Chamorro institutions on Guam advocate for the spelling CHamoru, as reflected in the 2017 Guam public law 33-236. In 2018, the Commission on the CHamoru Language and the Teaching of the History and Culture of the Indigenous People of Guam announced CHamoru as the preferred standardized spelling of the language and people, as opposed to the conventional spelling Chamorro. Language The Chamorro language is included in the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian family. Because Guam was colonized by Spain for over 300 years, Chamorro has acquired many loanwords from Spanish. An example is how the traditional Chamorro number system was replaced by Spanish numbers. Chamorro is often spoken in many homes, but this is becoming less common. However, a resurgence of interest in reviving the language has occurred, and all public schools on both Guam and the Northern Marianas are now required by law to teach the Chamorro language as part of the elementary-, middle-, and high-school curriculum. The most spoken phrase in Chamorro is håfa adai, a greeting which approximates "hello" in English. History Early Chamorros The Chamorros are commonly believed to have arrived in the Marianas Islands from Southeast Asia circa 2,000 BC. They are most closely related to other Austronesian-speaking natives from the Philippines, eastern Indonesia (specifically in Maluku and Sulawesi), Taiwanese aborigines, and peoples of the Caroline Islands to the south (in particular the outer islands of the Federated States of Micronesia state of Yap). Recent advanced DNA testing conducted on the remains of ancient Chamorros showed that the lineage of both the Unai and the Latte periods originated during the Holocene Epoch in eastern Indonesia, most likely Sulawesi, with no direct prehistoric connection to the Philippines. They were expert seafarers and skilled craftspeople familiar with intricate weaving and detailed pottery-making. The latte stone, a megalithic rock pillar topped with a hemispherical capstone, was used by early Chamorros as foundation for buildings, and has since been appropriated as a national symbol. Chamorro society was based on what sociologist Dr. Lawrence J. Cunningham termed the "matrilineal avuncuclan", one characteristic of which is that the of the female parent plays a more primary paternal role than biological male parent of a child. Agriculture Spanish colonial records show that Chamorro farmers planted seeds according to the phases of the moon. For example, farmers on Guam often plant tuber crops such as sweet potato and yams at full moon during