NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For the past few months my Saturday morning Chamoru coffee shop classes have been structured around two activities. Each class begins with the translation of a Chamoru song into English. Usually the students get to the pick the particular song, or at least the type of song. Second, we go through a longer narrative, sometimes a story, a speech or a poem in Chamoru and also spend time translating it and practicing reading it. As a result of this, I've been translating lots of Chamoru songs lately. When I first started learning Chamoru, gi minagahet, I was terrible at transcribing Chamoru songs. I hadn't grown up with the ear for hearing or catching Chamoru and so my transcriptions of songs were often wildly inaccurate. For the first few years I had people both politely and impolitely correct my attempts at transcription and then translation. My ear for Chamoru has gotten better, but I still struggle sometimes with particular artists who may have their own flair for pronunciat...

For each Inacha'igen Fino' CHamoru, the Chamorro Studies and Chamoru language faculty at UOG collect or produce a handful of creative and expressive texts in the language. These texts are used as part of the competition for these categories, Lalai (chant), Rinisådan Po'ema ( poetry recitation) and Tinaitai Koru (choral reading). Students have to memorize and then recite or perform these either as individuals or as a group. For the longest time, there wasn't a lot produced creatively in the Chamoru language. Most of it could be found in terms of music, as Chamorus were making songs, releasing albums and performing. Much of the publication and promotion of Chamoru could be found in the church, but little of it was creative. Much of it was translations of things written elsewhere in the Catholic universe and localized to Guam. In this way, the church preserved words and meanings in Chamoru, it helped teach and propagate the language, but it wasn't a venue for Chamoru...

Guaha meggai na tinilaika gi på'go na såkkan. Meggai nuebu na siniente-ku ya guaha na biahi kulang machuchuda' enao siha gi sanhalom-hu. Fihu anggen taiguenao yu', ya-hu sumotta sina gi tinge'-hu, kolo'lo'ña betsu pat po'ema siha.  Todu i tinige'-hu guini put guinaiya. Sa' ma'pos un eståba na guinaiya yan manaliligao yu' nuebu.  Estague i betsu-hu sina, ni' hu tuge' gi halacha na tiempo.  ****************** Mungga masukne yu' Nåna na ti hu na'funhåyan i tarehå-hu Sukne si Yu'os Sa' guiya muna'fanhuyong Ayu na palao'an ******************* Tumutunok i pilan Lao olahan moon Na mana'påra i tininok-ña Ya ti hu fåkpo' Este linangitan na råtu Nai hågu gi tinektok-hu ******************** I mangga gi hilo'-mu gi trongko achamames yan i labios-mu I puti'on siha gi langhet gi hilo'-mu manachagefpågo yan i matå-mu I pilan gi hilo'-mu gof takhilo' achafinu ...

I've spent the last year thinking a lot about Magellan. Well as a Guam historian, I think about Magellan a lot and quite regularly, whether I want to or not. But the particular ways I've been thinking about Magellan lately have centered around the fact that the 500th anniversary of the circumnavigation he led will take place in 2021. There will be several voyages that will be following his route around the world and they will naturally stop in Guam in March 2021. I was invited to a conference on behalf of Guam and the University of Guam last March, which was seen as being a launching event for the Spanish Navy for their anniversary commemoration. I wrote about it on this blog as part of my Circumnavigations series. Since then I've been working with a few other people, most notably Robert Underwood, David Atienza and Carlos Madrid on pushing for the development of a commission that can organize Guam's own events around this commemoration and also work wit...