Maga Regalo Equivocao (a Philippine folktale translated into Chabacano)

Maga Regalo Equivocao is one of the stories found in Maga Cuento de Antes, a bilingual English-Chabacano book featuring a collection of classic Philippine stories.

One of the things that stood out for me in this story was the fact that Siagon's parents were looking for a wife for their son when he was only 8 years old. Aside from the marriage being an arranged one, wasn't 8 years old too young to get married?

But I guess it makes sense since the age of consent in our country used to be 12 years old and was only recently raised to 16 in 2022.

One of the gifts brought by Siagon's parents was a suckling pig. The source text was "little pig" but if you consider the context, it's very likely that they were suckling pigs. The translator rendered the word as "diutay lechon", which unless you were familiar with Spanish or grew up in a farm, you would be equating to a roasted pig. I changed it to "diutay puerco" which is plainer but is more faithful to the source text.

Since the translator already used words like "concha" and "caracol" which were either borrowed from Spanish or perhaps words that we don't use in everyday Chabacano conversations, I thought that it would be wise not to increase the comprehension difficulty level of the story by using the word "lechon". Although in hindsight, even if people thought of the word "lechon" as "roasted pig", it would have made sense for them since this were gifts being brought to a house. It only raises a question if the reader compares the translation with the English original.

Another word that could have been used here was the word puerquito which in Lexicography is the Chabacano for "piglet".

In the last part of the story, the word "porque" was used in a way that we don't normally hear in conversations. Often, this word means "why" in Chabacano but I guess there are still people who remember this word being used to mean "because" which is the same as its meaning in Spanish.

In Spanish (which they followed in Lexicography), "why" is written as por qué while "because" is "porque". In Maga Cuento de Antes, I also followed this spelling but without the accent marks.

Believe it or not, they did not include the word "kay" in Lexicography which is actually what is used in everyday conversations. The Chabacano dictionary published by ADZU does include this word spelled as "cay". In Maga Cuento de Antes, I spelled it as kay based on the general Chabacano orthography rule.

The usage of "estaba" is also reminiscent of how it is used in Spanish (to indicate a past action). I know that it exists in Chabacano too but it's not that common because we often use "estaba" to mean "from".

Here is a young Chabacano enthusiast reading part of Maga Regalo Equivocao.