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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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The Chabacano Resbaloso and Columbra

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?


In this message by TV Patrol Chavacano (a local news program), they ask people to report suspicious persons to the police. This was posted in their Facebook page during the height of the Zamboanga siege. 

  

What about you? Do you still use these two words?

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 23, 2014 at 11:14 AM

    Que tal, mi nombre Belle and soy Cebuano. Favorito ko yong site mo dalawin. Tama ba yong Chavacano ko?

    I'm into languages, long story but I've felt na intermediate na iyong Hiligaynon ko and I can learn a new language. I chose Chavacano de Zamboanga although I'm intrigued with Chavacano de Cavite and even Ternate, sa ngayon I feel na mas maraming resources ang sa Zamboanga. I really want to learn this language. Main reason: Sa lahat ng wika sa Filipinas dito mo makikita how the Spaniards and the locals interact, they mix words to understand each other, overtime naging sariling wika at ngayon nag-evolve na and maybe hindi na kasing puro like before. Anyway, ibang topic naman yan.

    Keep writing Sir. It's nice to know there are people like you that are enthusiastic in promoting their language. Gracias.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jerome HerreraMarch 24, 2014 at 9:28 PM

    Thanks Belle!

    ReplyDelete
  3. יאן סבייסקי דייוטMarch 26, 2014 at 1:45 PM

    Highly Recommended! ^_^

    there is also another term for resbaloso which is resbaladizo.
    jendeh yo ta acorda si de cuando yo se ya puede oi... pero ya puede gat yo oi ta usa ese.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jerome HerreraMarch 27, 2014 at 4:30 AM

    Na, el resbaloso lang gane hinde mas yo ta oi, cosa pa gaha el resbaladizo. hehehe.

    ReplyDelete

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