NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of the most irritating things about life on Guam is that the island is incredibly multilingual as well as multicultural, but because of our colonial past and present, we tend to force everything into very unfortunate monolingual frameworks. It is important to be able to see past the colonial examples presented by the United States and look at the rest of the world, especially where small language communities, who are in similar situations as Chamorros, are struggling to promote and preserve their indigenous tongues. Here are some articles to consider in this regard. *************************** Bilingual Street Signs Herald a New Era of Language Revitalization by Frank Hopper 2/29/16 Indian Country Today Media Network In 1990, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe estimates only eight people knew how to speak the Klallam language. Now they’re putting it on street signs. Earlier this month, the city of Port Angeles, on the north end of Washington State’s Olympic

Tomorrow is the Inadaggao Lengguahen Chamoru at UOG. The forum for senatorial candidates in the Chamorro language will begin at 6 pm in the CLASS Lecture Hall. See my column below for more information on why it is important.   ************** Breathe life in the Chamorro language Michael Lujan Bevacqua Pacific Daily News October 6, 2016   From 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 10 at the University of Guam  CLASS Lecture Hall, students in the Chamorro Studies program will organize an “Inadaggao Lengguahen Chamoru” or a Chamorro Language Forum. For this event, four senatorial candidates from each political party will be asked questions in the Chamorro language about pertinent island issues, and respond in the Chamorro language. The event is open to the public and refreshments will be provided. Nowadays it is easy to forget that there are two official languages for this island, Chamorro and English. One of them has been here for a little over a century, the other for thousands of

"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

--> So much of the problems with saving dying languages is that people don't understand how languages live and die. They make assumptions about what makes a language necessary or valuable or what might be killing a language or keeping it alive, and often times those interpretations feel real, but actually bear little connection to reality. People fear that certain things which don't actually threat languages are holding knives to the throats of the language. People who have the abilities to save the language, wait passively for Superman or Maga'lahi Hurao to appear to give them salvation in the form of a curriculum or an app. This is, one of the biggest frustrations of my life recently, is struggling to find ways to revitalize the Chamorro language, but bumping up against so many stubbornly held misconceptions, which have to be challenged, or at least disrupted slightly for any language resurgence to take place. People become too obsessed, conveniently so, wit

It is less than 200 days til Guam hosts FESTPAC or the largest cultural festival in the Pacific. I am involved in FESTPAC in a number of forms and there are some ways that we are clearly ready and on course and others where ai adai it seems like it'll take a miracle for us to make it on time. But with each day, more and more things are decided and more and more groups come together. Hunggan sesso tai'esperansa yu' gi este na kinalamten, lao kada tumekkon yu', mafatto tinanga ta'lo. For those of you who would like to receive regular updates about FESTPAC, its planning and organizing go on Facebook and LIKE the official FESTPAC page. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/guamfestpac2016 Or, each Friday the Pacific Daily News is featuring a different column under the banner of "Saonao yan Eyak" which covers a different aspect of the organizing taking place and also hopes to help prepare the people for what it is like

For the Importance of Second Language Learning Forum that I helped organize a few weeks ago, we were honored to have a very diverse and exciting panel. Coming at it from different angles, they covered a number of way, some more philosophical and others more practical, as to how learning a second language can be important and as a result, something that should be required at UOG.  The panel featured the following guests: Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, a Ph.D. student in Political Science at UH Manoa and former student of mine. He is a young activist who has taken up both the banner of decolonization and language revitalization. I've been working with him on a number of projects such as Ha'anen Fino' Chamoru Ha' and the upcoming Lalahen Sinahi project. He took Chamorro as his second language requirement at UOG and it changed the course of his life.  Ronald T. Laguana, the current director of the Division of Chamorro Studies in the Guam Department of Education. He i

Sen tinanae' yu' gi este na simana put i Inachaigen Fino' CHamoru. Esta singko anos manayuyuda yu' gi este na dinana', komo hues yan organizer. Noskuantos anos tatte mannge' yu' column gi Marianas Variety put i hinasso-ku siha gi este na impottante na fina'pos. Antes di gera i Amerikanu siha ma sangani i Chamorro na ti magahet i lenguahin-miyu, maolekna na en yite'. Despues di i gera, i meggaina na Chamorro ma kombensan maisa siha na maolekna ma yute' ha' i lenguahin-niha ya ma fa'na'gue i famagu'on-niha Fino' Ingles. Gi 1970s esta ilek-niniha i linguists na kumekematai i Fino' Chamorro. Gi pa'go na tiempo meggai na taotao ilek-niniha na esta matai i Fino' Chamorro. Pues kada Matso, anai mandana' i estudianten Guahan yan i CNMI gi UOG para i Inachaigen Fino' CHamoru, hafa na lenguahi ma u'usa? Fino' Haya' pat Fino' Taya'? Sina ta sangan na un milagro este na kompetasion,

My son Akli'e' has not quite learned yet how to deal with disappointment. When he says "Malago' yu este" and he doesn't receive it, no matter how small or trivial, he'll often pout and cry. Sumahi and I take alot of joy in scolding him in the weirdest way, by singing a Rolling Stone's lyric to him translated into Chamorro. The song? "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and what we sing to him is "Ti sina un chule' todu i malago'-mu" or sometimes "Ti sina un risibi todu i malago'-mu!" ******************* Everyday when we are driving home, the kids and I pass by the airport. There are plenty of ways to say "airport" in Chamorro if you don't want to just make airport sound Spanish to make it Chamorro. It depends primarily on what aspect of the airport you want to emphasize in how you name it. Chamorro has a circumfix known as "fan...'an." You put the fan at the f