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The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint-Exupéry Is Now Available In Chabacano!

While Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) written by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry in 1943 now has over 300 translations in different languages worldwide and is now considered the world’s most translated book (not counting religious works), there have been surprisingly only two translations of his book in the Philippines (Filipino and Bicol). El Diutay Principe is only the third edition featuring a Philippine language. The Little Prince is a classic French novella about a pilot who gets stranded in the desert after a plane crash and encounters a little fellow who asks him to draw a sheep for him. Through the course of their meeting, the pilot rediscovers the true meaning of life and what people should value the most. When I came across the book in 2013, I found that I could relate very well to the negative image given to “growing up” in the book. When the idea to translate the book into my mother tongue was presented to me, I didn’t think twice. I thought, ‘a lot of people my

How To Say 'Appointment' In Chabacano

A few months ago, I was contacted by a group who was trying to come up with some educational materials on Chabacano. Part of the project was translating some sentences into Chabacano. The project was already done but they wanted it to be checked by another Chabacano speaker. One of the things that got my attention was the word appointment which was translated as caminada.

The word appointment that we are talking about here refers to the appointment that you make with a dentist or a doctor. Even in Tagalog, we just use the English word and I don't think there is a Tagalog equivalent for this word.

The Chabacano word caminada does mean 'a date' but it only refers to informal dates such as a date with your friends. Here are some examples using this word:

Chabacano: Tiene yo caminada mañana con mio mga amigo.
English: I’ll go out tomorrow with my friends.

Chabacano: Que hora el caminada tuyo luego?
English: What time are you going out later?

As you can see, the word caminada roughly translates to the English 'to go out'. You won’t, however, hear anyone say that they have a caminada with a doctor or a dentist. The word appointment (as in setting up an appointment with a dentist or a doctor) just doesn’t translate to anything in the Chabacano language. In Spanish, they use the word cita. In the Chabacano dictionary of Camins, the word cita does not exist, however, it does exist in the Chabacano dictionary of Rolando Arquiza Santos (2010). I have never encountered this word in all my life though. You would probably be met with a blank stare if you told a receptionist in Zamboanga city clinic that you have a cita with a doctor or a dentist.

Interestingly, the Tagalog word for the Chabacano caminada is lakad which is actually a direct translation of that word. For example, you can directly translate tiene ba tu caminada to may lakad ka ba in TagalogThe reason why I am pointing this out is that I believe this meaning of the word caminada came from the Tagalog lakad and was probably conceived when Tagalog started influencing the Chabacano language probably in the 1970s. In fact, you don’t see this definition of caminada in the Chabacano dictionaries, where this word is only defined as the gait of a person and that is actually the literal meaning of the word caminada in Chabacano.

Here is a dialogue between a patient and a receptionist (in a dental clinic) which would more or less show you how we would say the word appointment in the Chabacano language:

Situation: Patient walks into a dental clinic.

Receptionist: Cosa aquel ma’am?
Patient: Taqui ya ba el dentista? Manda era yo limpia diente.
Receptionist: Ya llama ba tu? Tiene ba tu appointment?
Patient: Ay, no hay yo puede llama. Hinde ba puede walk in lang?
Receptionist: A las diez pa ma’am tiene vacante. Okay lang ba contigo espera?
Patient: Okay lang. Anda anay yo man grocery.

The dialogue above uses very informal Chabacano and as you would have probably noticed has a lot of English words. This also happens a lot in Tagalog.

Here is an English translation of the dialogue above:

Receptionist: May I help you?
Patient: Is the dentist in already? I was thinking of having my teeth cleaned.
Receptionist: Did you call? Do you have an appointment?
Patient: Oh, I wasn’t able to call. Can’t I just walk in?
Receptionist: We’ll have an opening later at ten o clock. Are you willing to wait?
Patient: Sure. I’ll go buy some groceries while waiting.

When we add the word man in front of the English word 'grocery', it now becomes a verb. It means to either buy some groceries or go to the supermarket. For more on the Chabacano man, click here.

Comments

  1. Buenas! Alegre kay firme bien activo gayot tu aqui na de tuyo blog. Tiene un pregunta para contigo: ya oi tu con el expression "No hay mucho bien", el significao igual na "No hay de que" o "De nada"? Gracias y favor continua escribi acerca na de ustedes lenguaje!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Yuji! No hay pa yo oi con ese expression. Pero sabe yo el mga viejo ta habla no hay de que. :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kaha un calque na "Walang anuman" ba 'se?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gale, ya precura yo pregunta na un hablante cosa el palabra de antes na "appointment", y ya contesta 'le ese amo "nombramiento". Ya oi gaha tu con ese?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Otro el palabra nombramiento. The word appointment has two different meanings. Appointment meaning a professional/formal date and appointment as in the appointment of someone to a position. Nombramiento means the appointment of a person to a certain position. It doesn't mean the appointment that we are talking about in the article. :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh. Wait, I misunderstood her message. She actually said "hace hora para anda na doctor or na escuela o man encuentro con el amigo, claro nombramiento appointment for position no?". So yeah, I'm glad "nombramiento" in Chavacano has the same meaning as in Spanish. So, what about "hace hora"? To me, it sounds more like "make time" in the sense of finding time to go there...

    ReplyDelete
  7. It does mean to make time. It's still not a direct translation of the word appointment. There are several ways that we can improvise on saying the word appointment in Chabacano and one of these would be to say: make time to go to the doctor or hace hora para anda na doctor. But what about when asking do you have an appointment? You can't actually say ya hace ba tu hora?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ah, si, amo ya tu ;) Muchas gracias na de tu mga explicacion!

    ReplyDelete
  9. In Caviteño, we would say compromiso.

    ReplyDelete

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