Fanslation Chamoru #1: Kekkaishi #56 - I Ettimo na Tinina

I wrote several weeks ago that I was working on a fanslation Chamoru or a Chamorro fan translated comic book to help with the work of revitalizing our language. The one I was working on was only to be the first, I'm already working on translating several more. This year is looking very busy and very academic for me, so I actually enjoy setting time aside for this, because it allows me to practice my Chamorro and also just write something a bit more relaxing than my usual stuff on decolonization, imperialism, colonialism and the production of sovereignty.

The first fanslation that I've completed is titled "I Ettimo na Tinina" or "The Last Praise," and its a chapter from the manga Kekkaishi. The story is a beautiful one in its own simple way which is why I chose it for the first one I would fanslate. So many manga stories drag on for several issues, hundreds of pages, but this one was a quiet, contained, but still in its own way deep little vignette.

If you would like to get a copy of this fanslation, just email me and I'll send it to you.

For those of you interested, my next fanslation will probably be Naruto # 131, "I Na'an Gaara," or "The Name Gaara." If there are any in particular that you'd like for me to try and fanslate, just let me know.

One more thing, apologies ahead of time as in the fanslations I occassionally make up terms or misuse terms just to be creative or create a more casual sense of the language.

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Just a quick warning though, so hopefully I can avoid getting those dozen or so senseless emails I get from those I call "language losers." The Chamorro used in these fanslations are my own, and therefore may be different than the way you speak, or may be different then what is "normal" "authentic" or "natural" Chamorro. Regardless of these ideas, the Chamorro I used here is still Chamorro. It is still the language which has been passed down by our ancestors for centuries, and just as it changed over the course of those centuries, it continues to change as I type today. Although I do speak Chamorro, I do not profess to be a Chamorro language expert, and so do not criticize me for posing as one. By making these, I am doing my part in making sure our language survives and is healthy by creating ways in which young people and others who are learning, will find media through which they can practice their language comprehension and acquisition skills. If you cannot appreciate this point, but instead would like to cling to notions that I am "killing" the language by using this "word instead of that word," making the grammar too English, or killing it because I'm writing it down, when the language is "supposed to be" oral, then please do not bother emailing me. I encourage you to go out and make your own fanslations where the language will live and survive in the purity of being which only you know and have power over.