Foreign Loan-Words in Chamorro

The Chamorro language over the course of hundreds of years of colonization and trade have led to a significant level of foreign influence on the indigenous language. This, in turn, has created a mixture of Spanish, German, Japanese, and English that have shaped the everyday vocabulary of Chamorro speakers. Below, you'll find the different origins of commonly used foreign words in Chamorro. Spanish, however, remains the most dominant of the outside influences.

Spanish Influence

Since the Spanish arrived in 1521, their language has proven to be the most influential to the Chamorro language, which created a nearly irreversible amount of loss to original Chamorro words. Their influence wasn't exactly welcomed to put it lightly, but the outcome was detrimental to the language nonetheless. Below are just a few examples of Spanish words that are either used in Chamorro or Chamorrocized Spanish terms used in everyday speech.

Examples:
SPANISH = RED
CHAMORRO = ORANGE

ESPIA/ESPIA
Spanish = to spy
Chamorro = to look for

LIBRO/LEPBLO = book
VERDE/BETDE = green
ESPEJO/ESPEHU = mirror
CUENTOS/KUENTOS = talk
CUANTO/KUANTO = how much?
PUERTA/POTTA = door
COBARDE/KOBATDE = coward
QUE HORA ES/KI ORA GENAO = what time is it?

and the list goes on...

English Influence

The English influence in the Marianas is most distinct on Guam. Guam tends to use loan words from English nowadays as Saipan tends to gravitate towards borrowing Japanese words.

For example, when I was going to school in Guam, A friend of mine from Agat argued that the word for "brown" in Chamorro was kulot bro-brown instead of kulot chukulati (Please, do not use kulot bro-brown, say it right!). I thought she was kidding, but she was serious without a doubt. There was no convincing her, but this was just one of many examples of Chamorrocized English.

Japanese Influence

Although the CNMI tends to borrow Japanese words, there are a few words most Chamorros on Guam or the CNMI will be able to recognize and use:

soba = soup (This Japanese word is actually borrowed from Portuguese)
zori = slippers (may sound like jori, depending where the speaker is from)

However, the CNMI does use Japanese words that some Guamanians don't regularly use:

chirigami = toilet paper
denki = flashlight

German Influence

The word morgen was mentioned in this essay by Peter Aldan as a greeting in Saipan, which can be traced to the German administration in the early 1900s. The word is derived from the German "Guten Morgen" or good morning. While there isn't a tremendous German influence in Chamorro, there are a few German surnames of Chamorro families.

Examples of German-Chamorro surnames:

Anderson
Bauer
Baumeister
Boyer
Hoffschneider
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