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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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Peanuts Comics in Chabacano

I have always wanted to translate Snoopy into Chabacano so here is my first attempt at it. This was taken from Facebook, the original text erased and replaced with my Chabacano translation.

I debated whether I should spell it as firme (which is the correct spelling based on the Chabacano dictionary published by the City hall) but not a lot of people use it and it looks weird or awkward for most Chabacano speakers.

Pirmi is the more common spelling and that is also how we pronounce this word.

Since landline telephones are no longer in use in most homes, the humor in this comic strip is probably no longer relevant.

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Second Attempt (October 10, 2025)


The more natural translation would have been "dueño" because we don't call dog owners as "masters" of their dogs. However, the humor would have been lost if the word "dueño" was used. The original English word in this comic strip was "master". 


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