Last weekend Jay led both the Praktikan Ogga’an and Praktikan Pupuengi groups because I was attending a Letterpress printing workshop. They finished reading Umépanglao, and I am sure everyone is very relieved. That story is one of the longest and most technically challenging we’ve read because most of us have never built those crab traps. Our friend Aric was the exception, as he was familiar with one of the methods from his crawdad hunting!

The letterpress workshop I attended finished by the afternoon, so I got to join our evening group as we continued through our list of Chamorro songs from Chamorro women. We ended up transcribing and translating the song “Uchan Uchan” from Maria Yatar, which has some lovely, soft folk vibes and beautiful imagery in the lyrics. For anyone struggling to find Chamorro music that you like, this song offers a different and refreshing listening experience. The words and pacing are also fairly accessible (with just a few challenging areas), making it a great song for beginners. This post includes Chamorro lyrics, an English translation and language notes for the song “Uchan Uchan” by Maria Yatar. Happy listening!

Håfa neni, na1 ti un nå’i floris si nanå-mu	Why, baby, did you not give your mother flowers
Debidi un hassu’ na unu ha’ nanå-mu	You ought to remember that you only have one mother
Pues dimu påpa’ ya un fangingi’2 para dididi’ ha’3 rispetu	So kneel down and åmen to (show) just a little respect
Dimu påpa’ åntes di u hånao para i langet	Kneel down before she goes to heaven

Sessu’ ham manhånao para i lanchon-måmi	Often we go to our ranch
Kuentusi si tatå-mu sa’ esta bíbihu4	Talk with your father because he’s already getting old
Dimu påpa’ ya un fangingi’ para dididi’ ha’ rispetu	So kneel down and åmen to (show) just a little respect
Maseha hao hoben lao meggai maleffåfa-mu5	Even though you are young, there is so much you are forgetting

Uchan uchan hånao hånao huyong gi tasi	Rain rain go away, go out to the ocean
Mås ya-hu6 i semnak sa’ initing i7 piniti-hu	I prefer the sunlight because my pain is soothed by it
Uchan Uchan hånao hånao, suha gi tano’-måmi	Rain Rain go away go away, remove yourself from our land
Mås ya-hu i semnak sa’ initing i piniti-hu	I prefer the sunlight because it softens my heartbreak

Håfa neni, na ti un nå’i yu’ floris pågu8	Why baby, did you not give me hibiscus flowers?
Debidi un hassu’ na guao ‘(a)yu9 fumañågu hao	You ought to remember that I am (that) one who gave birth to you
Pues dimu påpa’ kosaki un li’i’10 na un guaiya yu’	So kneel down so that you will see that you love me
Dimu påpa’ åntes di hu hånao pa’ i langet11	Kneel down before I go to heaven

Uchan uchan, hånao hånao huyong gi tasi	Rain rain go away, go out to the ocean
Mås ya-hu i semnak sa’ initing i piniti-hu	I like the sunlight more because my pain is soothed by it
Uchan Uchan hånao hånao, suha gi tano’-måmi	Rain Rain go away, go away from our land
Mås ya-hu i semnak sa’ initing i piniti-hu	I prefer the sunlight because my pain is soothed by it

Song transcription and translation developed collaboratively by the Praktikan Pupuengi Chamorro language practice group, led by Jay Che’le on January 24, 2026.

Notes

1. Håfa na: The phrase håfa na means “why”, but the placement of the word neni in the middle of the phrase may make it challenging to recognize. ↩︎
2. fanngingi’: This is a Chamorro custom of greeting elders by taking their right hand and smelling it as a sign of respect. The root word is ngingi’ which means “to smell [something]”, and then an indefinite fan- prefix has transformed the root so it can be used as a command. Some people today will call this practice “amen”, even turning it into a verb when directing children to “go amen” their elders. But in Chamorro you might hear it called the Manngingi’, with the command to go greet elders as simply Fanngingi’ (which is what the singer is doing here) or Hånao ya un fanngingi’ (“Go and fanngingi’“). To learn more about this custom, check out my translation of the story Kottura: I Kostumbren Mannginge’ and its list of additional reading resources. ↩︎
3. dididi’ ha’: During our practice group session, we could not clearly hear this lyric. What we hear doesn’t match the word written in the lyric video, which is fa’nu’i. Our best guess is that the singer is saying didide’ ha’ (just a little). The phrase dinirihi ha’ was also a close second, but Jay and I decided on didide’ ha’ with the agreement of our friend Alicia. ↩︎
4. esta bíbihu: This phrase translates to “already getting old”. We can also say “already getting to be an elderly man”, since the root word bihu is a gendered loanword from Spanish. Bihu means “elderly man” and its penultimate syllable is reduplicated. When paired with esta, the phrase takes the meaning of already becoming old, rather than already being old – a subtle but important distinction that the language makes by using different reduplication patterns. If the singer had wanted to say “already very old”, that would be esta bihuhu, with the last syllable in bihu reduplicated as a way to intensify the word. ↩︎
5. maleffåfa-mu: This translates to “[what] you are forgetting.” The verb maleffa which is the verb “forget” has been reduplicated and had the possessive pronoun -mu, which means “yours”, attached to the end. This is a great example of how fluid Chamorro can be—with just a few small changes, we can not only change the part of speech for a word, but we can create an entire thought with a single word. ↩︎
6. mås ya-hu: This phrase can mean “my favorite”, “I like most”, “I like more” or even “I prefer.” Any of these translations are reasonable, but in our practice group we leaned to interpreting it as “I prefer” and “I like more” because the rain and sunlight are being contrasted with each other, with the rain being told to go away as a clear preference for the sunlight. ↩︎
7. initing i: The root word is iting which means “to pick, to break off” and it has been transformed with the IN Infix. Our Aunty Chris said that this word can also have the connotation of reducing something into many pieces by picking or breaking pieces off. In the context of the lyric, the person’s pain can be seen as being broken apart by the sunlight. Jay also suggested that with the weather imagery used in the chorus, we could imagine the rain clouds being broken up by the sunlight. But in English, we would be more likely to express this sentiment as having pain being soothed. ↩︎
8. floris pågu: Our practice group could not hear a clear glota in the word pågu, so we were not sure if the phrase was meant to be the wild hibiscus flowers (the floris pågu) or if she actually means floris på’gu, to say “Why, baby, did you not give me any flowers today?” ↩︎
9. guao ‘(a)yu: The full phrase is guahu ayu, an emphatic phrase meaning “I am that one”. We chose to notate this phrase closer to how it is being sung, because it also reflects the way many native speakers are likely to say it in speech: not pronouncing the “h” and connecting the resulting guao to the ayu, which makes the “a” in ayu seem to disappear. ↩︎
10. kosaki un li’i’: This literally translates to “so that you will see”, but this line is more about the realization of something, not literally or physically seeing something. In English, we could also interpret this phrase as “so that it will occur to you” because the idea is that doing a respectful act to honor our mothers will spur our thoughts to love and respect. ↩︎
11. pa’ i langet: The full form of this phrase is para i langet which means “to heaven”. The para was shortened here to pa, which reflects how future tense forms and markers are often shortened and/or contracted in native Chamorro speech. ↩︎