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

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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Chabacano Euphemisms For Death

A euphemism is often employed when talking about unpleasant things such as death. In Chabacano, one euphemism that I often hear in my family when talking about someone's death is ya despedi ya si (someone) as in ya despedi ya si daddy (daddy passed away). A Spanish speaker told me once that he got rebuked when trying to speak Chabacano and using this expression (which he thought meant to say goodbye in Chabacano). In Santos' Chabacano, he does define this word (spelled as dispidi) as to say goodbye, to leave, to depart, and to send off however, probably very few Chabacano speakers would use this word in this manner. I remember a friend of mine at the office once asked me how one says goodbye in Chabacano. Since I did not want to be pretentious and say that we use the word adios, I answered: anda ya yo (I am leaving). It does make sense when you think about it because saying goodbye is essentially telling someone that you are leaving and in fact came from the expression God be with you (which is an old way of taking leave of someone).

I also use the expression ya despedi ya on things when something breaks beyond repair.

Another euphemism for someone passing away in Chabacano is: ya'n una ya si (someone) as in ya'n una ya si daddy . I believe that this came from the Tagalog expression nanuna na si (someone) which figuratively can also mean someone passed away in that language. Generally though, it means that someone has gone ahead.

What about you? Do you know of any other euphemisms for someone dying in Chabacano?

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  1. dai loOctober 12, 2020 at 12:47 PM

    The first thing that came to my head:
    "(N.) Ya no di quidá más con nisos"

    Then I also thought of this expression:
    "Ya andá na ele."

    Does it sound weird to you? If it does, maybe it's because it's Chabacano de Ermita. Also, it might simply be ungrammatical or agrammatical.

    Gracias
    DL

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    1. Jerome HerreraOctober 14, 2020 at 10:50 AM

      Ya anda na ele sounds a bit off in our Chabacano (it would be ya anda ya ele) but definitely understandable. :)

      Ya no di quida mas con nisos is he/she won't be living with us anymore? I know di and nisos from Cavite Chabacano hehehe but yeah, it definitely won't be understood by Chabacano speakers in Zambo. And no, I don't think they are grammatically incorrect (although I can only speak our Chabacano in Zambo so...). Thanks! :)

      Delete

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