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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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The Chabacano Mañana

In Spanish, the word mañana can mean both 'tomorrow' and 'morning'. In Chabacano, the same word exists along with the word aga.

In the following sentences, you will learn how the Chabacano aga and mañana are used.

Chabacano: Mañana, a las diez del aga el casamiento.
English: The wedding is tomorrow at 10 AM.

Chabacano: Vira ya lang yo aqui mañana aga.
English: I’ll just come back tomorrow morning.

Chabacano: Tiene ba misa mañana tarde?
English: Is there a mass tomorrow afternoon?

Chabacano: Mañana de noche ba kita mira cine?
English: Is it tomorrow night that we are watching a movie?

Chabacano: A la mañana ya lang kita continua kay ta escurece ya.
English: Let’s just continue this tomorrow morning because it’s getting dark already.

Chabacano: Okay lang ba si pasao mañana ya yo paga contigo el de mio debe?
English: Is it okay if I pay you my debt the day after tomorrow?

Chabacano: Aga ya ba? Despierto ya man tu?
English: Is it morning already? Why are you awake already?

As you can see in the sentences above, we also have the Spanish expression pasado mañana (pasao mañana) in Chabacano and it also means the day after tomorrow.

The Chabacano a la mañana means tomorrow morning or (any time) tomorrow. I'm not sure if this expression exists in Spanish.

Writing this post reminds me of a time when I was speaking to somebody from Latin America at work (over the phone) and the person on the other end of the line asked me what time it was in the Philippines. At that time I was only beginning to study Spanish and I told him that it was a las cuatro del aga. I realized belatedly that aga was Chabacano and not Spanish. 😆
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Comments

  1. יאן סבייסקי דייוטMarch 26, 2014 at 1:18 PM

    Hola, Jerome!

    Tiene yo ta oi ta habla "A la mañana ya tu se dale conmigo".

    conversación>>
    G1: A la mañana ya tu se hay dale conmigo.
    G2: Que hora del aga?

    >>>>>>>>
    na mi observación que el dos gente ta conversa sabe y ta entende sila si cosa quiere decir del "a la mañana" que ta significa na Ingles como "tomorrow morning"
    Cosa tu puede habla?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerome HerreraMarch 27, 2014 at 4:46 AM

    Ya proba yo pregunta pregunta, dao puede gaha tomorrow y tomorrow morning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. juan veegilloAugust 17, 2016 at 6:42 PM

    manana del dia..
    o manana de madrugada.puede tambien ta usa...hehe

    ReplyDelete

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