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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 Pono

The word for 'tree' in Chabacano is pono. This word possibly comes from the Tagalog puno which means the same thing. In the comments section below though, someone mentioned that it may come from Hilgaynon which also uses the word puno.


I recently have found out, that this word also exists in the Chavacano de Ternate. Now, because the Chavacano de Ternate is known to have existed before the Chabacano de Zamboanga, I believe that this word may come from the Chavacano de Ternate.

Although the Spanish word arbol also exists in the Chabacano de Zamboanga, it is not used anymore by today’s youth. Most young people wouldn’t probably even know the meaning of the word arbol. Both the words arbol and pono exist in the Chavacano de Ternate.

Here are some examples of how the word pono is used in Chabacano.

Chabacano: Cosa clase de pono ese?
English: What kind of a tree is that?

Chabacano: Pono de mangga ba ese?
English: Is that a mango tree?

Chabacano: Necesita kita siembra mas mucho pono.
English: We need to plant more trees.

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Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 30, 2012 at 4:08 AM

    Hi Jerome,
    Please note that "puno" ('trunk of a tree' and, for extension, also the whole tree) is a word of many Philippine languages, not only of Tagalog. It exists for instance in Bisayan Hiligaynon (alsa said Ilonggo). It is therefore possible that "ponu" in Ternateño comes from Tagalog and "pono" in Zamboangueño comes from Bisayan.
    Feliz y prospero año 2013!
    Mauro

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    1. יאן סבייסקי דייוטDecember 29, 2014 at 4:04 PM

      "Ponu" of Bahra dialect may not comes from Tagalog but it is the other way around.
      i may say, it is due to the huge portuguese influence to the Bahra dialect. Specially the letter "U" at the last word of every Verb and Noun.

      Another example is abogau, cerrau, cargau, et.al. while the Zamboangueño dialect will spell these as Abogao, Cerrao, Cargao.

      So the dypthong "AU" may comes from portuguese same with "AO". :-)

      Delete

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