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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 Where Are You in Chabacano

Saying 'where are you' in Chabacano is very easy. You just say donde tu or donde ya tu? How do these two differ from each other? Well, there really is no difference, they both mean the same thing. Donde ya tu however sounds more impatient and there is a stronger demand on the speaker’s part to know where someone is.

Let us dissect these two sentences.

Donde= where
Ya= already
Tu= you

So as you can see, donde ya tu roughly translates to 'where are you already'. The 'already' here makes the question sound more impatient and urgent.

Donde= where
Tu= you

Meanwhile asking donde tu doesn’t imply any urgency in it. It is simply asking where you are. If you wish to add an inquisitive tone to your question without sounding demanding or impatient, simply add the word ba after donde. Donde tu will now become donde ba tu?

Here is a phone conversation using these two sentences.

Pilar: Hello?
Maria: Donde ya tu? Enantes pa yo ta espera aqui na mall. Hinde ba a las diez kita debe man mirahan? Que hora ya? A las doce ya!
Pilar: Sorry gayod. Ahora lang gayod yo ya puede despierta. Donde ba tu ahora?
Maria: Taqui yo na mall. Na casa pa ba tu?
Pilar: Oo. Para alli ya yo. Donde tu conmigo espera?

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Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 8, 2012 at 12:28 PM

    In Caviteño I would usually say, "¿Donde ba tallá tú?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerome HerreraDecember 20, 2012 at 7:24 AM

    That is very interesting. It would be a bit difficult for a Chabacano de Zamboanga speaker to guess the meaning of donde ba talla tu (at least in my opinion). :P

    ReplyDelete

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