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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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The Chabacano Planchador

My mom is visiting me again in the city and during one of our phone calls, she asked me if the Airbnb we are going to stay at had a planchador. Even if it had been years that I have not heard and/or used this word, this piece of vocabulary had always been in my subconscious.

I googled up the word and found out that it means a different thing altogether in Spanish. In Spanish, the word planchador means a person who irons clothes. The same definition is given for the Tagalog word plantsador. 

In Chabacano, the word planchador means an ironing board. You can imagine how this word will probably vanish from our vocabularies one day. Due to technology (emergence of steamers which do not need an ironing board), clothes that don't need ironing and the current generation's attitude towards wrinkles in clothing, ironing boards will probably be soon a thing of the past.

An ironing board was one of the first things that I bought when I came to Manila because I grew up in a house where everything (even bed linens) where ironed. I learned right away that the locals here call it a kabayo. I guess, it does look like a horse.

As far as I know, we don't use this word for a person that irons clothes. Maybe we don't and never had that profession in Zamboanga since ironing is probably also done by the lady who does the laundry (a lavandera). Camins' dictionary also only defines this word as an ironing board.

Comments

  1. Andrew AlmazanJanuary 26, 2023 at 5:48 AM

    I looked up "planchador" in the RAE's Diccionario de americanismos out of curiosity and found this:

    I. 1. Gu, Ho, CR. aplanchador, mueble.

    This entry links to this dictionary's definition for "aplanchador," which is:

    I. 1. m. Ho, Ni, CR; Gu, rur. Mueble de madera o metal, de patas plegables y superficie plana y alargada que se utiliza para planchar ropa. ◆ planchador.

    No clue though if it is currently used like this in said countries nowadays lol

    Sources:
    "planchador" - https://www.asale.org/damer/planchador
    "aplanchador" - https://www.asale.org/damer/aplanchador

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2023 at 5:27 PM

      Plancha- steel or any metal plates.

      Delete

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