One of the most gratifying things about learning Chamorro is discovering new stories in the language that I have never heard before. The story about the Kakkak, or the Yellow Bittern, is a story that I never heard growing up. I found this version in a legends book from the KPV Collection that was collected and translated by Carmen C. Blas. This narration is done by Jay Che’le, listen and enjoy!
If you are in need of a love song about unrequited love in Chamorro, this is a good one to start with. Even though the grammar is a bit squishy in places, there are a lot of repeated phrases that are short and recognizable. A few months back our practice group wrote down Chamorro lyrics and and English translation for this song, but for the version sung by Glenn “Poochie” Paulino. I couldn’t find a version of that song on Youtube that I was able to embed on this post, so I’ve posted here the version sung by Johnny Sablan. Hope you enjoy it!
Continue reading “Kåntan Chamoru: Maloffan Hao”
In this post we will learn about pronouns in Chamorro, including the four pronoun groups, important features of pronouns in Chamorro, and general tips for how the different pronouns are used.
Continue reading “Introduction to Pronouns in Chamorro”
This was a lovely story that I found on Påle’ Eric Forbes’ blog called Estorian Reinhold Mangloña which was told to Påle’ Eric by Richie Mangloña, who heard it from his father Reinhold Atalig Mangloña , who heard it from his Japanese teacher when he was growing up on Luta. We read this story together in one of our Chamorro-language practice groups, and everyone really enjoyed it. The story’s moral of respecting elders gave us all satisfaction, and the Chamorro stretched some of our brains, helping us to learn new vocabulary.
This post includes the Chamorro text with modified spelling, the English translation, and an audio narration by Jay Che’le, since Påle Eric’s original blog post for this story did not include a narration. Enjoy!
Last week Jay and I went to see Pacific Cool perform in Portland, and it was such an enjoyable night. When they played a set of cha-cha songs, we danced to every.single.song. And I’m still a bit tired from that night, but it was worth it. And so, continuing on my streak of Pacific Cool songs, here are Chamorro lyrics and an English translation for “Lalåhi” which is so much fun to sing. Listen and enjoy 🙂
Continue reading “Kåntan Chamoru: Lalåhi”
Lengguahi-ta 