitted against each other to see whose was the best. The competitive aspect will still be present this year, but instead students will be constructing latte stones. They will still have to use natural and recyclable materials. Judges will be scoring the latte stones in the following categories: Most Beautiful, Most Relevant to the Theme and Most Creative. There is an additional category where those attending Puengen Minagof will be able to vote for their favorite in the People’s Choice Award.

A must for each Puengen Minagof is the enjoying of Chamorro Christmas songs. Students will be singing a wide variety of songs both traditional and more contemporary. Come and join UOG students and sing along to old favorites such as “Dandan i Pandaretas” or “Kantåyi gui’” or “Ta Falågue Sahyao.” You can also hear contemporary Christmas songs such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or “Jingle Bells” and “Silver Bells” translated into Chamorro. Here’s an excerpt of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or “Rudof” translated into Chamorro:

Rudof agaga' i gui'eng-mu/ lålamlam kada puengi,/ ya kada ma attan i gui'eng-mu,/ sigi hao di ma kasse,/ todu i mangga'chong-mu,/ sigi hao di ma kasse,/ sa' hågu ha' nai na binådu,/ sasahnge yan na'ma'se'.

I am proud to present that for this year’s Puengen Minagof, we will also be featuring Chamorro weaving demonstrations. This semester the Chamorro Studies program has been working with the group Pa’a Taotao Tano’ to offer a class in Chamorro weaving. For the past few months, students in the course have been learning how to weave items such as the gueha (fan), katupat (rice pouch), guafak (woven mat), piña (pineapple), puti’on (stars), ala (basket) and tuhong sakman (canoe hat). The instructor is Art Pangelinan from Pa’a Taotao Tano’, who has been teaching the students to weave with both hågon niyok (coconut fibers) and akgak (pandanus fibers). The students will be presenting the items they have learned to weave this semester and also be offering some demonstrations for those interested in trying their hand at a kaputat, a puti’on or a apacha’ (grasshopper).

There will be other displays and demonstrations, including the screening of Chamorro language film projects by students and the introducing of a new virtual dictionary website. Professors Gerhardt Schwab and Rosa Palomo of UOG have been working on developing a virtual database and learning resource for the Chamorro language. Students in CM301, or Advanced Chamorro, have been working this semester to add words, dialogues, grammatical lessons to the website which will hopefully be launched sometime next year. Rosa Palomo has been teaching Chamorro at UOG for many years. Gerhardt Schwab is actually a social work professor at UOG, but recently declared himself a Chamorro Studies major and has since returned to school to learn the Chamorro language.

Finally, what is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Puengen Minagof for people is the food. This year’s table will feature a variety of exciting types of buñelos, or donuts. According to the students coordinating the table, there will be buñelos dågu, buñelos aga’, buñelos månglo, buñelos kalamasa, buñelos kamuti, buñelos manha and perhaps several other surprises. 

I want to thank Dean James Sellmann of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences for hosting the event. I also want to congratulate the fafa’na’guen Chamorro at UOG for all their hard work in making this event happen: Sinora Palomo, Sinora Flores, Sinora Mendiola, Sinot Franquez and Sinot Benavente. They are all part-time faculty who are dedicated to the promotion and protection of the Chamorro language and each year organize wonderful events like this to that end.

Biba Puengen Minagof! Biba Chamorro! Biba UOG!