Talk:Northern Mariana Islands

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As the page I linked to indicates, the islands were inhabitated around 1500 BC by Chamorros, way before the US existed. I therefore find strange that the article does not cover at all history before the US invasion.

Well, the article was probably derived from the public domain CIA factbook. You welcome to update it. older≠wiser 23:30, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Name In Official Languages

Most Wiki entries for nations and territories list the name of the country in the official languages beneath the English-language name. What is the Chamorro name and Carolinian name for the Northern Mariana Islands?

I am not aware of a name that refers to the islands collectively. Chamorro refer to individual islands by their modern name or a few local colloquial names (e.g., Aguijan is sometimes called "Goat Island"). Ancient naming has been lost, although I am not 100% certain about this with Carolinians in the CNMI. CyberAnth 17:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. The Chamorro translation of the U.S. Government's Social Security Fact Sheet refers to the CNMI as both "Islan Notte Marianas" and "Sankattan Siha Na Islas Marianas". Any thoughts as to which is correct? The former certainly seems to be a more direct translation. In the latter, I've deduced that "Na" means "the", but I'm not sure about "Sankattan" or "Siha". Any Chamorro speakers out there that can solve this? If we figure this out, we can add it to the main entry.

There is no single official translation, so numerous variation are seen, but the latter one above seems to be the version most commonly used in NMI government publications. "Sankattan" means "northern," "siha" makes it plural, and "na" links an adjective to a noun.

Thank you very much for your explanation. I added the Chamorro name to the main entry. Do you know any Carolinians who could tell you what they would call the NMI?

[edit] Section edit

There seems to be some problem with aligning the table and still retaining the section edit tags. I've fixed the alignment problems, but the section edit tags have been left out. If someone can find a way to incorporate them, they are welcome. User talk:iKato

[edit] ChamorroBible.org

I have removed the link to ChamorroBible.org. While Chamorro is spoken in the CNMI (and Guam), I feel it's Link spam. - HoshieCrat 03:00, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Natives dead

Nearly all of the islands' native population died out during Spanish rule,

Why? Disaster? Illness? Extermination? Bad management?

Did they die out or were they shifted around? And define a lot. I know the Germans and Japanese moved Chamorro and Carolinians around the islands, from here to there. --PurplePopple 11:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe its because of disease. The same thing happened in other Pacific islands, the Americas and Australia -Jcdizon 03:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Territory of Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Is there any movement for unification of the Territory of Guam and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands? Everton 10:13, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

AFAIK, there is no current movement for Guam and the CNMI to come together. However, there have been some who have talked about this (see this link; the person who wrote this piece favors statehood for Guam). In 1969, the Mariana Islands district of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) and Guam voted on a merger. The Mariana Islands district voted yea, Guam voted nay. Since then, there has been no action on this. - Thanks, Hoshie | North Carolina flag 02:19, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Situation of working women / the Jack Abramoff scandal

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff#Saipan_and_Northern_Mariana_Islands -- the Northern Mariana Islands have been in the news this past few years, revealing what sounds like a terrible situation for women factory workers (sweatshops, sexual exploitation, forced abortions). But apart from one external link (a "Fresh Air" radio show on NPR), that situation isn't mentioned in this article. I would have added a line or two myself, but I have no idea what's going on at present. It's easy to find news media coverage of the Abramoff scandal as a scandal, but I haven't seen any up-to-date coverage of the situation of these women (which says something sad about the priorities of the general news media, I think). -- DSatz 12:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

You will not find such things mentioned in the local press unless they have no choice to mention them because an outside group has again addressed the issue. You will usually only hear positives about improvements. It is self-censorship to improve image. The link to Ms. Magazine, the NPR, and http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/24/017.html do depict the situation pretty well. CyberAnth 17:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed WikiProject

There is now a proposed WikiProject dealing with the area of Micronesia at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Micronesia. Any interested parties should add their names there, so we can see if there is enough interest in this project to try to officially start it. Thank you. Badbilltucker 21:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Imperial German Flag

At the very bottom of the page, as if it were hiding, there is an image of the Second Reich German Flag and the Coast of Arms. I understand the link between the Northern Mariana Islands and German occupation, but does each page linked to Germany have its flag and coat of arms on it?

There seem to be a number of pages that have the flag linked to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_the_German_Empire.svg

Is this a common practice? If so, ignore my comment. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 192.197.77.130 (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

Well, the good news is that they're not there anymore. I wonder how they got there in the first place, anyway. How gould you get an image or text down so far on the page? And when I tried to edit the page and remove the flag and coat of arms, there was nothing there. I found that mighty peculiar. --Kschwerdt514 02:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Villages

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since February 2007.

It would be nice to have a list of villages by population. -- Beland 00:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

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