Insights
Chamorro, Chamoru, CHamoru A brief history of spelling confusion and disagreement
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By Michael Lujan Bevacqua
( First of a two-part series)
Sen. Shelly Calvo has introduced Bill 218-38, which would mandate all government of Guam agencies to use the spelling“ CHamoru” in all official documents, government publications and public educational materials. Bill 218-38 is a proposed addendum to Public Law 33-236, enacted in 2017, which re-established Kumisión i Fino’ CHamoru, also known as the CHamoru Language Commission.
For those familiar with the history of the CHamoru language, this is the latest chapter in an occasionally tempestuous saga. Some might think it pointless for the government of Guam to take it up. The history involved has made this a difficult but nonetheless important issue.
In his 1998 book“ Pacific Passages,” Dr. Ronald Stade recounts a public forum held by the Kumisión i Fino’ CHamoru in 1994 to discuss a then-proposed change to he official spelling of the name of Guam’ s Indigenous people from“ Chamorro” to“ Chamoru.”
Stade chronicles the heated debate, bringing out the voices of activists, educators, scholars and politicians, most of whom have passed away. One side argued for preserving the spelling“ Chamorro” because of its legacy and convenience. The opposing side countered that the spelling is colonial and that the“ CHamoru” spelling should be used to preserve and revitalize CHamoru pronunciation and culture.
In the 1990s, the“ Chamorro” spelling prevailed and was codified into Guam public law. The late senator and University of Guam president John Salas, who testified at the forum, was quoted as saying,“ We’ re only 49,000 Chamorros. Half is for-oru, half is for-orro. Can we afford to become diminished over this issue?”
This quote shows how, in the absence of a spelling system that is standardized and widely accepted, the issue of orthography can become so contentious that it takes attention and resources away from the preservation of the language itself.
Historians offer several theories about what the indigenous people of the Marianas called themselves before Europeans arrived. After colonization, the word“ Chamorro”— spelled this way— emerged as the name used for them and by them.
Since CHamorus did not have a written language, the Spanish orthography was used during the Spanish period and into the 20th century under the United States. Older texts published by the Catholic Church use the spelling“ Chamorro.”
The letter“ J” was used for what we commonly use the letter“ H” for today. The
CHamoru word for“ good” is commonly written as“ maolek” today. The
Spanish orthography at the time used the spelling“ mauleg.” The CHamoru people themselves were accustomed to using this spelling and few questioned it because documents were not widely published in CHamoru, save for religious materials. This would change after the first Chamorro Language Commission was established in 1964. Part of its authority was to develop guidelines for writing in CHamoru and an orthography not inherited from Spanish, but rather one that matched CHamoru sounds and patterns.
Alphabets and orthographies are always arbitrary in how they relate to our languages. There is nothing inherent in how a letter is typed and a sound is made. But alphabets and orthographies can nonetheless be designed to match the commonly used sounds of a language to enhance clarity and reduce confusion.
Languages with older alphabets are often stuck with letters or characters that have changed dramatically over time and may no longer seem to make much sense in relation to the language, but history and standardization nonetheless continue to give them value.
The English language, for example, has particular letters that stand for certain sounds, yet those associations are riddled with exceptions. Languages that have more recently developed orthographies can benefit from learning the problems or pratfalls of other languages with older writing systems. One of the problems with the use of the Spanish orthography was that, while CHamorus were accustomed to reading it, it didn’ t account for some commonly used sounds in CHamoru, and developing a new spelling system could help minimize confusion and increase clarity, by adding or subtracting letters.
This process was difficult because, while discussing the issue in a commission meeting or scholarly conference is one thing, dealing with it in the real world is another. While the CHamoru language had long been connected to and written using Spanish orthography, by the second half of the 20th century CHamorus were familiar with and com-
Editor’ s notes: This piece is the first of a two-part series. The Pacific Island Times’ editorial style guide adopted the“ CHamoru” spelling following the enactment of Public Law 33-236 in 2017. We use“ Chamorro” for stories related to the Northern Marianas, where this spelling is officially and widely used
The opinions expressed here are solely the author ' s and do not reflect the editorial position of the Pacific Island Times.
fortable using the English alphabet and orthography as well.
While some proposals to modify the orthography for CHamoru may be easily accepted, such as using“ K” instead of“ C” or“ I” instead of“ Y”, others have sparked controversy. Many of these disagreements, however, have little to do with the substance and more to do with the appearance of the language that was created.
In the 1970s, the community loudly rejected proposals that made the native language resemble Filipino or Tagalog.
Others were considered controversial because, instead of using the letter“ Y” for the“ J / Z” sound pronounced in“ Yo’ ña” or“ Yigu,” there was a proposal to create a new character to symbolize it. Some felt that this was akin to“ making up letters.”
In truth, many of these responses were tied to the linguistic superiority theory that applied to English and Spanish and that for CHamoru orthography to be correct, it had to follow the way those superior languages looked and felt.
Even some noncontroversial letters added to the orthography, such as the letter Å, which was introduced to account for the predominance of two“ a” sounds in CHamoru, and the“‘” or glota, which represents a glottal stop— have taken a long time to catch on.
Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua is a CHamoru scholar and author who founded the CHamoru Studies Program at the University of Guam in 2011, where he taught history and the CHamoru language for 10 years.