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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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The Chabacano Word 'Culo'

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I was very amused one day when I watched a travel video featuring Zamboangacity on Youtube. One of the highlights of the video was the vlogger eating chupaculo. Chupaculo is a dish consisting of snails and ferns. Apparently, the dish's name chupaculo [which is Spanish for suck (chupa) and butt or bottom of certain things (culo)] came from the fact that you have to suck the meat out from the shell of the snail.

In Chabacano, the word culo means 'vagina'. It is considered a very vulgar word and so you won't hear it in everyday conversations.

Where does this word come from?

It is very likely that this Chabacano word came from Spanish. However, the word culo usually means 'buttocks' in Spanish and (as far as I know) would never mean 'vagina'. If you take into consideration however, the Spanish definition extremidad inferior o posterior de algunas cosas and the location of the vagina, it kind of makes sense. 😏

What do Chabacano dictionaries say about it?

Surprisingly, this word is not present at all in Camins' dictionary. Santos' dictionary however does have the word culu which he defines as vagina. The English to Chabacano dictionary published by the city government of Zamboanga also has this word listed under 'vagina'.

I don't know why but I seem to have an impression that this word meant 'clitoris'. Maybe it's just my overactive imagination and a consequence of the language being largely oral.

Is it still in use today?

As you can imagine, this word is uncommon due to its vulgarity. This word is not something you use casually so it's quite difficult to tell whether many people still know this word. Perhaps the more common word for vagina today is the Tagalog 'puki'.

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  1. Ronan DayotSeptember 13, 2020 at 11:22 AM

    In the old Chavacano, Culo was actually define as “butt”. I wonder when it became Vagina or what point in time this word evolve into Vagina from a Butt.

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