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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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Origins of the Chabacano Custipao

The word for a common cold in Chabacano is custipao. Have you ever wondered where this word came from?

The Chabacano word custipao most probably has its beginnings most probably in the Spanish language.

There are different ways to say to have a cold in Spanish. The most common (I think) are estar resfriado and tener catarro. However, estar constipado or tener constipado also means to have a cold in Spanish. In colloquial Spanish, the 'd' in words ending in -ado sometimes gets dropped.

Anyway, here are some examples of how we use the word custipao in Chabacano.

Chabacano: Tiene yo custipao.
Spanish: Estoy constipado.
English: I have a cold.

Chabacano: Cosa yo necesita toma para sapa mio custipao?
English: What (medicine) do I need to take to get rid of this cold?

In Camins' Chabacano dictionary, this word is spelled as custipau while it is is spelled as custipao in Santos' Chabacano dictionary.

It is also very probable that the word custipao is of Portuguese origins.


This article was also published in the International Year of Indigenous Languages Philippines website.

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