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Chamorro (Chamorro: ''Finu' Chamorro'' or ''Chamoru'') is a Malayo-Polynesian language (Austronesian) spoken by about 47,000 people (about 35,000 people on Guam and about 12,000 in the Northern Mariana Islands).〔Chung, Sandra. 1998. The design of agreement: Evidence from Chamorro. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.〕 It's a Spanish-Austronesian language. ==Speakers== The Chamorro language is currently threatened, with a precipitous drop in language fluency over the past century. It is estimated that 75% of the population of Guam was literate in the Chamorro language around the time the United States captured the island during the Spanish–American War〔Carano, Paul and Sanchez, Pedro A Complete History of Guam. Tokyo and Rutland,VT: Charles Tuttle Co., 1964.〕 (similar language fluency estimates for other areas of the Mariana Islands during this time period do not exist). A century later, the 2000 U.S. Census showed that fewer than 20% of Chamorros living in Guam speak their native language fluently, and a vast majority of those were over the age of 55. A number of forces have contributed to the steep, post-WWII decline of Chamorro language fluency. A colonial legacy, beginning with the Spanish colonization of Guam in 1668, imposed power structures privileging the language of the region's colonizers. In Guam, the language suffered additional suppression when the U.S. Government banned Chamorro language completely in schools in 1922, and collected and burned all Chamorro dictionaries (Skutnabb-Kangas 2000: 206; Mühlhäusler 1996: 109; Benton 1981: 122). Similar policies were undertaken by the Japanese Government when they controlled the region during WWII. And post WWII, when Guam was ceded back to the United States, the American administrators of the island continued to impose “no Chamorro” language restrictions in local schools, teaching only English and disciplining students for speaking their indigenous tongue. Even though these oppressive language policies were progressively lifted, the damage had already been done. Subsequent generations were often raised in households where only the oldest family members were fluent. Lack of exposure made it increasingly difficult to pick up Chamorro as a second language. Within a few generations, English replaced Chamorro as the language of daily life. There does exist a difference in the rate of Chamorro language fluency between Guam and the other Mariana Islands. On Guam (called ''Guåhan'' by Chamorro speakers, from the word ''guaha'', meaning "have", but its English meaning is, "We Have", from the idea that they had everything they needed,〔 〕〔(José Antonio Saco. Colección de papeles científicos, históricos, políticos y de otros ramos sobre la isla de Cuba. 1859. )〕) the number of native Chamorro speakers has dwindled in the last decade or so, while in the Northern Mariana Islands, young Chamorros still speak the language fluently. Chamorro is still common among Chamorro households in the Northern Marianas, but fluency has greatly decreased among Guamanian Chamorros during the years of American rule in favor of American English, which is commonplace throughout the inhabited Marianas. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chamorro language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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