Flyer for the May 5 discussion ()
Visiting scholar Dr. Sandra Chung will share with the Guam public the findings of her research on how the CHamoru language is changing as part of a broader effort to keep the language thriving.
Regarded as one of the foremost scholars of the CHamoru language, Dr. Chung will discuss “CHamoru Language Across Islands and Generations,” at 6:30 p.m., Friday, May 5, in Room 101, HSS Building, University of Guam. Participants can join on Zoom by clicking this link.
Dr. Chung is one of the two premier linguists who studied the CHamoru language in depth, the other being the late Don M. Topping, said UOG President Emeritus Robert Underwood.
“She brings a lot of knowledge about topics that we don’t normally consider in the development of the language and that’s the reason why it’s important to listen, to hear the results of their ongoing studies about changes in the language,” Dr. Underwood said.
Dr. Chung is the author of the book “Chamorro Grammar” and is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California Santa Cruz where she served as Chair of Linguistics.
She is also a consulting linguist on the National Science Foundation’s Documenting Endangered Languages grant.
The grant supports the project “Developing CHamoru Language Infrastructure: Goggue yan CHachalani Mo’na i Fino-ta,” which is led by Dr. David Ruskin, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Division of English and Applied Linguistics at UOG, and Dr. Underwood. Both serve as the project's co-principal investigators.
Through the grant, Dr. Ruskin and Dr. Underwood are training local CHamoru speakers in documentary linguistics and establishing archives of recordings of the increasingly endangered CHamoru language.
Dr. Matthew Wagers, Professor and Chair of Linguistics at UC Santa Cruz, and Manuel F. Borja, an author, and educator who lives in Saipan, collaborated with Dr. Chung in the research. They investigated the different ways that CHamoru speakers in the Northern Marianas produce various sentence constructions.
“Understanding how the language is changing and where it is headed is essential when forming policies to help bolster the language and foster its use. Work like Dr. Chung's shows us how important it is to act now to ensure a future for the CHamoru language,” Dr. Ruskin said.
For more information about the project, contact: Dr. David Ruskin UOG Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Division of English and Applied Linguistics Email: ruskind@triton.uog.edu
Dr. Robert Underwood UOG President Emeritus Email: anacletus2010@gmail.com
