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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 Gumita

The Chabacano word gumita means to vomit. It comes from the Spanish word vomitar. In fact, you can hear some people say this word as vomita (bumita) and not gumita. My dad is one of those people. Camins' dictionary lists this word as gumita and vomita.


Here are some example sentences using the Chabacano word gumita:

Chabacano: Cuanto veces tu ya gumita ayer?
English: How many times did you vomit yesterday?

Chabacano: No tu gumita aqui adentro.
English: Don’t vomit here (inside).

Chabacano: Ta gumita ba el perro?
English: Do dogs vomit?

The noun for the verb gumita is gomitorio. Here are some example sentences on how the word gomitorio is used in Chabacano.

Chabacano: Favor limpia el gomitorio del bata.
English: Please clean up the child’s vomit.

Chabacano: Hiede el gomitorio suyo.
English: His vomit smells.

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Comments

  1. JPSOctober 9, 2012 at 12:06 PM

    In Caviteño we say vomitá (pronounced bumitá)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 5, 2012 at 4:39 AM

    In Spanish it is also said "gomitar", and "agomitar" (colloquial and vulgar pronunciation)

    ReplyDelete

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