Unlike most of its neighbors, Chamorro is not classified as a Micronesian or Polynesian language.
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11 Facts About Chamorro language
2.
At the time the Spanish rule over Guam ended, it was thought that Chamorro was a semi-creole language, with a substantial amount of the vocabulary of Spanish origin and beginning to have a high level of mutual intelligibility with Spanish.
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3.
Spanish influences in Chamorro language exist due to three centuries of Spanish colonial rule.
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4.
Many words in the Chamorro language lexicon are of Latin etymological origin via Spanish, but their use conforms with indigenous grammatical structures.
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5.
Japanese influence on Chamorro language was much greater than that of German but much less than Spanish.
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6.
Chamorro language is threatened, with a precipitous drop in language fluency over the past century.
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7.
Chamorro language has 24 phonemes: 18 are consonants and 6 are vowels.
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8.
Chamorro language has geminate consonants which are written double, native diphthongs AI and AO, plus OI, OE, IA, IU, IE in loanwords; penultimate stress, except where marked otherwise, if marked at all in writing, usually with an acute accent, as in 'blue' or 'big'.
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9.
Current common Chamorro language uses only the number words of Spanish origin: uno, dos, tres, etc.
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10.
Current common Chamorro language uses only the Days of the Week which are Spanish in origin but are spelled differently.
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