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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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El Nuevo Santo Rosario

I just got my hands on a rosary guide book in Chabacano. I have had my eye on this book since forever but the shipping costs always discouraged me from buying it. I was finally able to buy a few copies online when I received a voucher which covered the entire shipping costs. Surprisingly, the online shops in Manila do not have this in stock.

I was talking about this book with an online friend a few days ago. During our conversation, he mentioned that he wanted to buy a Chabacano bible from Amazon. He told me that the Chabacano found in the bible produced by the Claretians had a Chabacano that was too easy or too simple to understand. Right away, I knew what he was driving at. I guess because Spanish is a novelty for most Chabacano speakers my age, we tend to appreciate a Chabacano translation that is more Spanish-like. But what most people do not know is that translating into simple Chabacano that makes minimal use of Spanish words and phrases is actually much more difficult. For Chabacano translators that have some knowledge of Spanish, it is easy to come up with a Chabacano translation when heavily aided by Spanish words and phrases. The opposite is true when using mostly conversational Chabacano in a bid to make your work accessible to everyone.

Interestingly, they labelled the translation as a "Basilan Chavacano" translation at the back of the book. I told my friend that I was happy that a Basileño translated it because I felt like they spoke Chabacano better than Zamboangueños do. I haven't been back home since 2019 but I think with social media, the assumption that people in the rural areas in Zamboanga city spoke a "purer" Chabacano might no longer be true. Heck, I don't even know if there are any rural areas left there. Through social media websites like Facebook, I have been hearing more and more news about restaurants and resorts opening up in locations which fifteen years ago were definitely very rural.

When this blog was new, I would have written a thorough analysis of the Chabacano in this book. But after writing about Chabacano for almost fifteen years now, I am no longer as enthusiastic as I used to be.



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