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
My late aunt never failed to let me know that I did not speak Chabacano well. But what defines a good Chabacano speaker? In my case, I'm not very good at articulating my thoughts in whatever language especially when speaking, so I actually consider myself as unable to speak well in any language.
Does using Tagalog pronouns mean you don't speak Chabacano well?
I have Chabacano-speaking friends who say things like donde kayo anda? Does that make their Chabacano bad? Not necessarily. In my opinion, these people speak Chabacano very well and are able to articulate their thoughts so well in Chabacano even though they love using these Tagalog pronouns. Most of them have a more expansive Chabacano vocabulary than I do. And I do not use Tagalog pronouns.
My elementary school classmate who loves to use ka and ikaw, upon meeting my friend's boyfriend, told him manda aprende Chabacano con ese. Such pride in the Chabacano language! This suggests that using Tagalog pronouns does not impede with Chabacano proficiency and is certainly not equivalent to having disdain towards the language.
Today, the Chabacano language is becoming very fluid. As the language accommodates more speakers and as the mother tongue-based education program gains ground, we will see a Chabacano with a different vocabulary in the future.
When I asked a neighbor's younger brother to read something in Chabacano, I was very surprised when he didn't know the meaning of words like custipao and entonces. In my opinion, these are very common Chabacano words.
Meanwhile, I would encounter older people (seniors) who only migrated to Zamboanga city in their 20s and learned it as a second language who would know a lot more Chabacano words than I do!
Similar to older people's constant observation that the kids do not speak Chabacano as well as they did, I am now at an age where I am also feeling like my Chabacano is better than that of most kids' today. Yes, it looks like it is a cycle.
Meanwhile, I have also encountered people who seem to perceive themselves as not being able to speak Chabacano at all. This perception, in my opinion comes from perhaps other (older) people telling them so because of their inability to comprehend certain Chabacano words. Sometimes, they pretend that they speak Chabacano only a little because they have shame in it. This attitude is predominant in the younger Chabacano speakers. When asked if they speak Chabacano, they would reply poco lang even if they are able to speak it fluently. Saying that you speak only a little Chabacano implies that your preferred language is Tagalog or perhaps even English which they perceive is superior to the Chabacano language.
So the million dollar question: what is custipao? 🤔 Hahaha. Sorry. Still learning.
ReplyDeleteHahaha! Custipao is a common cold.
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