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

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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 Gocho

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Unless you live in a monastery or are very young, you may have probably heard the word gocho in Chabacano at least once in your life. In my case, I learned this word when I started attending public school for my secondary education. As you can imagine, this is a very vulgar word in Chabacano and is something not mentioned while having dinner with your family.

The word gocho in Chabacano means cum. In more formal terms, gocho is semen. For reasons you can imagine, I opted not to provide example sentences using this word.

Portuguese or Spanish

Interestingly, this word may have its roots in the Portuguese language. Portuguese has a similar word to Chabacano's gocho. Gozo in Portuguese could mean cum. It is however not standard Portuguese. But here's something that will make you think. In Spanish, the word gocho is an informal term for puerco or cochino. One can also connect this word to Spanish since gozo means pleasure in Spanish. Between the two languages however, I think the Portuguese theory is more plausible. What about you?

 According to my friend who speaks the Chabacano variety in Cavite, (as far as he is concerned) this word does not exist in their language.
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