A Better Chabacano Spelling System

It's been ten years since the Chabacano orthography came out in 2016 and based on my personal observation; there is selective adoption of the spelling system introduced through the Chabacano dictionary released in 2018 by the local government. Perhaps we need a better spelling system and an updated orthography. Spelling words etymologically is very awkward since it doesn't reflect the pronunciation shift that has taken place.

For us to find a better way to spell Chabacano words, I think we first need to document the pronunciation shifts that have taken place in Chabacano. Is it possible to document all of them?

For Spanish derived words, we can categorize the vowel shifts into four categories: U to O and O to U and then E to I and I to E. Under each category are three subcategories that indicate where the vowel shift occurs: beginning, middle, or end.

Spanish words with vowels that shift ***note that some words may have both present, note as well that I tried to only include words wherein the vowel shift seems to be permanent because some words may still follow the original as well as have a shift like encontrar which can be encuntra as well as encontra and can even be incontra or incuntra

beginning I to E *let me know if you can think of any...

beginning E to I (echar - icha), (jengibre - inibre), (hervi - irbi)

middle I to E *let me know if you can think of any...

middle E to I (pepita - pipita), (pedir - pidi), (llevar - liba), (venidero - venedero), (preñada - priñada)

ending I to E (venir - vene) (abrir - abre)

ending E to I (crecer - crici), (cocer - cuci), (recoger - recugi)

beginning O to U (oir - uwi)* w for emphasis, (olvidar - ulvida)

beginning U to O (usted/ustedes - oste/ostedes)

middle O to U  (acostar - acusta), (volar - vula), (robar - ruba), (topar - tupa), (coger - cugi), (botar - buta)

middle U to O (culebra- colebra), madrugada-madrogada)

ending O to U (suyo - suyu), (tuyo - tuyu), (uno - unu), (mucho - muchu)

ending U to O (tribu - tribo), (espiritu - ispirito)

The truth is I'm currently working on a Philippine Folk Tales book in Chabacano and while I was thinking about the spelling system that I was going to use in the book, I decided to check if there was a pattern on how the vowels shift from Spanish derived words in Chabacano.

For example. we could spell the middle O in all Spanish derived Chabacano words with a U.

This would have been great as a spelling rule if ALL the middle Os in Spanish language derived words were pronounced as a U in Chabacano. But this is not always the case because you have words like volve and vota (not to be confused with bota or buta) where the O is retained.

This would definitely have removed the awkwardness in spelling words like ruba as roba. Unfortunately, it's difficult to turn this into a spelling rule.

After creating this list, I realized that the bulk of the vowel shift occurs in the middle part and usually from E to I and O to U.

For O to U changes, it's more likely to happen when a word is not stressed, but then that theory fails with words like come or toma which always is pronounced with an O.

The E to I shift seems more random, because you have cugi and crici from coger and crecer, but then you also have sabe from saber which is always pronounced with an E

In native words, vowel shifts involving E, I, O, and U can also occur, as well as consonant shifts such as D to T and G to K.

Examples include dayon to dayun, lagag to lagak, landog to landuk, osang to usang, gayod to gayot, gulod to gulut.

And then in Spanish derived words, we also have the R to L shift like raro to ralo, N to M shift found in conviene to cumbiene, un poco to umpoco, un vaso to umbaso, conversa to cumbersa, enbuenamente to embuenamente.

The best word that reflects these shifts in Chabacano is the word KUNYUBONANA because the original word or words is coño de vos nana.

For a spelling system to accurately reflect Chabacano pronounciation, I think we really have to document all the vowel shifts that occur. Camins and Santos tried to do this in their Chabacano dictionaries but obviously they couldn't capture every single vowel shift that happen.

Maybe we can introduce some parameters so that we don't end up with too many variations. For example, a word like encontra can actually have three variations.

incuntra

encuntra

incontra 

A word like pepita can have three variations as well.

pipita

pepeta (not used)

pipeta (not used)

As you can see, this is not impossible and you don't necessarily end up with an endless list of variations. With AI, they can also automate this list, after which a survey can be conducted to determine which ones are actually used. With social media, you don't even have to go out into the street to do a survey.

Parameters could also be introduced to further tone down the number of variations that will be accepted. Perhaps we could also have just one canonical form for each word in the dictionary, while listing the other documented variations under the same entry.

