John I Borja

Pacific Daily News

A Switzerland university doctoral student observed from her research that English spoken on Guam has salient distinctions relative to grammar, intonations and phonetics — like pronouncing the word "Ziploc" like "Jiploc."

Eva Kuske, who is studying English linguistics at the University of Bern, is spending her first year in Bern's doctoral program to look into Guam's English vernacular.

"I'm not here to say that the people of Guam are not speaking English properly, but I'm here to study the differences between Guam English and English in America," she said. "The people of Guam have their own dialect of English and that's what I'm working on describing."

Kuske presented her findings from her trip to Guam last year, where she scoured the local community to interview more than 60 Chamorros of all ages who can speak the English language. She compiled their interviews, transcribed them and analyzed specific words and phrases that sounded different compared to the English spoken in the U.S.

Though not conclusive, Kuske said her research on the island is a stepping stone for more extensive research in Micronesia.

The differences in the English language were most notable with elder Chamorros, while the speech of younger generations of Chamorros was similar to the English spoken in Hawaii and California, Kuske said.

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Elder Chamorros have distinctive sounds when they pronounce the letters d, b, v, g and z. These consonants are devoiced, meaning without vibration, and as a result a different sound is produced. Kuske provided an audio sample of an elder Chamorro woman pronouncing "bag" like "bak."

Kuske also found the elderly Chamorros she interviewed pronounced the letters p and k with little aspiration, while American English pronounces it with more breath. Instead of an airy p sound in "poor," Chamorros would start the word with a short p sound, similar to the Chamorro word for paper, "påpet."

She also noted Guam's distinctions in intonations. For example, when saying the word "ID," Chamorros she recorded pronounced it as "EYE-dee," compared to the American English's "eye-DEE."

Other observations she recorded include:

using vocabulary and grammar like "air-con," "on the light" and "white complected;"

using a historical present tense, as in "that's when I retire in 2007;" and

reducing consonant clusters, like pronouncing "first" without the t sound.

With more than 100 varieties of English spoken across the globe, Kuske said she was drawn to how colonial influences affected the language spoken in Micronesia. Guam English is not only influenced by the indigenous Chamorro language, but also by Spanish, English and a little bit of Japanese vernacular, Kuske said.

Kuske was able to travel to the island and conduct her research through a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. She and her colleagues are making a joint effort to study the Englishes throughout Micronesia. In addition to Guam, studies on Saipan and Palau also are being conducted, she said.

After her study is complete, Kuske said she'll be working on English distinctions in Filipinos and Caucasians who grew up on Guam.

Kuske's presentation is part of an ongoing seminar series by the Richard Flores Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center.