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 ...
Are we living through hyperinflation? Today, I was floored when I saw cans of luncheon meat in a locked shelf at the nearby supermarket. It instantly reminded me of the 1901 Chabacano conversation between Ticang and Buchang, where they mentioned that during the short-lived Zamboanga Republic, rice was being confiscated, causing severe food shortages. Moments like these in our history are not hard to imagine because major transitions often bring periods of hyperinflation. Ticang: Ay! Cosa ya man gane este tiempo! Nunca gayot ya observa carestia como ahora ni ya subi el precio del ganta del arroz hasta cuatro reales. Buchang: Quilaya uste, cuando el tiempo del Republica ta decomisa todo el arroz y no hay pa pode sembra ninguno cay no sabe pa quita aquel si quilaya ba quita ay queda. When I first read the word carestia in the dialogues, I did not recognize it from either Spanish or Chabacano. A bien Chabacano colleague in the office later explained that it referred to an increase in the ...