Gefpå’go na Dinagi: Decolonization and the Chamorro Language of Guam

The 4,000-year history of the Chamorro people in both its beauty and its tragedy can be seen through their language. While it is supported by an Austronesia foundation, that connects it to other peoples and languages through Asia and the Pacific, it also bears elements of the language and influence of all three nations that have come to colonize the Chamorro people. Despite periods of rapid social and cultural change due to colonization, Chamorros continued to keep their language alive and refusing to relinquish it despite colonial pressures. All of this has changed since World War II. The use of the Chamorro language has declined to the point where, despite surviving for thousands of years, it may become extinct in a few generations. In order to bring a language like Chamorro back to a healthy level, one must be able to dismantle and disrupt certain colonial ideologies that have marginalized the colonized, their culture, and language. This chapter discusses the impact that colonization has played in enabling this decline, and how theories of decolonization can help us create programs for language revitalization.