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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 Expression 'Coloring Colorao El Cuento Acabao'

It's funny because I have never encountered this Chabacano expression in my entire life and it was only when I went to Manila that someone introduced me to it. A woman in her forties whose father was from Zamboanga city and can speak Chabacano (but had never been to Zamboanga city) asked me if I knew the expression coloring colorao, el cuento acabao. Upon getting a blank stare from me, she explained that this is how her dad would end a story when she was a kid during story-telling time. I asked my dad, aunt, and uncle about this expression and only my uncle was able to identify it correctly. They are in their fifties. You can imagine that one would be hard pressed to find young Chabacano speakers who would be familiar with this expression.

The Spanish version of this expression is y colorín colorado, este cuento se ha acabado. The best English equivalent of this expression is and they all lived happily ever after.

In Chabacano, coloring means to blush or to describe the color of blush (as in coloring el punta de su nariz) and colorao is the color red.

I also posted this expression in a Facebook group and got some interesting responses.


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Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 26, 2015 at 8:40 AM

    Yes, ¡Colorín colorao, el tiempo acabao! to end a story.

    In Caviteño to start a story, we say con aquel vez... (once upon a time...), which in Spanish would be había una vez or érase una vez.

    JPS

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 28, 2015 at 6:22 AM

    En España decimos «colorín, colorado, el cuento se ha acabado»

    'Colorín' es una variación de 'color'; 'colorado' es 'rojizo'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 28, 2015 at 7:24 AM

    Meant to type, ¡Colorín colorao, el cuento acabao!

    ReplyDelete

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