Skip to main content

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 ...

Origins of the Chabacano Entoja

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 word entoja is used to refer to the strong and sometimes strange food cravings of a pregnant woman. In all honesty, I never knew that this word could be used to refer to the food cravings of a man or a non pregnant woman. I'm sure most young people today didn't know this. It is also strange that the verb entoja is not included in the Camins dictionary.

Here are some example sentences:

Chabacano: Ta entoja si Maria kay preñada le.
English: Maria is having strong food cravings, she is pregnant.

Chabacano: Compra mangga hilaw kay ta entoja si Fely.
English: Buy green mangoes because Fely is craving for them.

I asked my Bien Chabacano uncle about this word and he told me that for non-pregnant persons and men, you can use the noun entojo. Since entojo is a noun, you should man before it when being used as a verb. Here are some examples.

Chabacano: Tan entojo man yo come Endulsao este pascua.
English: I feel like eating Endulsao this Christmas.

If you are a young Chabacano speaker, you may not have known this. So the next time you crave for a certain food, you could say ta man entojo yo come (something) instead of tan crave yo come (something).

I know that we've all been complaining that we don't know how to say certain things in Chabacano, so here's actually an opportunity to say one of the things we, youngsters, frequently like to say, in Chabacano. I'm sure it'll sound weird at first but the more you use it, the less weird it will sound. Mixing English with Chabacano may sound cooler to some, but can we, at least, make an effort to make Chabacano work? 😉

Comments

  1. tiene yo pregunta Jerome, ¿Cosa ta llama con el gente quien ta Entojá?

    Yo sabe que el palabra "Entojá" es verbo y su adverbo es "entojando".
    mientras el "Entojo" o na español es "Antojo" es nombre quiere decir "capricho, gusto de, etc."

    el Entojado o Entojao es el paso verbo del Entojá, y el Entojada es el Adjetivo que ta definí con una mujer que su entojada es umal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ¿Cosa ta llama con el gente quien ta Entojá?

    Segun na diccionario de Camins, entojau.

    ReplyDelete
  3. El past tense del entoja, ya entoja. :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. dol jendeh man . . .
    el Entojau o Entojao o Entojado es el Paso Verbo (Verb Past Tense) del Entoja.

    Jendeh gaja puede "Entojadora o Entojador"?

    cay ta puede man tambien kita habla como:

    Taqui ya el entojao mujer por eso mas bueno desaparece ya kita todo. ^_^

    este... cosa el sonor de este diptongo "au"? porque sabe lang yo del "ao" como /aw/.

    ReplyDelete
  5. base na mi observación, todo Diccionario que tiene kita ahora que de Felino y de Camins jendeh ta explica bien el cada palabra si este ba un Conjunción, Interjección, Verbo, Pronombre, nombre, Preposición, Adjetivo, etcétera..

    Ojala si tiene mas nuevo lingüístico quien hay crea nuevo Diccionario era aquel bien detallado gayot. ^_^

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Porque by Maldita Lyrics (Original Chabacano and Translated Spanish version)

Here are the original lyrics of the song Porque by Maldita as well as a rough Spanish translation below. 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 Nunc...

How To Say 'I Love You' And 'I Hate You' In Chabacano

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...

Differences Between The Chabacano of Zamboanga and the Chavacano in Cavite city

Just a few hours ago, I encountered a very interesting blog called Habla Chabacano . The said blog is about Cavite city and it's Chavacano. I found this amusing because I speak Chabacano de Zamboanga. As I read the posts in Habla Chabacano (which were partly in Chabacano), I quickly spotted the differences/similarities between the two Chabacanos. First off, the Chavacano of Cavite looks more Spanish sounding than that of Zamboanga. The sentence structure is also closer to Spanish. Here's an example: Chavacano de Cavite: Cosa ta haci Gina? Enlish: What is Gina doing? Chabacano de Zamboanga: Cosa ta hace si Gina? Spanish: ¿Qué está haciendo Gina? As you can observe, the Chavacano de Cavite comes closer to Spanish in terms of grammar. In Chabacano de Zamboanga, you would use the word si (which comes from Tagalog), added to the subject if it's a person. Meanwhile, the Chavacano de Cavite uses only the name of the person (without the si ) for subjects which are...