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 ...
The word contra has lots of meanings in the Chabacano de Zamboanga. One of its many uses is comparison. When comparing two things/ persons, we use the word contra for the English word 'than'. Here is an example. English: My mother is taller than my sister Chabacano: Mas alta mi mama contra mi hermana As we can see in the above sentence, the English 'than' becomes contra in Chabacano when making comparisons. Here is another example: Chabacano: Mas rico el familia de John contra na familia de mio English: John's family is richer than mine The word contra in the first example sentence can also be contra con . This usage though is modern because que is the word used in the traditional Chabacano (just like in Spanish) when saying the English 'than'. At times, one can also make comparisons without using the word contra . Chabacano: Mas bueno yo baila con ele English: I dance better than him However, the sentence above can also contain the word ...