Chamorro

About Chamorro

Chamorro is the language of the Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. It is an official language, together with English, of Guam and of the Northern Mariana Islands, both part of the United States. Fewer young people speak it than their grandparents did, and schools in Guam teach it to keep it alive.

Chamorro is written in the Latin alphabet and has taken many words from Spanish, after more than 200 years of Spanish rule. The best known word is the greeting Håfa adai, which means hello and is heard all over Guam.

FamilyAustronesian, Malayo-Polynesian
Where spokenGuam, Northern Mariana Islands
Statusvulnerable (UNESCO)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codesch (ISO 639-1), cha (ISO 639-3)

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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