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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 ...
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How To Say Health Related Words In Chabacano

If you've ever been to one of the hospitals or clinics in Zamboanga city, here is a dialogue (in Chabacano) that you might encounter:

Dialogue 1

Nurse: Cosa aquel? (pronounced as cosaquel)
Patient: Miss, duele man mio cabeza.
Nurse: Del cuando pa ese ma'am?
Patient: Na, del lunes pa este.
Nurse: Tiene ba tu cosa otro ta sinti? No hay ba tu calor?
Patient: No hay man, pero ta tose yo ahora (ahora is normally pronounced in Chabacano as ahra, only on formal settings or by certain people would you hear this word pronounced as it is pronounced in Spanish)
Nurse: Pero no hay tu custipao
Patient: No hay man. No hay man yo custipao (this word comes the Spanish constipao).

Dialogue 2

Mother: No hay tu entra escuela?
Son: No hay. Enfermo yo.
Mother: Na anda ya kita na doctor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Doctor: Cosa el problema?
Mother: Enfermo mio anak.
Son: Grabe mio tos doc.
Doctor: Tiene ba flema si ta tose tu?
Son: Si. Acabar duele tambien (pronounced as tamen) mio detras.
Doctor: Ta mira yo porcausa ese na de tuyo tos. Pero hinde tu tan dificil resulia?
Son: Hinde man.

Here is a translation in English:

Dialogue 1

Nurse: How may I help you?
Patient: My head is aching.
Nurse: Since when ma'am?
Patient: Since Monday.
Nurse: Are you also experiencing fever?
Patient: No but I'm coughing.
Nurse: But you do not have colds?
Patient: No I don't.

Dialogue 2

Mother: Did you go to school?
Son: No. I'm sick..
Mother: Well, let's go to the doctor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Doctor: What's wrong?
Mother: My son is sick.
Son: I've got a bad case of cough.
Doctor: Is there phlegm whenever you cough?
Son: Yes. I'm also experiencing backache.
Doctor: I think that's because of your cough. But you're not experiencing any difficulty in breathing?
Son: No.

***To ensure proper English translation, some sentences were NOT translated literally.

In this post, we learned about how to say the words cold, cough, phlegm, fever, difficulty in breathing, and backache.

Comments

  1. Daniél Josué Vidal y FernándezJuly 14, 2020 at 8:50 PM

    Hello. I just noticed the word "tan" (Pero hinde tu tan dificil resulia?). Only one dictionary I have has a definition, but it doesn't make sense. What does "tan" mean?

    ReplyDelete

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