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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 Say 'Suddenly' In Chabacano

Another word that many young Chabacano speakers today don't know the Chabacano equivalent to is the Tagalog word bigla. You have probably heard people say bigla lang ya cae ulan (it rained all of a sudden) or bigla lang ele ya brinca (she jumped all of a sudden).

This post will tackle how the Tagalog word bigla can be said in Chabacano. The Chabacano equivalent is de repente, Two words not one. I know some people who would write this as a single word.

Here are some Chabacano sentences using the phrase de repente.

Chabacano: De repente lang ya queda malo el coche
English: The car suddenly broke down

Chabacano: De repente lang ya queda no hay agua
English: Water suddenly stopped coming out of the faucet.

Chabacano: De repente lang man ya duele mi brazo.
English: My arm suddenly hurt.

I hope that this post inspires people to stop saying the Tagalog word bigla now that they know that there is a more beautiful way of saying it.

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Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 24, 2014 at 7:17 PM

    Desde el Sur de Espana,un fuerte abrazo a todos los participantes de este blog y FELICES PASCUAS/FELIZ NAVIDAD.Un abrazo,Joaquin

    ReplyDelete
  2. יאן סבייסקי דייוטDecember 24, 2014 at 10:26 PM

    Welll, I never use that word 'bigla'. :-) I'm quite a purist anyway and anyhow...jejeje ^_^

    Like the word 'Resbalá', 'resbaladizo' y 'rezbaloso', which are the i favored over 'malandùg' that other people fond of using. :-)

    Tiene cuidao si ta caminá afuera durante el aguacero porque rezbaloso el fiso del veranda...

    Pedro: oh! ¿Qué pasa con usted Juan por qué hechura cochinadas gat kita allí?

    Juan: loco aquel si Tolomeo... sabe ya que rezbaloso el fiso ya anda siempre empuja conmigo, por eso ya resbalá lang yo no hay na hora.

    ReplyDelete
  3. coronadoDecember 26, 2014 at 5:17 AM

    For me the use of "de repente" sounds much more nicer than bigla, as it keeps more closer of its language roots.

    ReplyDelete

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