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 ...
Back in the early 2000s, rumors of an SM Mall in Zamboanga City were always abound but theyn remained just that, rumors. At that time, there was a collective sense of despair that the city was being left behind economically compared to other cities.
Having been born in the late 80s, I have never experienced the more progressive Zamboanga city that my dad talked about, famous for the Pasonanca tree house as well as beautiful mestiza dalagas.
I was born at a time when there was constant news of bomb threats and the opening of a fastfood chain such as McDonalds and Jollibee felt like rain after a drought.
It's very much a different story nowadays where stores only once seen in Manila are already setting up shop in Zamboanga city all the time.
Today, we finally have an SM City in Zamboanga and we are going to take a look at Chabacano signs spotted during its soft opening.
The first sign simply says Hola which means hello. I dont believe this is a traditional greeting in Chabacano but it is slowly entering mainstream usage primarily in casual influencer created Facebook videos in Chabacano where it is used to greet the audience.
I don't believe this can be heard in everyday conversations yet.
I don't know if you believe in synchronocities but a few days ago I posted (in Facebook) about the word of the day shared by the Zamboanga City Government Facebook page, nadah. One of the commenters said that it should have been nadá but I told him that we did not use accent marks in Chabacano. So I was floored when I saw this photo of the Food Court at SM City Zamboanga and saw that they spelled come with an accent mark. Talk about synchronocities!
The third sign we spotted says bienvenida a Zamboanga. More synchronicity!
A few days ago, I remember seeing a post saying that bienvenidos shouldn’t be used in the Chabacano of Cavite City, and that the correct word is bienvenida.
In Zamboanga City, we are more familiar with “bienvenidos” and “bienvenidos a Zamboanga.” I remember going to Cavite a few years ago with a Spanish researcher and seeing a sign that said “bienvenida.” I told him that “bienvenida” sounded weird to me, but he said it made sense in Spanish because it was like a noun, in this case, the implied meaning is “we give you the welcome” (le damos la bienvenida). In Zamboanga, “bienvenidos” acts as an adjective meaning “you are welcome (to a place).”
But does “bienvenida a Zamboanga” even make sense grammatically in Spanish (if bienvenida were a noun and not an adjective)? Note that “bienvenidos a Zamboanga” is a Spanish phrase that was incorporated into Chabacano as is, much like the phrase “muchas gracias.”
I don’t know, but perhaps they are mixing up the Chabacano spoken in Cavite with the one in Zamboanga and, in the process, mixing up the words.
This sign was spotted at the cinema and it says Mira Ahora. It may sound weird to the ears but in case you haven't noticed, it's a literal translation of Watch Now.
Muchisimas Gracias!
These photos are from the opening of SM City Zamboanga taken from the Facebook pages of Zamboanga Guide, City Government of Zamboanga, Images of Zamboanga Peninsula, and Images of Zamboanga City.
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