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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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Navigating This Blog

If it is your first time to visit Bien Chabacano, please check our FEATURED POSTS on the Chabacano Language. If you are seeking information on how certain Chabacano words came to be, please visit the ORIGINS of Common Chabacano Words section. If you are a linguist, you might be interested in my MUSINGS on the Chabacano language. For people who want to learn or improve their Chabacano, I don't offer any well-structured lessons on how to speak Chabacano, but you could visit the GRAMMAR LESSONS for Speakers and Non-Speakers of Chabacano and Chabacano MODISMOS (EXPRESSIONS) sections for this purpose. You could also check out the articles under the HOW TO SAY IT in Chabacano section which were written for people who speak Chabacano as a second language or a foreign language and young Chabacano speakers. If you want to catch glimpses of written and spoken Chabacano, check out different Chabacano media, and listen to some Chabacano popular and folk songs, head on over to the CHABACANO IN ACTION section. While the Spanish language may have greatly influenced the Chabacano de Zamboanga, did you know that there were other languages which also had a significant impact on Chabacano? Find out what the PORTUGUESE INFLUENCE and HILIGAYNON INFLUENCE were on the Chabacano de Zamboanga. If you're curious about the other Chabacano languages, please check out my articles about the Chavacano de ERMITA, the Chavacano de CAVITE, and the Chavacano de TERNATE. I have recently taken to comparing Chabacano and Tagalog in some of my articles which is mainly a memoir of my struggle with the Tagalog language when I was new in Manila as well as writing articles in Chabacano or Chavacano. Please do check them out.

About The Author

My name is Jerome Herrera and I started to take interest in my mother tongue when I began to self-study Spanish and I discovered the many glaring similarities between the two languages. This led to a journey of discoveries, a journey filled with awe as I learned how different languages, time, and people shaped the modern Chabacano de Zamboanga language.

I first began writing about Chabacano in my personal blog in 2010. After two years and a handful of articles, I decided to start a blog dedicated to the Chabacano language.

Aside from the Chavacano language and personal finance, I am also an advocate of donating blood regularly. Last August 2018, I received the Blood Galloner award from Red Cross.

Learn more about me. Visit my personal blog All I Can Handle and Follow Me on Facebook!

What I Blog About

In this blog, I write everything and anything about the modern or contemporary Chabacano de Zamboanga (contemporary at least for people who were born in the late 80s). Bien Chabacano is divided into seven different topics:
Why English?

You might find it strange that a blog promoting Chabacano is written entirely in English. Well, let us not forget that Jose Rizal wrote his novels in Spanish. I chose to write this blog in English because I felt like it was the best language to communicate with the blog's intended audience, the youth. While this blog seeks to promote the Chabacano language, it does not encourage people to stop speaking Tagalog, Cebuano or English altogether.

Recently, I have taken up writing some articles in Chabacano. Please do check them out.

Chabacano or Chavacano?

While Chavacano and Chabacano are used by people from Zamboanga, more people spell the name of the language with a 'v' and will even go as far as saying that spelling it with a 'b' is incorrect. Some people say that the reason why Chavacano (with a 'v') is the more used spelling is because people want to differentiate the language from the Castilian Spanish word meaning of bad taste or rude. However, I chose to spell the name of the language with a 'b' because it is the spelling recognized in the Diccionario De La Real Academia Espanola (dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. If one consults the said dictionary, Chabacano is not only defined as being rude or of bad taste, but also as a language spoken in Zamboanga, Basilan, and Cavite wherein a large part of the vocabulary is Spanish. In this blog, I normally spell the name of the language with a 'v' when referring to the variants in Cavite, and Ermita (as well as other special instances). The way I see it, Chavacano is an endonym for the language in Zamboanga city. Using 'v' makes some people who are familiar with Spanish uncomfortable but using 'b' makes it sound foreign for Zamboangueños. Anyway, it is essentially the same language and whether you spell it with a 'b' or a 'v' depends on your politics.

