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
In the Chabacano language, the word menta typically means to accuse someone of something. Although the word acusa (from the Spanish acusar ) does also exist in Chabacano, the word menta is employed more often. In a book about the Chavacano de Ternate written by Esteban De Ocampo, it appears that the verb menta also exists in the Chavacano de Cavite and it also means to accuse. In his book, De Ocampo says that this word comes from the Spanish mentar . What is interesting is that in Spanish, mentar doesn’t mean to accuse. In Spanish, mentar means to mention someone’s name. Here are some examples of how we use the Chabacano word menta . Chabacano: Ta menta man vos conmigo? English: Why are you accusing me? Chabacano: No tu conmigo menta. No hay yo cosa ya hace. English: Don’t accuse me. I didn’t do anything. Chabacano: Ya menta conmigo aquel gente na ladron daw yo. English: That guy accused me of being a thief. I posted this article on the Facebook group Zamboanga D