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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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How to Express Wishes in Chabacano

My brother recently asked me how to say I wish I had (something) in Chabacano. It's funny because I'm totally not the Chabacano expert that he thinks I am. of course, being the dutiful brother that I am, I tried answering his question to the best of my ability.

Like many young Zamboangueños who claim to speak Chabacano as their first language, my brother is not very articulate in Chabacano. This actually is the reason why code switching (or mixing English with Chabacano) is very rampant among young Chabacano speakers (including me). 😁

Anyway, here are some sentences which begin with I wish I and how you could say them in Chabacano:

English: I wish I had saved money when I was still young
Chabacano: Era ya recoge yo cen cuando joven pa yo.

English: I wish I could go back to being young again
Chabacano: Era puede yo vira na tiempo cuando joven pa yo

English: I wish I'll have a car
Chabacano: Ay tiene era yo coche or Era hay tiene yo coche

English: I wish I had a car
Chabacano: Tiene era yo coche

English: I wish I'll be rich
Chabacano: Ay queda era yo rico or Era queda yo rico

English: I wish I were rich
Chabacano: Rico era yo

Note that hay tiene era yo coche can also be tiene era yo coche (without the 'ay') and it will convey the same meaning. To read more on the Chabacano ay, click here.

Comments

  1. יאן סבייסקי דייוטFebruary 4, 2014 at 3:59 AM

    (escribiendo na Dialecto Zamboangueño)

    "Ojala con favor todo de Dios hay puede yo tene buen éxito na vida."

    ReplyDelete

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