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 ...
I was researching the word vale and checking if any usage of this word in Spanish is similar to the common usage of vale in Chabacano which expresses appreciation. An example is vale man ese tuyo camisa which means your shirt is quite nice. I did, however, stumble upon some information on a particular usage of the Spanish valer which is quite similar to one of the usages of this word in Chabacano. If you are ever in Zamboanga city and see a group of children making up rules for a game that they are about to play, you might probably hear them say * no hay vale ___________. Or, if you see some kids playing, you might probably hear one of them say to one another nuay vale ansina. Here is a dialogue which features this phrase: Boy 1: Juga kita entramos! ( entramos is the Chabacano equivalent of the game patintero ) Boy 2:Ok. Pero no hay vale ta jala mano o brazo. Boy 3: Oo, no hay vale ansina. No hay tambien vale ta quita camisa. Here is a rough English translation of th...