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Showing posts from March, 2017

The Little Prince By Antoine De Saint-ExupƩry Is Now Available In Chabacano!

While Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) written by Antoine De Saint-ExupĆ©ry 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 Todol Dia

In Chabacano, when we say todol dia , it means every day. However, did you know that the same expression means all day or the entire day in Spanish ? In Spanish, every day is todos los dias . Meanwhile, we say entero dia in Chabacano to mean all day or the entire day. Very interesting, huh? Chabacano: Todol dia yo ta anda na tienda. English: I go to the store every day. Chabacano: Talla yo na tienda entero dia. English: I was at the store all day. Of course, the correct way to say it is actually todo el dia but I decided to use todol dia in this post because most people probably know and say it like that. Since todol dia is a contraction of todo el dia , you could also probably write this as todo'l dia .
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The Bien Chabacano Police Station

Last February 26, the 80th charter day of Zamboanga city, the Philippine National Police chief came to town to witness the turnover and blessing of the new central police office building. I'm calling this the Bien Chabacano police station because you'll see signs written in Chabacano all over the building. At the entrance, you'll see a sign that says entrada  and the name of the building is also in Chabacano, oficina de policia del ciudad de Zamboanga. How cool is that? šŸ˜€ As you may have noticed, visitors to the new central police office will be greeted with signs that say entrada and oficina de policia del ciudad de Zamboanga . Below is a plaque that says that the building is dedicated to the security and protection of Zamboanga city and was inaugurated and blessed last February 26, 2017. Here is where it gets interesting. Never mind that there are misspellings (e.g. proteccion, jefe ), there is also an inconsistency with the...
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Porque by Maldita Lyrics (Original Chabacano and Translated Spanish version)

Here are the original lyrics of the song Porque by Maldita as well as a rough Spanish translation below. Original Chabacano Version: Solo-solo na mi cuarto Hinde ta puede dormi Vira-vira na cabeza El dolor yo ya senti Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo Todo-todo yo ya dale Ahora ta arrepenti Sobra-sobra el dolencia Tormento para vivi Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo No tu distorba Y no atraca kay baka palmadea yo contigo Nunc...
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A Christmas Greeting in Chabacano

In the Spanish-speaking world, the popular greeting during Christmas time is f eliz navidad . There's even a popular Christmas song with this title. In the Chabacano-speaking world, however, the more common greeting is f elices pascuas as shown below in a Facebook greeting by the present mayor of Zamboanga city in her Facebook page. Owing to the fact however that some Chabacano speakers tend not to pronounce the letter 's', this gets spelled as  Felices Pascua at times, as is the case in the greeting below. Source: Facebook page of the mayor This also happens with f eliz cumpleanos . In Chabacano, people tend to say f eliz cumpleano , without the 's' at the end. Now if you are wondering why we say f elices pascuas  instead of f eliz navidad in Chabacano, here is a possible explanation. In case you haven't noticed, there's a tiny inscription in the photo that reads v aya con dios . This is the mayor's sort-of slogan which literally means ...
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How To Say 'I Love You' And 'I Hate You' In Chabacano

Saying I love you in Chabacano is a bit tricky. Most people just say 'I love you' (pronouncing the word love as lab ). But in songs or formal occasions, Chabacano speakers say 'I love you like this': ta ama yo contigo . Let’s dissect this sentence. Ta= Present tense indicator Ama= love Yo= I Contigo= you Again, you’ll only hear this in songs. You really won’t hear people saying to each other  ta ama yo contigo. Saying I hate you in Chabacano is also a bit difficult. In the dictionary of Santos (2010), the word hate in Chabacano is rabia or odia . However I’m not really sure how to use these two words in a sentence because to me ta rabia yo contigo or ta odia yo contigo just doesn’t sound natural. Rabiao yo contigo (which is something people frequently say in Chabacano) just doesn't convey the correct emotion because it means something like I am angry at you (milder than hate). So how do we say the English 'I hate you' in Chabacano? One of...
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