Palauan language in the context of "Alveolar nasal"

Guam (/ˈɡwɑːm/ GWAHM; Chamorro: Guåhan [ˈɡʷɑhɑn]) is an island that is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, and the most populous village is Dededo. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States, as measured from the geographic center of the U.S. In Oceania, Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia. In 2022, its population was 168,801. Chamorros are its largest ethnic group, but a minority on the multiethnic island. The territory spans 210 square miles (540 km; 130,000 acres) and has a population density of 775 per square mile (299/km).

Indigenous Guamanians are the Chamorro, who are related to the Austronesian peoples of the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Polynesia. Unlike most of its neighbors, the Chamorro language is not classified as a Micronesian or Polynesian language. Like Palauan, it possibly constitutes an independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language family. The Chamorro people settled Guam and the Mariana islands approximately 3,500 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, while in the service of Spain, was the first European to visit and claim the island in March 1521. Guam was fully colonized by Spain in 1668. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, Guam was an important stopover for Spanish Manila galleons. During the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam in June 1898. Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the U.S. effective April 11, 1899.

Sonsorol is one of the sixteen states of Palau. The inhabitants speak Sonsorolese, a local Chuukic language, and Palauan.

The islands of the state of Sonsorol, together with the islands of Hatohobei, form the Southwest Islands of Palau. By area and population it is the country’s third smallest state (after Hatohobei and Kayangel.)

In linguistic typology, a verb–object–subject or verb–object–agent language, which is commonly abbreviated VOS or VOA, is one in which most sentences arrange their elements in that order. That would be the equivalent in English to "Ate apples Sam." The relatively rare default word order accounts for only 3% of the world's languages. It is the fourth-most common default word order among the world's languages out of the six. It is a more common default permutation than OVS and OSV but is significantly rarer than SOV (as in Hindi and Japanese), SVO (as in English and Mandarin), and VSO (as in Filipino and Irish). Families in which all or many of their languages are VOS include the following:

• the Algonquian family (including Ojibwa)
• the Arawakan family (including Baure and Terêna)
• the Austronesian family (including Dusun, Malagasy, Toba Batak, Tukang Besi, Palauan, Gilbertese, Fijian and Tsou)
• the Chumash family (including Inoseño Chumash)
• the Mayan family (including Huastec, Yucatec, Mopán, Lacondón, Chol, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, Chuj, Tojolabal, Cakchiquel, Tzutujil, Sacapultec, Pocomam, Pocomchí and Kekchi)
• the Otomanguean family (including Mezquital Otomi and Highland Otomi)
• the Salishan family (including Coeur d'Alene and Twana)