CHamoru

[chuh-mawr-oh, chah-mawr-raw]

noun

plural

CHamorus ,

plural

CHamoru .

1. a people inhabiting the Mariana Islands, or people of CHamoru origin or descent.

2. the Austronesian language of the CHamoru.

Spelling Note

The first two letters are both capitalized in the official spelling of CHamoru to indicate that they make a single sound. Several other languages have such digraphs marked by spelling conventions, such as the ligature œ in French or æ in Old English.

Word History and Origins

Origin of CHamoru¹

First recorded in 1990–95; a native name based on the indigenous orthography of the Spanish Chamorro ( def. )

Example Sentences

Roy’s grandfather never spoke about how their island had been colonized for hundreds of years: first by the Spanish, beginning in 1668, and then the Americans, in 1898, until they fled in 1941, returning three years later to liberate the CHamoru people from brutal Japanese occupation.

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He saw the veterans as descendants of the ancient CHamoru warfighters, who had taken on the Spanish conquistadors with slings in hundreds of sail-powered outrigger canoes, circling them at two to three times their speed.

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He would thrash a course into the thicket to collect firewood from the slender trees — tangen tangen in CHamoru, the language of the Indigenous inhabitants of Guam, which Roy’s grandmothers and grandfathers were.

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Though some CHamoru tried to fight the Japanese, the overwhelming narrative holds that American soldiers were the saviors of Guam.

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“When you’re thinking about remembering the war, do you put a brave American soldier, or do you put a shirtless CHamoru man coming out of a concentration camp — which one fits? At the time, CHamorus couldn’t see themselves in that role.”

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