Allowing flexibility among the vowels E, I, O, and U in all words is another possibility, although it may not be ideal. I wonder how Cebuano deals with this, since this is something I have noticed in Cebuano spelling. The letters O and U can correspond to U and O in pronunciation, respectively, as can E and I (I and E). Although Cebuano has a much more established orthography and written tradition than Chabacano so I don't think Cebuano speakers necessarily find it awkward to use a spelling system that does not always reflect the exact pronunciation of a word.

The usage of accent marks can help in making Chabacano more readable because there are instances wherein one word has two different meanings. However, in my opinion, the absence of accent marks does not make it impossible to read in Chabacano.

Creating a new word out of two or more words that have undergone a semantic shift is also something to consider. Some of the change occurs because of palatalization

Dejalo (dialo)

Tiene vez (chenebes)

No mas (numa)

No hay (nuay)

As for disappearing letters like arrepenti to ripinti (disappearing A) or no mas to noma or numa (disappearing S), I personally would like to keep the Spanish original when spelling them because the omission of one letter does not mean that the word has undergone a change. Although, I do understand that for most Chabacano speakers, this is not very intuitive.

Aside from un which typically becomes um, another instance where a set of words sometimes undergo a shift is que where the E becomes an I. We can see this in the HOW words like paquilaya (que laya), paquichura (que hechura), and paquimodo (que modo).

For compound words linked with de which is frequently pronounced as a Y like muerto de hambre to muertoy hambre, some people put an apostrophe before the Y. But for me, this isn't appropriate since de was already changed to y. The apostrophe should be used only when certain letters were removed. In this case, the de was completely changed. I remember calling arroz valenciana comiday perro when I was a kid and I my dad calling me 'ignorant'. 

When the local government came up with the general orthography rule in 2014, they never made it clear whether spelling etymologically meant that we should use the Spanish alphabet in spelling Spanish-derived words or use the actual words that appear in Spanish dictionaries. It was also unclear which form of Spanish derived verbs should be used as basis for spelling Chabacano verbs because for example, pedir becomes pidiendo in its present participle form so instead of pedi which doesn't reflect how we pronounce this word, we could use pidi (based on pidiendo) instead. 

In Lexicography, we see a mixture. For example, to ask is pedi but then you also see pidi perdon as well as pidi dispensacion in the dictionary. Just when I was about to conclude that it becomes pidi when paired with another word, I come across pedi hora which means to make an appointment. So as you can see, it's hard to justify these inconsistencies.

I also noticed that they spelled zacate as sacate. Sacate reflects how we pronounce this word in Chabacano and still actually uses the Spanish alphabet. It's just unfortunate that there was no consistency in the dictionary in doing this because they did not spell arroz as aros or zapatos as sapatos.

For a spelling system to gain adoption, it needs to be logical and not arbitrary. We need a spelling system where rules are easy to deduce just from recognizing patterns.

Adapting the vowels per se is not going to be a problem, but if there are variations, either the Spanish form could serve as a canonical form or we will have to choose one canonical form even if it doesn't cover all variations. Both approaches pose problems and there isn't a perfect solution for that.

The important thing is consistency, which right now the spelling system used does not seem to have.

I debated briefly whether a modified spelling system that reflects the change in pronunciation in Chabacano would be possible for the Philippine Folk Tales project but later I realized that it was going to be a gargantuan task. I did create a unique spelling system for El Diutay Principe but for the new book, I have decided to shelve this idea.

When I met the late Dr. Yap-Aizon at the Zamboanga city hall in 2018, he told me that he knew that standardization of Chabacano spelling won't be achieved in his lifetime or even mine. The issue about the spelling system not mirroring the actual pronunciation was definitely something being discussed when they were crafting it because I remember Dr. Yap-Aizon telling me about this, but he reasoned out that this also occurs in other languages. And I definitely agree, English has a lot of words that do not mirror the pronunciation like ballet, knowledge, cheat, etc. French is another language with a not so very intuitive spelling system, but it is a very developed language and Chabacano is far from that status.

So, I guess the issue really here is its novelty. Perhaps, because the spelling system is new, we are having a hard time grasping it. Maybe it all lies with the kids today who may or may not be conditioned to spell in this manner and whether or not they adopt it.