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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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A Sample of the Chavacano in Cavite

I recently found a Facebook group for speakers of the Chabacano variant in Cavite city. What is great about this discovery is that this Facebook group has conversations between Chavacano de Cavite speakers and these conversations show us how this language is being spoken among Caviteños themselves. 

For me, it is more interesting to study actual unedited conversations rather than edited ones because it ensures the presence of certain lexical items such as those that appear as a result of code-switching and spelling changes. 


The conversation above was started by somebody who laments the state of the Chavacano de Cavite and hopes that it can be revived. The first comment suggests that street signs be bilingual (English and Chavacano) like in the United States so that kids will learn to read Chavacano. The second comment asks where he could get a book about Chavacano which he intends to give to his grandfather. The last two comments were written in the Chabacano de Zamboanga and Spanish (mixed with Chavacano).

If you speak the Chabacano de Zamboanga, you would definitely understand the conversation above up to a certain extent.

It is a pity that a lot of us Zamboanguenos are ignorant about the fact that this Chabacano variant exists.

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  1. El IlocanoNovember 19, 2016 at 5:10 AM

    Sr. Jerome, muchas gracias para su trabajo muy bueno y importante. Es verdad que necesitamos mantener la lucha para mantener y revivifequer la hispanidad Filipina.

    En un otro blog enlacesado con vuestro, hay un redaccion de poema Cavitenya que es muy interesante por dos causas. La poema es "El Chabacano Cavitenyo" por Ballesteros aqui: http://elneptunoazul.blogspot.com/2011/05/el-chabacano-caviteno-1964.html

    Primero es un hermoso ejemplo de Cavitenyo en forma de poema elegante y bonita, con pensamientos y sentimentos profundos.

    Segundo, creo que este poema tiene pista sobre la origen de nombre "Chabacano." La poema tiene las palabras "culurao el tagalo, el castellano el blanco
    y rosas el chabacano – nisos convelsacion –"

    Entonces creo que originalmente el nombre "Chabacano" fue dado a Espanyol Filipino NO POR QUE la lengua criolla es "vulgar or in poor taste," pero como un metaforo. Chabacano tambien significa "apricot," un fruta fragrante, dulce, y.... color rosada.

    Necesitamos tener orgullo no solo por la belleza de Chabacano, pero ultimo tambien para su nombre: "Apricot Spanish," un lenguaje dulce y delicado!

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