Editorial: The 'really' Chamorro standard

Due to impact of colonization, cultural and societal change, the Chamorro language is declining in use. There are efforts to revitalize the language, but with each decade the census shows fewer and fewer speakers in the Marianas.

What is actively increasing are conversations, primarily in English, about the nature of the Chamorro language — its current state, opinions on what is appropriate and, most importantly, what words are really Chamorro and those that aren’t.

It’s intriguing the way your average Chamorro or non-Chamorro on Guam will casually discuss and doubt the existence of both the Chamorro language and the Chamorro people. They tie the existence of the Chamorro people and language to certain dates, certain tragedies of history and end up drawing lines whereby everything prior to a moment or an event is really Chamorro and everything that has come after is not. Even if Chamorros have used certain Spanish adapted words such as “potta” or “påle’” for hundreds of years, they aren’t "really" Chamorro.

This is a common way of seeing the past and the present, but it isn’t really how the world works. It bears little resemblance to how languages work.

Languages, especially those that have been through as much as Chamorro over the past several centuries, constantly undergo changes. New words are introduced. Old words are forgotten. Sometimes the grammar itself can shift.

But the issue of other languages’ influence or the presence of borrowed Spanish words in Chamorro doesn’t indicate as much as most people feel. If you were to apply the same standard for not really existing to a language such as English, you would find similar results. If you look at the words I've typed so far, although most would be considered English, many of the words wouldn’t meet the standard for really being English.

This is something indigenous people struggle against. The modern world is built upon not just the displacement of native peoples, but also the assumption of their cultures as being stagnant and always on the verge of disappearing. As Robert Underwood once noted, many people will question if there is any connection between him and Maga’låhi Kepuha from the 17th century, but few people are seeking further evidence of the connection between Mick Jagger and William Shakespeare.

English people have undergone their own tumultuous half millennium of cultural, linguistic and societal upheaval and change, but few people seem to be calling into question whether English is a real language or whether English people really exist. 

For some, the hybrid nature of Chamorro language is a calamity, a sign of impurity. Assumptions of pre-contact purity are problematic, whether you are praising the Chamorro or writing screeds against them.

While I can agree with those who lament the colonial past and present of the Chamorro people, to say that something is or isn’t Chamorro in that way is far too simplistic. For me, the presence of Spanish in Chamorro adds an extra layer of meaning to how we can express ourselves in Chamorro.

In my column next week, I’ll discuss further the complexities in our language.

Michael Lujan Bevacqua is an author, artist, activist and assistant professor of Chamorro studies at the University of Guam.