Cavite City - Culture - Chavacano

Chavacano

Chavacano, sometimes spelled as Chabacano, is the language mostly spoken by majority of the Caviteños that lived in the city of Cavite, whose origin has begun during the arrival of the first Spaniards three centuries ago. Today only a fraction of Caviteños in the city of Cavite speak the Chavacano dialect, mostly elders, so perhaps it will come to cease of its existence or completely disappear in the near future. During the stay of the Spaniards near the military arsenal in Cavite City, the people that lived in the proximities of the arsenal put themselves in contact with the Spaniards and began to incorporate in their own dialect many Spanish words which gave birth to a Hispanic - Philippine dialect called "Chabacano" of long ago and of today.

According to many opinions, Chavacano was scattered in different places of the Philippine archipelago, only of its sort in the Far East or perhaps in the Hispanic world.

One of the poets and Philippine writers, Jesus Balmori expressed himself in Chabacano. He was a great admirer of the dialect and wrote several verses in it. Another admirer of this dialect was Don Jaime de Veyra, the illustrious writer and famous Philippine historian, who feared more than all the probable extinction of the Chabacano when he wrote the following prophetic lines, "I am afraid that the inevitable absorption of the tagalismo on one side and the invasion of the anglicism on the other hand, will wipe out or extinguish this inherited Castilian language in existence with his last representatives in the following generation."

And, according to the Philippine catedratico, Alfred B. German who wrote a thesis on the grammar in Chabacano dialect, the present conditions no longer favor the disenrollment of the same one. There are many reasons for the probable disappearance of the Chabacano dialect, but the main thing is the massive arrival of the Tagalog speaking people in the city of Cavite. The educated class has scorned the Chabacano dialect, refusing to speak it or replace it with the Tagalog language.

Professor Gervacio Miranda who also wrote a book in Chabacano said in his preface the following thing,"My only objective to write this book is to possibly conserve in written form the Chavacano of Cavite for posterity," fearing the extinction of the dialect.

Nowadays, in the same city of Cavite, it still exists. Nonetheless very few Caviteños speaks of this hybrid language. The survival of this dialect depends on their people, the Caviteños of the city of Cavite, who have inherited this dialect from their ancestors. Some now live in Olongapo City and so far there are only less than 500 people who could speak this language, mostly the elders.

Chavacano is spoken by a majority in Zamboanga City.