Bien Chabacano

Lisa Allen, an Undergraduate Student, School of Arts and Humanities at the Nottingham Trent University in UK is requesting Chavacano speakers to answer a short survey regarding their language. The following is her introduction to the survey: MY RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE ABOUT THE USE OF ZAMBOANGUEÑO, CURRENT ATTITUDES AND IDEAS ABOUT ITS FUTURE STATUS First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to read this letter. I am currently in my final year at university studying Linguistics and Spanish. As part of my linguistic studies, I have become particularly interested in researching Chavacano (mainly the variety spoken in the Zamboanga region) and promoting its existence to others here in the UK. I have decided to base my dissertation on your language as little linguistic research has been done in this area. It is, therefore, extremely important to me to be able to receive the thoughts of, and feedback from, people in the region who have Zamboangueño as their nat...

I was checking my Facebook when I stumbled upon an on-going discussion in a Facebook group page about when to use the words monton , mucho , and manada in Chabacano. If you haven't realized it yet, these three words all mean the same thing (many). The first word in the list is monton . This comes from the Spanish noun montón  and it is pronounced in Chabacano the same way as it is pronounced in Spanish. the Tagalog gabundo k probably comes from this Spanish word. Mont ó n literally means a big mountain and whenever we say that there is a mont ó n of something, we are actually comparing something to a big mountain. If you watch Philippine television, you have probably heard the expression gabundok na labada  in a laundry detergent commercial, this expression literally means a mountain of laundry. Here are some sentences using the Spanish montón  ( from  http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/mont%C3%B3n ) : Spanish: Sabe un montón de astronomía. Engl...

I was browsing Facebook when I saw this very inspiring message: Okay so it is not in Chabacano, it is in Spanish. But what I'll do today is I'll translate the message from Spanish to Chabacano. Mujer Tu cuerpo, el ta hace contigo sexy Tu cara, el ta hace contigo bonita Tu sonrisa, el ta hace contigo linda Pero tu pensamiento, amo el cosa ta hace contigo bien hermosa... The words linda (pretty), hermosa  (beautiful), and sonrisa (smile) are actually not found in my Chabacano dictionaries so I guess you can say that I borrowed them from Spanish. In the last line, I chose not to use the word totalmente because I wanted the Chabacano in my translation to sound more casual. In the comments section below, arondayot Zamboangueño contributes his version of the last line which is pero tu pensamiento el que ta hace contigo totalmente hermosa (which I actually think sounds better than mine) 😜. There you go, a few words of encouragement for all women out there feeling ...

In shopping malls all over Zamboanga city, you might hear people say that what they are doing is  ta mata hora . I think by now you've already guessed what this expression means. Mata hora means to while away the time. I'm almost sure that this Chabacano expression was directly translated from the English expression 'to kill time' because there is no similar expression in Tagalog or Spanish. Here are some sentences using this Chabacano expression: Chabacano: Cosa tu quiere-quiere hace para mata hora. English: What do you like doing to kill time? Chabacano: Anda anay yo mira laptop para mata hora. English: I'm going to look at laptops to kill time. Chabacano: Cosa ba bonito hace para mata hora? English: What's a good thing to do in order for me to kill time? What about you? Do you use this expression?

The word salida in Chabacano has three meanings. It can mean either of these three: exit, departure, and TV show. let me give some examples to further illustrate. Chabacano: Donde el salida para na parking? English: Where is the exit towards the parking? Chabacano: Que hora el llegada y salida del eroplano? English: What time are the plane's arrival and departure? Chabacano: Cosa el salida na TV este noche? English: What is on TV tonight? (literally what is the TV show that will be on TV tonight) What actually prompted me to write this was seeing the word salida in a forum and realizing that this word has many definitions. The Chabacano dictionaries that I have only capture one meaning. A guy posted this in a forum: ese salida de uste na Ciudad de Zamboanga, for good ya gad se? (literally your leaving/departure from Zamboanga city, is that for good already or are you leaving Zamboanga city for good) The third meaning (TV show) does not appear in Chabacano dictionar...