MANY WAYS TO SAY "SMALL"

Chamorro has a number of ways of expressing the idea of "small" or "short."

DIKKIKI' : is the usual word for something small in size.

Please note that we do not mean here something small in quantity, which would be diddidi'.

DICHICHING : mean something extremely small, tiny or minute.

The eye of a needle is dichiching, for example.

When Christ talked about the tiniest part of the letter of the law (like the dot of an I), we can use the word dichiching.

ETTIGO' : means short of stature, as opposed to a tall person.

The ettigo' person may be rather large in size, like an obese person, but be short in height.

A tree can also be ettigo'.

NÅNO : is the word for "dwarf." It comes from the Spanish word enano, meaning the same.

But Påle' Román says there is an indigenous term for dwarves. It is chónnai na taotao.

Chónnai itself, according to Påle' Román, means a "rooster with short feet."

PO'YET : means something or something that has a difficult time growing taller. Ñating dumångkulo. Mappot dumångkulo.  From this it came to mean anything small, or smaller than it should be.

NEWER TERMS

Thanks to newer influences from other countries, we have a few more ways to describe small or short people.

SHORI : is the Chamorro pronunciation of the English "shorty."

In fact, the Chodde' family on Guam are so-named because that is yet another way Chamorros pronounce "shorty."

CHIBI' : is borrowed from the Japanese, and is thus used in the Northern Marianas, but not on Guam. In Japanese, chibi is a slang word for a short person and carries with it, among Japanese, a somewhat negative connotation, as in "shrimp" in English.