Skip to main content

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

Origins of the Chabacano Word "Karahay"


Is "karahay" a Spanish word?

Today, we are going to investigate whether the Chabacano word "karahay" came from Spanish.

"Karahay" is a word we use for "wok", "pan", or "skillet" in Chabacano. No distinctions are made in Chabacano between these things, they are all called "karahay".

I was doing research for an article when I accidentally found out that the word "karahay" also existed in the Caviteño Chabacano.

I was very surprised by this discovery because all this time, I thought that it came from Cebuano!

What is a Cebuano word doing in the Chabacano language in Cavite?

When I was still working, I remember a Cebuano-speaking colleague from Davao recognized the word "karahay" when I spoke in Chabacano with my Chabacano-speaking colleagues and this confirmed my suspicion that it was a Cebuano word. My friend from Cebu though, wasn't familiar with this word so it's probably more popular in Davao.

My investigation brought me to Filipino dishes (whose names sounded Spanish) called "Lechon de Carajay" and "Asado de Carajay". I was totally puzzled by their choice of spelling this word in Spanish.

The website containing the recipe for "Asado de Carajay" explains that the name of that dish originated from Spanish, "asado" which means “grilled” and "carajay" which is a Spanish cooking vessel that looks similar to a wok.

Is the word "carajay" really Spanish? For confirmation, we go to the DRAE


Upon searching for the word "carajay" though, no results came up so it doesn't look like this word is in that Spanish dictionary.

However, I found a website which talked about the oldest Spanish-Chinese dictionary recently found at the library of the University of Santo Tomas and they categorized this word as a Filipinismo. 

In other words, "carajay" is Philippine Spanish. 

Apparently, this word appeared in the Diccionario Tagálog- Hispano by Pedro Serrano Laktaw as well as the Diccionario de la lengua española.

All of my Chabacano dictionaries also spell this word in Spanish ("carajay").

Comments

  1. Is there a possible connection to the "karahi", which refers to a type of pan/pot from South Asia?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very possible since we have a lot of words from South Asia due to ancient trading links.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Porque by Maldita Lyrics (Original Chabacano and Translated Spanish version)

Here are the original lyrics of the song Porque by Maldita as well as a rough Spanish translation below. Original Chabacano Version: Solo-solo na mi cuarto Hinde ta puede dormi Vira-vira na cabeza El dolor yo ya senti Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo Todo-todo yo ya dale Ahora ta arrepenti Sobra-sobra el dolencia Tormento para vivi Por que pa contigo yo ya quiere? Como bula lang tu ya perde Por que contigo yo ya escoge? Ahora mi corazon ta sufri Bien simple lang yo ta pedi Era senti tu el cosa yo ya senti Ta pedi milagro, vira'l tiempo El mali hace derecho Na de mio rezo ta pedi yo Era olvida yo contigo No tu distorba Y no atraca kay baka palmadea yo contigo Nunc

How To Say 'I Love You' And 'I Hate You' In Chabacano

Saying I love you in Chabacano is a bit tricky. Most people just say 'I love you' (pronouncing the word love as lab ). But in songs or formal occasions, Chabacano speakers say 'I love you like this': ta ama yo contigo . Let’s dissect this sentence. Ta= Present tense indicator Ama= love Yo= I Contigo= you Again, you’ll only hear this in songs. You really won’t hear people saying to each other  ta ama yo contigo. Saying I hate you in Chabacano is also a bit difficult. In the dictionary of Santos (2010), the word hate in Chabacano is rabia or odia . However I’m not really sure how to use these two words in a sentence because to me ta rabia yo contigo or ta odia yo contigo just doesn’t sound natural. Rabiao yo contigo (which is something people frequently say in Chabacano) just doesn't convey the correct emotion because it means something like I am angry at you (milder than hate). So how do we say the English 'I hate you' in Chabacano? One of

How to say I Miss You in Chabacano

In Facebook groups, a lot of people, even Chabacano speakers themselves, seem to be wondering how to say 'I miss you' in Chabacano. Most Chabacano speakers get away with just saying tan miss ya yo contigo . However, the verb miss is still untranslated. The English verb to miss (someone or something) may very well be untranslatable. I googled I miss you in Tagalog  and I nearly fell off my chair when I saw what Google Translate had to say: In very formal Tagalog, one can say nangungulila ako sa iyo although it will probably make you cringe saying it. Most formal Chabacano translations of I miss you  are similar; they will make you cringe saying them. Besides, most people wouldn't understand you anyway, if you use them. In Cebuano, they actually have a translation for I miss you  and that is gimingaw kaayo ko nimo. I'm not sure though if Cebuano speakers actually say this. My friend tells me that it's more common to hear people say namiss na ta ka which if yo