Donald M. Topping Ph. D. 1929-2003 Author/Editor Chamorro Reference Grammar Chamorro- English Dictionary

Donald Topping is now a retired professor of linguistics from the University of Hawaii who still lives in Honolulu (listen to the May 8, 2003 interview). When Topping came to Guam he discovered a whole new set of languages that he was unfamiliar with and that discovery caused him to make a dramatic change in his discipline - going from the study of English Literature and Language to Pacific Island Languages.

Topping found the Pacific Island languages to be “intriguing,” and said regarding the beginning of the Chamorro-English Dictionary, “there was a dictionary already available but hard to get, and I found it very incomplete in terms of the number of entries and that language had changed since the publishing of the first dictionary. Topping here is describing the "Von Preissig" dictionary.

Feeling that there could be more done towards the development of a more complete dictionary, Topping started collecting Chamorro words in 3x5 cards and kept them on a shoe box for about two or three years. He gathered the words from people and text, but mainly from talking to the people. Topping went to bars, cockfights and other social gatherings in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands to collect his data. In the interview, he could not remember the number of words that had been collected, but reference his collection effort can be found in the preface of the Chamorro-English Dictionary.

There it says Topping, Ogo and Dungca collected over three thousand lexical entries when they decided it was time to embark in earnest to develop a more complete Chamorro-English dictionary. It’s worthy to note that Topping admits in the preface that there are probably several thousand other Chamorro words that they didn’t think of.

Work on the dictionary began in 1967 when he and Pedro Ogo were working on material that went into the publication Spoken Chamorro (Topping 1969 b.)  The initial purpose of collecting the words was to develop a lexicon to include in the textbook.

Collecting the material that would go into the final product is a laborious task that also requires funding. Topping received a University of Hawaii Office of Research Administration grant so Ogo could continue to stay in Honolulu through the spring of 1968 to continue work on the dictionary. Topping spent that summer in the Mariana Islands continuing the collection of words but also cross-referencing the words that he and Ogo had selected with other native speakers of Chamorro.

The National Science Foundation grant made it possible for Topping to sift through the numerous words and their meanings which meant more interviews and exchanging of words before deciding on the final words.

The advent of the computer simplified Topping’s effort to produce a Chamorro Dictionary making it the largest data base of Chamorro words. Topping gave Bernadita Dungca the Chamorro Dictionary on electronic medium for the expansion of the dictionary in the future, but Dungca said after all the administration changes and typhoons she was not sure where it is.

Pedro M. Ogo and Bernadita C. Dungca were primary informants on the project, they were the native speakers he collaborated with on the development of the Chamorro-English Dictionary. “Ogo,” he said, “was invaluable since he was from Rota where the dialect is different. Work was suspended on the dictionary until Bernadita returned to the University of Hawaii in the fall of 1971, thereafter working with Topping to edit, expand and correct the necessary changes of the dictionary until 1973, when they were able to produce the final results. This time from the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

In the interview and reference in the preface, Donald Topping said he’s work was done with the production of the dictionary and encouraged the People of Guam to take it upon themselves the task of expanding his publication to eventually be a true Chamorro dictionary where there is no reference to another language.

Regarding the Chamorro Reference Grammar publication, Topping planned on and worked the concept for a very long time and is a first attempt at assembling enough pieces of the language in a sufficiently systematical way to deserve being called a reference grammar book.

Topping said because language is so complex and consistently changing, a grammar can never be complete. He said the rules in the book relate to the actual use of the language by native speakers. Interestingly, Topping says there are many attempts at qualifying rules so as to explain them, but cautioned that an impossible task since language is complex and constantly changing - therefore, grammar can never be complete.

Topping’s closing statements were that the dictionary would serve to keep the language alive or a fitting purpose to its demise.