Spelling

In this blog, I use the spelling ChaVacano for the variants in Cavite, Ternate, and Ermita while ChaBacano for the variant in Zamboanga. At some point however, I began using ChaBacano for all variants for purposes of uniformity.

I use three different types of spelling Chabacano words in this blog. Sometimes, I spell words as they are pronounced using Filipino spelling. Sometimes, I spell the words using the Spanish word that it originated from using Spanish spelling. And at times, the Chabacano words in this blog are spelled as they are pronounced using Spanish spelling. Words that originate from Philippine languages (like Cebuano and Hiligaynon) are mostly spelled as they are pronounced in Chabacano using Filipino spelling. Beginning in 2016, to comply with the recommended orthography by the local government of Zamboanga, all efforts are being exhausted to spell words based on their originating language.

Some texts in this blog are in Spanish (mostly to compare Chabacano and Spanish). However, my Spanish is not perfect and you may see some errors from time to time.

My Story

My elementary school days were not very favorable towards Chabacano because I studied at a school where speaking it was prohibited. 
I guess this was a time in the nation's history when they were trying very hard to promote Tagalog (I won't call it Filipino for political reasons) as the national language. 

Even with my inauspicious beginnings, I grew up with Chabacano all around me. At home, my dad would listen to radio news programs and watch TV news programs in Chabacano all the time and occasionally, I would even hear mass in Chabacano.

At the high school I went to, Chabacano was used HEAVILY by the teachers (as a medium of instruction) as well as students. However, I had already become used to speaking Tagalog at school and somehow couldn't transition to Chabacano even then. I guess after six years, my mind got so used to the fear of getting reprimanded for speaking Chabacano at school. 

Even in college, I had a hard time accepting the fact that speaking Chabacano was allowed at school. However at this time, I had slowly begun speaking Chabacano with some friends and even with teachers. So until the age of twenty, I had mostly spoken Chabacano only at home and with family.

It's funny how absence creates fondness.It was not until I began working in Manila that I realized just how special the Chabacano language was. It was also during this time that I began to study Spanish on my own to get a bilingual customer service position at a contact centre. Seeing all the glaring similarities between the two languages cemented my love and pride for Chabacano.

Mission and Vision

Today, the Chabacano de Zamboanga is facing a lot of battles in different fronts, Cebuano, English, and Tagalog are all formidable languages that threaten the Chabacano de Zamboanga. The increasing number of migrants and the fashionability of speaking in Tagalog and English are all leading to the decreasing fluency of the Zamboangueño youth in the Chabacano language. If you ask young Chabacano speakers how they feel about their proficiency in the Chabacano language, most will say that they feel they are not fluent in the Chabacano language. I actually feel the same way. Even though Chabacano was spoken in the house where I grew up, I spoke Tagalog when I was in school (initially because it was a policy at the evangelical Christian school where I studied and later because I got used to it).

Clearly, the youth has lost its confidence and pride in speaking Chabacano. Bien Chabacano seeks to instill pride and improve proficiency in the Chabacano language among the young Chabacano speakers by talking about its rich and colorful history and demystifying its grammar's many intricacies and nuances. This blog also aims to reinvigorate the usage of Chabacano among the youth of today by reintroducing words that have fallen into disuse as well as become a one stop resource center for the Chabacano language.

Friend, thanks for taking the time to read the articles in this blog. Truly, the Chabacano de Zamboanga has a very rich and colorful history and it is high time that we know about it. I hope that through this blog, you will have a stronger sense of pride in our language and I hope that you will join me in this rediscovery of the past as we look forward to a better future.

To all the Chabacano speakers reading this blog, ojala que ay gusta y aprecia ustedes el maga articulo aqui. Uno del mio maga deseo na vida amo el hace vira el orgullo del maga gente na Chabacano especialmente entre maga jovenes.

Don't forget to LIKE US on Facebook! Gracias y Vaya Con Dios!


Bien Chabacano

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