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Showing posts from March, 2014

The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint-Exupéry Is Now Available In Chabacano!

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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 O

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"Mira tu o. Eroplano ba ese? Pajaro?" (Look, is that a plane? A bird?) I recently read about the Portuguese word (or interjection?) o which is a shortened version of olha (look) and is used to get people's attention to see something. I decided to write this article because in the Chabacano de Zamboanga, we have this exact word and it is used almost in the same way. Here is an example dialogue (taken from wordreference.com ) with the Portuguese o in it: - Onde fica a praça? (Where is the square?) - Aqui o, vá reto e dobre na segunda rua à direita. (Here, go straight and turn at the second street on the right) Now let's take a look at how we use the word o in Chabacano. Chabacano: Bonito o! (said while looking at something) English: Look, it's beautiful! Chabacano: Come ya tu 'se o (said by somebody who doesn't want his food anymore and is asking someone else to eat it) English: You finish that off Chabacano: Senta tu... aqui o... (said b
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Quilaya Bos by Jesus Balmori (A Poem Written in the Chavacano de Ermita)

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I got excited when I found a post on a blog regarding  a Chavacano de Ermita poem . It is written by Jesus Balmori. At this point, my comprehension of the Chavacano in Cavite and Ternate is somewhere between 4 and 6 on a scale of 10, so I know basic stuff like the fact that de is a future tense marker. I somewhat understood the poem, mostly with the help of a speaker of the Chavacano de Ternate. I think that the Chavacano de Ermita is very similar to the Ternateño variant which is the oldest of all the Chabacano languages. Quilaya Bos Si de jablá yo bueno quilaya el bos pigura No de encontrá yo plores para bisá ele cómo; Bos como un talde blanco, ta lleno de dulsura; Bos como el plores de oro que ta na sinamomo Si bos ta caminá ta sintí yo que todo Ta llená de perfume, resplandor y colores Como si de pasá un procesión na lodo Y el lodo ta queda de repente hecho plores Na todo el nisós pueblo no de encontrá más una Mujer cual bos, tan bella, tan blanca como el luna Cu
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Origins of the Chabacano Entoja

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In the Philippines, we seem to believe that pregnant women have food cravings that are brought about by their pregnancies. In Tagalog, we call this paglilihi . it can be green mangoes, peanuts, or crabs, whatever the pregnant woman wants, she should get, or so we've been told. Scientifically though, paglilihi is just attributed to the narcissistic tendencies that a pregnant woman would have. In the Chabacano de Zamboanga, we call this entoja (verb). This probably comes from the Spanish antojar which means to crave something. Interestingly, there are different words connected to the Chabacano entoja depending on which Chabacano dictionary you consult. Camins (1988), has the words entojada (a pregnant woman with strong food cravings), entojau (a person with strong food cravings), and entojo (cravings). Santos (2010), meanwhile, has the verb entoja , entojao , and entojo . Today though, it is only the verb entoja which is used a lot in the Chabacano language. Mostly, the
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The Chabacano Resbaloso and Columbra

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In this post, we shall cover the rarely used words resbaloso and columbra . These two words are normally heard from old timers or in formal speech. Resbaloso means slippery and comes from the Spanish resbaloso which means the same thing. Columbra meanwhile means to get a glimpse of (something) or simply to see (something) by chance and it comes from the Spanish columbra which also has the same meaning. In the Chabacano that is spoken by the young today, these two words are not used anymore (or maybe rarely used). Malandug (also pronounced by some as  malanduk ) takes the place of resbaloso while mira would be used in place of columbra . A word that is connected to resbaloso is resbala . Yes, you guessed it. Resbala means to slip and is a verb while resbaloso is a noun. The word malandug becomes man   landug when used as a verb. Here is a discussion I saw in the Zamboanga de Antes Facebook group which asks the question: do the young today still use the word resbaloso
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How To Say Disaster Related Words in Chabacano

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Zamboanga city is not a stranger to disasters. We have seen our share of man-made and natural disasters in the past. So in this blog post, I'm going to discuss disaster-related vocabulary found in the Chabacano de Zamboanga. Recently, we have been getting a lot of avenida in Zamboanga city. Can you guess what the word avenida means? It means flood. In Spanish, aside from 'avenue', avenida can mean the overflow of a river and this is most probably how this Chabacano word came about. Unlike most of the Philippines, Zamboanga city is never in the path of a typhoon or as they say in Chabacano TV Patrol, tifun . This word though is not found in the Chabacano de Zamboanga dictionary by Camins which leads me to think that it is a word borrowed by TV Patrol Chabacano from the Spanish language. Normally, we use the word baguio  (from Tagalog) although it is said with the stress on the letter 'a' (like when you say Baguio, the place). Another disaster that rarely hap
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Porque by Maldita Lyrics (Original Chabacano and Translated Spanish version)

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Original Chabacano Version: Solo-solo na mi cuarto Hinde ta puede dormi Vira-vira na cabeza El dolor yo ya senti Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo Todo-todo yo ya dale Ahora ta arrepenti Sobra-sobra el dolencia Tormento para vivi Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo No tu distorba Y no atraca kay baka palmadea yo contigo Nunca acepta Si tu ay vira por el dolor ya senti Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta suf
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How To Say 'I Love You' And 'I Hate You' In Chabacano

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Saying I love you in Chabacano is a bit tricky. Most people just say 'I love you' (pronouncing the word love as lab ). But in songs or formal occasions, Chabacano speakers say 'I love you like this': ta ama yo contigo . Let’s dissect this sentence. Ta= Present tense indicator Ama= love Yo= I Contigo= you Again, you’ll only hear this in songs. You really won’t hear people saying to each other  ta ama yo contigo. Saying I hate you in Chabacano is also a bit difficult. In the dictionary of Santos (2010), the word hate in Chabacano is rabia or odia . However I’m not really sure how to use these two words in a sentence because to me ta rabia yo contigo or ta odia yo contigo just doesn’t sound natural. Rabiao yo contigo (which is something people frequently say in Chabacano) just doesn't convey the correct emotion because it means something like I am angry at you (milder than hate). So how do we say the English 'I hate you' in Chabacano? One of
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How to say I Miss You in Chabacano

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In Facebook groups, a lot of people, even Chabacano speakers themselves, seem to be wondering how to say 'I miss you' in Chabacano. Most Chabacano speakers get away with just saying tan miss ya yo contigo . However, the verb miss is still untranslated. The English verb to miss (someone or something) may very well be untranslatable. I googled I miss you in Tagalog  and I nearly fell off my chair when I saw what Google Translate had to say: In very formal Tagalog, one can say nangungulila ako sa iyo although it will probably make you cringe saying it. Most formal Chabacano translations of I miss you  are similar; they will make you cringe saying them. Besides, most people wouldn't understand you anyway, if you use them. In Cebuano, they actually have a translation for I miss you  and that is gimingaw kaayo ko nimo. I'm not sure though if Cebuano speakers actually say this. My friend tells me that it's more common to hear people say namiss na ta ka which if yo
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