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
In chapter six of El Diutay Principe (for me, one of the sad moments in the book), it is revealed that the little prince loves watching sunsets especially when he is sad. One of the challenges in translating this chapter was how to translate the word sunset . Rolando Arquiza Santos' dictionary provides us with three choices. a. caida del sol b. sumida del sol c. abajada del sol In El Diutay Principe , I decided to use the most readily understandable term which is abajada del sol . Unfortunately, I can't remember the word that they used for sunset in TV Patrol Chavacano. I was surprised when I watched a recent episode and it doesn't contain a weather report anymore like it used to. I heard my cousin who grew up in a rural area of Zamboanga city use the word paso ( step , not flower pot ) a few months ago when he was giving me directions and I told myself that I will definitely have to incorporate this word into my translation. This word appears in chapter