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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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Origins of the Chabacano Morisqueta

My friend at the office who comes from a Spanish-speaking family in the Philippines asked me if we use the word morisqueta for (cooked) rice in Chabacano. He tells me that the word must be Chabacano in origin because, in Spanish dictionaries, morisqueta means fraud or dirty trick. Morisqueta is also used in Philippine Spanish and it also means (cooked) rice.


I did some research on the word and it looks like morisqueta is a typical Mexican dish consisting of cooked rice and beans. It is possible that the Chabacano morisqueta came from Mexican Spanish as there are so many words in the Chabacano language with Mexican Spanish origins like petate, zacate, etc. 

The more known word for (cooked) rice in Chabacano, though, is canun. As you may have already guessed, this word comes from the Cebuano kan-on.

Here is a Filipino recipe of morisqueta tostada. It is basically Chinese style fried rice with a Filipino twist. And here is a Mexican recipe for morisqueta. It is very easy to make in case you are interested. 😁

The Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (the ultimate authority in the Spanish language) does acknowledge the Philippine Spanish definition of morisqueta: "arroz cocido con agua y sin sal, propio de Filipinas".

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