Chamorro is spoken in Guam, an “unincorporated territory” (functionally a colony) of the US in the western Pacific. Here the language, still spoken by 47,000 speakers, is endangered.

Fino’ Chamoru is an Austronesian language, spoken on the Mariana Islands (Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan) by about 47,000 people (about 35,000 people on Guam and about 12,000 in the N. Marianas). In Guam, the language has become endangered as the younger generation prefers to speak English, but in the Northern Mariana the language is still widely spoken.

Even though the Mariana Islands are located in Polynesia, Chamorro is not a Polynesian language, but related to eastern Indonesian languages of Sumba, Flores, the Moluccas, Timor, Halmahera, and also to Palauan, the language of the Republic of Palau.

Fino’ Chamoru contains a large number of loanwords from Spanish and American English.