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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 Siguiditos

The word siguiditos is a curious word. It most probably came from Spanish but it is nowhere present in the Spanish language.We definitely know that it comes from the Spanish seguir.

This word is not incorporated in the dictionary of Camins. It is however found in the 2010 dictionary of Rolando Arquiza Santos. Santos defines the word as 'one after the other' or 'successively'. At times though, this word is also used as an adverb to mean 'continuous' by certain people (namely ME).

Here now are some sample sentences using this word:

Chabacano: Siguiditos ya morri el mio dos perro
English: My two dogs died successively

Chabacano: Siguiditos ya rebenta el mga bomba
English: The bombs exploded one after the other

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  1. AnonymousAugust 20, 2013 at 4:32 PM

    Hola, Jerome!

    That Chabacano word came from "seguidito" which is the diminutive form of "seguido". Yes, it is Spanish and it is used as a synonym of "consecutivo", meaning consecutive. This is the reason why it is normally used in the plural form "seguidos" because for things or objects to be consecutive there have to be at least two, right? For example, "Llovió mucho aquí durante dos días seguidos sin parar, por eso las calles están todas inundadas." (It rained hard here for two consecutive days nonstop, that is why the streets are all flooded.) As you can see, in this example the word "seguidos" is used as an alternative to "consecutivos". Moreover, "seguiditos" might have been acceptable, but it sounds too familiar and colloquial, which in formal Spanish is likely to be avoided. Nevertheless, if you are Mexican or from any part of Latin America, "seguiditos" may be heard in daily conversation as the use of diminutives also hints certain degree of endearment which is a common characteristic of the spoken Spanish among Latin Americans. After all, the nuances of the diminutives vary from one country to another.

    César Momongan, Jr.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerome HerreraAugust 20, 2013 at 11:19 PM

    Thanks for the explanation sir! :D

    ReplyDelete

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