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
A few hours ago, I come back from a vacation to my lonely and small apartment to find out that my stock of brown rice grew black crawling insects. I was horrified. I debated whether I should just throw the rice away. Having paid a premium for it though, I decided not to. I belatedly asked my dad about it and he said that I should simply wash the rice and remove the insects. He also said that those black crawling insects are called amigo in Chabacano. That prompted me to write this.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never heard the word amigo in used like this in Chabacano. Maybe it was because we consumed a lot of rice in the house and never had old stocked rice that there was never any opportunity to learn this word. Anyway, I wonder why these insects would be called amigo, they're hardly anyone's friends.
I remember a friend who grew up in Manila but whose father spoke to her in Chabacano, and so she could speak Chabacano only to a certain degree of fluency, say that in their house, they call small mice a senorita.
Now I never heard the word señorita used like this before so I asked my friends about it, but they haven't heard this word used like this before either. The señorita that I know of is the spoiled girl or the variety of banana that is smaller than the usual.
There are actually Chabacano words that you think are known to everyone just because you've used them all your life but later find out that they are only being used within your family. I was thinking that these words are one of those.
What about you? Have you ever encountered the words señorita and amigo used like this? I'd love to hear from you.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never heard the word amigo in used like this in Chabacano. Maybe it was because we consumed a lot of rice in the house and never had old stocked rice that there was never any opportunity to learn this word. Anyway, I wonder why these insects would be called amigo, they're hardly anyone's friends.
I remember a friend who grew up in Manila but whose father spoke to her in Chabacano, and so she could speak Chabacano only to a certain degree of fluency, say that in their house, they call small mice a senorita.
Now I never heard the word señorita used like this before so I asked my friends about it, but they haven't heard this word used like this before either. The señorita that I know of is the spoiled girl or the variety of banana that is smaller than the usual.
There are actually Chabacano words that you think are known to everyone just because you've used them all your life but later find out that they are only being used within your family. I was thinking that these words are one of those.
What about you? Have you ever encountered the words señorita and amigo used like this? I'd love to hear from you.
señorita: are used in Zamboangueño Chavacano Language as Ms. (young lady) and the small Banana fruit ^_^
ReplyDeleteInteresting. This reminds me of my sister who calls a stray cat "migo" short for amigo. I'm Cebuano, btw.
ReplyDeleteLet me add, I've read your blog about Chabacanos in Ternate, Cavite City and Ermita but I have not read anything from Cotabato and Davao. According to wiki they have Chabacano speakers in that area. While I wonder if this is true, since I've been there and I've never met anyone speaking Chabacano. Hope you can touch this topic. TY.
Hi Anonymous. Thanks for your comment. I'm not sure about Davao but Im sure that there is a Chabacano dialect in Cotabato. It is very similar to the one in Zamboanga with some differences in the words used.
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