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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 'Don’t Worry' in Chabacano

Saying 'don’t worry' in Chabacano is easy. Just say no tu man lingasa.

Here is a dialogue in dialogue featuring this sentence.

Husband: No sabe mas yo cosa yo hace.  Ta perde ya yo esperanza.
Wife: Por que man? Cosa ya pasa?
Husband: Ya quita conmigo na trabajo este dia.
Wife: Ha? Por que daw?
Husband: No sabe yo.
Wife: Ay *dejalo lang. No tu man lingasa. Ay puede lang tu busca otra vez trabajo.
Husband: Ojala.

Here is an English translation of the dialogue above.

Husband: I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m feeling hopeless.
Wife: Why? What happened?
Husband: I was fired from my job today.
Wife: Huh? Why did that happen?
Husband: I don’t know.
Wife: Oh, just let it go. Don’t worry. You will be able to find a job again.
Husband: Let’s hope so.

Now let’s dissect the sentence no tu man lingasa.

No= no
Tu= you
Man Lingasa= to worry

The word lingasa means 'worry' (noun). We add man in front to make it a verb. This is the same form as man swimming or man jogging.

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Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 25, 2014 at 11:29 PM

    Help me nmn gusto ko matutung mag chavacano please please help me

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jerome HerreraMay 7, 2017 at 7:48 PM

      Hi Rhian. You may visit this website to learn Chabacano: https://chavacanohandbook.wordpress.com/

      Hope that helps. :)

      Thanks.

      Delete

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