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- Chavacano (cbk)

Chavacano or Chabacano [tʃabaˈkano] is a Spanish- based creole language spoken in the Philippines. It is the only Spanish-based creole in Asia. There are approximately 700,000 native speakers who speak Chavacano as their first language and 1.2 million as their second language. Chavacano is used primarily as a spoken language which dates back to 1635, although recently a standard written form has begun to emerge.

Chavacano combines vocabulary mainly from Spanish, with grammar from Filipino and Cebuano.

As a general rule, all words of Spanish/European and Mexican origin are spelled according to their original spelling in the Spanish alphabet. Words from Philippine languages are spelled in the native way along Spanish rules. For example: jendeh, meaning no or not, is not spelled as hinde because h is always silent in the Spanish alphabet, thus it is not spelled as in Filipino.

There are six dialects of Chavacano, each with a number of different names:

Zamboanga dialect (about 360,000 speakers),

Cavite dialect (about 200,000 speakers),

Ermita dialect (practically extinct),

Ternate dialect (about 7,000 speakers),

Davao dialect (about 18,000 speakers),

Cotabato dialect (about 20,500 speakers).

The Chavacano people are predominantly Christian. The New Testament translation was completed in 1981 and various other written materials exist. Gateway languages include Tagalog, Cebuano, and Spanish.

Sources: Wikipedia
Omniglot