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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

Origins of the Chabacano Tormenta

According to the DRAE (Spanish dictionary), the word tormentar (same as atormentar) means 'to torment' or 'to plague'. In his Chabacano dictionary, Camins’ defines the verb tormenta as to suffer much. Santos’ Chabacano dictionary meanwhile defines this word as 'to torment', 'to torture', and 'to have a hard time'.

In my opinion, Santos’ dictionary is more contemporary and updated than that of Camins’ because in modern Chabacano, the word tormenta is largely used to mean to have a hard time or to experience difficulty in doing something. This usage though may be colloquial and might be considered incorrect if you ask old Chabacano speakers. To most young Chabacano speakers though, this meaning of tormenta is the only one they would know. The rest of the meanings of tormenta (to suffer much, to torment, and to torture) would likely be unknown to them.

Here are sentences using the word tormenta (using the definition 'to have difficulty in doing something'):

Chabacano: Ta tormenta yo levanta cada sabado y domingo.
English: I have a hard time getting up on weekends.

Chabacano: Ya tormenta ba tu busca el de amon casa?
English: Was it difficult finding our house?

If you noticed, you could also substitute the word tormenta in both sentences above for the Chabacano word dificil. In the context used above, you will be able to use either tormenta or dificil no matter what sentence you construct. Don’t forget though that you will have to place man after the words ta and ya when using the word dificil instead of tormenta. This is because tormenta is a verb while dificil is an adjective turned into a verb. For more on this, click here.

Another word that is connected to tormenta is the Chabacano tormento. Camins defines the noun tormento as sufferings and difficulties. Santos meanwhile curiously does not list this word in his dictionary. I am not sure if there are still people who use this word as a noun (we’ll have to ask old people who speak Chabacano). Presently though, (as far as I know) this word is used as an adjective similar to the word dificil.

Here are some sentences using the word tormento.

Chabacano: Tormento man gayod este exam!
English: This exam is so difficult.

Chabacano:  Bien tormento saca taxi si rush hour.
English: It is so difficult to get a taxi during rush hour.

You can also substitute the word tormento for the word dificil in the sentences above without changing its meaning.

Comments

  1. Hola, Jerome!

    Though it is true that the verb ATORMENTAR exists, which means "to make someone suffer" or "to tease/bully", the nouns TORMENTO and TORMENTA are used differently in Spanish. Perhaps, in Chabacano, they might mean the same, that is, difficult or having a hard time doing something. However, in Spanish TORMENTO means "suffering, difficulty", while TORMENTA means "storm" (unos, bagyo), either literally or figuratively. It is possible though that for TORMENTA, a storm is some difficulty that really makes someone suffer so much, which is already in a figurative sense.

    I hope this explanation helps. Muchas gracias.

    César Momomongan, Jr.

    ReplyDelete

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