ENGLISH THE CHAMORRO WAY

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Standing in front of me at the (long) check-out line at Kmart were a 10-year-old boy and his mom, who's in my generation.  Mom had more of a local accent; the boy less so.

The boy says to mom, "Mom, they have two ice cream machines over there."

She said, "Before, nothing!"

It occured to me that I just heard a real Chamorro-ism.  Something that I don't think you would ever hear from a statesider.

In Chamorro, she would have said, "Tåya' åntes!"  "Nothing before!"  An inversion, but still - a statesider would have said, "There wasn't any before."  Or even, "Before, they had none at all."

"Before, nothing!"  Gotta love it.