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
Have you ever encountered the word (or compound word) agua olor in Chabacano? I first heard this word from my friend at the office who has a very wide Chabacano vocabulary. I learned from her that this word means cologne. She said that it is a word that is well-known to people who live in the rural areas. A quick search in Facebook will tell you that it is not a very common word. Here is a post from a page which I follow where you can see this word in action! Sadly, this word does not appear in Santos' and Camins' dictionary but I am happy to report that the new English-Chabacano dictionary published by the city hall has it. Yay!