NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For each Inacha'igen Fino' CHamoru, the Chamorro Studies and Chamoru language faculty at UOG collect or produce a handful of creative and expressive texts in the language. These texts are used as part of the competition for these categories, Lalai (chant), Rinisådan Po'ema ( poetry recitation) and Tinaitai Koru (choral reading). Students have to memorize and then recite or perform these either as individuals or as a group. For the longest time, there wasn't a lot produced creatively in the Chamoru language. Most of it could be found in terms of music, as Chamorus were making songs, releasing albums and performing. Much of the publication and promotion of Chamoru could be found in the church, but little of it was creative. Much of it was translations of things written elsewhere in the Catholic universe and localized to Guam. In this way, the church preserved words and meanings in Chamoru, it helped teach and propagate the language, but it wasn't a venue for Chamoru

For several years I have been assisting Siñora Rosa Palomo and Professor Gerhard Schwab who are my colleagues at the University of Guam with the development of an amazing, new, free language learning website built around the learning of the Chamorro language. Humuyongña i na'ån-ña " Learning Chamorro ."  After years of tirelessly working on building the site, it was launched last week. A Pacific Daily News article about it, was picked up by USA Today and shared several thousand times on social media. The website would not be possible without the love labor of GuamWebz and Rhaj Sharma. Some media on the launch can be found below. Sen magof hu na put fin in baba este na website. ********************** Date: March 12, 2017 We take this opportunity to thank everyone of you for registering and continuously visiting our website. All of us together have visited our website more than 1.7 million times. It is your continuous encouragement and support that has kep

"Adios Benit" by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post February 24, 2016 Last week the island lost an island icon and a Chamorro pioneer with the passing of Dr. Bernadita Camacho-Dungca or “Benit” as she was known by many. So much of what we take for granted today in terms of Chamorro pride, the Chamorro renaissance or the surge of Chamorro cultural identity is tied to what she helped to created in her life. Her list of accomplishments is numerous and something to marvel at even scanning her biography. For so many of the efforts that have helped build pride amongst Chamorros and raise their consciousness as an indigenous people, who deserve decolonization and need to protect their language and heritage, Benit was there. She assisted Dr. Donald Topping with the development of his Chamorro language trilogy of books and is listed as a co-author on “Chamorro Reference Grammar” and “The Chamorro-English Dictionary.” She helped train the first generation of Chamorro l

Guaha dos patgon-hu siha. Hohoben ha' i dos. Gof ya-hu kumonne' siha para i fanegga'an para bei in egga' i nuebu na mubin famagu'on siha. Taiguihi i meggaina na manhoben, gof yan-niha umegga' i mubin Pixar. Gof ya-hu este na mubi siha, sa' tahdong i mensahi siha, fihu gof gaisiente, yan sesso mafa'tinas maolek i estoria. Ya-hu lokkue' na fihu gof "simple" i na'an-niha, ya ti mappot mapula' gi fino' Chamoru.  Anai hu taitai este na lista gi Facebook ha na'hasso yu' put i na'an-niha este na mubi siha gi fino' Chamoru. Sesso hu usa este na pininala' siha gi klas-hu. Para i estudiante-ku siha, mas ki sesso sahnge i fino' Chamoru para siha. Esta hagas mampayon siha nu i fino' Ingles, ya achokka' i fino' Chamoru i fino' Irensia para siha, ti ma gof tungo', ya kalang fifino' lagu ha' gi pachot-niha yan hinasson-niha.  Ya-hu muna'halom gi klas-hu este na klasin nina'chale

When I took Chamorro at the University of Guam I was fortunate in that for CM101 and CM102 I had the same professor, Peter Onedera. As I moved from one to the next there was a smooth transition, we picked up in the second semester easily from where we had left off the semester before. Other students however had different experiences. They would take one professor for CM101 and another for CM102 and often times they would find that two faculty from the same institution would start and end up at completely different for their courses. Even now as I teach Chamorro language at the University of Guam I have noticed these gaps. Sometimes they are minor, but sometimes they can be serious. Part of this problem is the lack of any standardized textbooks that instructors can use to help maintain a continuity between various levels of Chamorro. At present instructors use a variety of materials in order to teach their courses. The books created by Donald Topping, most famous for co-a

Taga', the Great Maga'lahi of the CNMI and in particular the island of Tinian. He is well-known for the latte house in Tinian that bears his name. In Rota there is a statute of him that stands before the As Nieves quarry there. LIke Gadao in Guam he is a larger than life figure for whom there are many stories and not just the ones that people write on monuments and record in story books. But like so many figures of this type there are those stories that are flattering and those that aren't so flattering. Taga' for example is not only associated with the erecting of great latte houses, but he is also known for being an angry and cruel parent. Take for example the story below from Pedero Ogo in 1962 about Taga'. Ogo is best known for helping Donald Topping and Bernadita Dungca with the creation of the Chamorro-English Dictionary that is widely used today. In this story, Taga' is not a great hero, but a father who sees that his son may surpass him in streng

Here are some of my thoughts on the Chamorro language today. Fihu ma faisen yu' put i hinasso-ku siha gi este na klasin asunto, pues pine'lo-ku maolek na para bai hu pegga siha guini para u mali'e' yan mataitai. Ti hu kekesangan na impottante yu' gi i diniskuti put este, lao guaha inimpottante gi i sinangan-hu siha. Ko'lo'lo'na ayu nai put i lenguahi ni' i pumalu siha ti ma admimite. ******************** 1. Chamorro is an official language of Guam along with English. This is something people often forget. 2. It is important to teach, practice and preserve the Chamorro language because it is part of the unique heritage of Guam and the Marian as. If Chamorros and non-Chamorros allow the Chamorro language to disappear the n it means ( gi minagahet) that we are a sad and pathetic community. This island likes to say that respect is important here, but the majority of people on Guam (and this includes Chamorros) have little to no respect for

My weekly Chamorro classes have started again.  They take place each Monday at 2:30 at Java Junction in the Agana Shopping Center. They are free of charge and open to anyone. If you are interested in attending the classes please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com with any questions.

Every once in a while I seem to disappear from the face of the island. People call my phone and I don't answer. Emails pile up and I don't respond to them. People don't see me in my usual places. My course work for classes is more abbreviated and rushed than usual. If you ever notice this happen to me then rest assured I am not addicted to any drugs, nor have I taken up some new misanthropic new hobby. What has probably happened is that I've taken on a new translation project (from English to Chamorro), and I'm probably bunkered up in my office at home or at UOG, typing in frustrated bursts into my computer, and occasionally coming up for air by digging for some archaic word in my Chamorro-English dictionary. I sometimes take on projects like this in order to make some extra money, and just because I also find it to be an interesting experience. So if it seems like I've been gone for a few days, I'm lost in translation yet again. I got a particularly l

With some of the stress of the writing and defending a dissertation over now, I can finally enjoy the breaths that I take and try to relax a little bit. As some might be familiar with on this blog, one of the ways that I relax is by writing songs or poems in Chamorro, or translating lyrics from songs into Chamorro. The past month while I’ve been furiously writing my dissertation was the longest period of time since 2000 that I went without opening up my Chamorro dictionary. As I’ve been shut away in my computer for so long, and without doing much talking, thinking or writing in Chamorro, I’ve actually felt at times the language fading from my head. That’s why it was exciting recently, after defending my dissertation, to finally open up the dictionary again and start work on translating another song. This post is the fourth installment of a feature that I call Sakigakke Chamorro! In this feature I take a song from a Japanese anime and translate it into Chamorro. The translation is