Tagalog
Wikang Tagalog
Spoken in	Philippines
Region	Central and South Luzon
Ethnicity	Tagalog people; Filipino people
Native speakers	23.9 million  (2000 census)[1] 96% of the Philippines can speak Tagalog (2000)[2]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Philippine Tagalog
Standard forms	Filipino
Dialects	Bataan Batangas Bulacan Lubang Manila Marinduque Tanay-Paete Tayabas
Writing system	Latin (Tagalog/Filipino); Historically Baybayin
Official status
Official language in	Philippines (in the form of Filipino)
Regulated by	Commission on the Filipino Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tl
ISO 639-2	tgl
ISO 639-3	tgl
Linguasphere	31-CKA
Predominantly Tagalog-speaking regions in the Philippines. The color-schemes represent the 4 dialect zones of the language: Northern, Central, Southern, and Marinduque. In addition, Tagalog is used as a second language across the entire country.
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Tagalog (/təˈɡɑːlɒɡ/;^[3] Tagalog pronunciation: [tɐˈɡaːloɡ]) is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest.^[4] It is the first language of the Philippine region IV (CALABARZON and MIMAROPA) and of Metro Manila. Its standardized form, commonly called Filipino, is the national language and one of two official languages of the Philippines. It is related to other Austronesian languages such as Malay, Javanese, and Hawaiian.

History[link]

The Tagalog Baybayin script.

The word Tagalog derived from tagailog, from tagá- meaning "native of" and ílog meaning "river". Thus, it means "river dweller". Very little is known about the history of the language. However, according to linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust, the Tagalogs originated, along with their Central Philippine cousins, from Northeastern Mindanao or Eastern Visayas.^[5][6]

The first written record of Tagalog is in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, written in the year 900, using fragments of the language along with Sanskrit, Malay, and Javanese. Meanwhile, the first known book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Cristiana (Christian Doctrine) of 1593. It was written in Spanish and two transcriptions of Tagalog; one in the Baybayin script and the other in Latin script. Throughout the 333 years of Spanish occupation, there were grammar and dictionaries written by Spanish clergymen such as Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala by Pedro de San Buenaventura (Pila, Laguna, 1613), Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (1835) and Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850). Poet Francisco Baltazar (1788–1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer. His most notable work is the early 19th-century Florante at Laura.

Historical changes[link]

Tagalog differs from its Central Philippine counterparts with its treatment of the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel *ə. In Bikol & Visayan, this sound merged with /u/ and [o]. In Tagalog, it has merged with /i/. For example, Proto-Philippine *dəkət (adhere, stick) is Tagalog dikít and Visayan & Bikol dukot.

Proto-Philippine *r, *j, and *z merged with /d/ but is /l/ between vowels. Proto-Philippine *ŋɡajan (name) and *hajək (kiss) became Tagalog ngalan and halík.

Proto-Philippine *R merged with /ɡ/. *tubiR (water) and *zuRuʔ (blood) became Tagalog tubig and dugô.

Official status[link]

Tagalog was declared the official language by the first constitution in the Philippines, the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato in 1897.^[7]

In 1935, the Philippine constitution designated English and Spanish as official languages, but mandated the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages.^[8] After study and deliberation, the National Language Institute, a committee composed of seven members who represented various regions in the Philippines, chose Tagalog as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines.^[9][10] President Manuel L. Quezon then, on December 30, 1937, proclaimed the selection of the Tagalog language to be used as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines.^[9] In 1939 President Quezon renamed the proposed Tagalog-based national language as wikang pambansâ (national language).^[10] In 1959, the language was further renamed as "Pilipino".^[10]

The 1973 constitution designated the Tagalog-based "Pilipino", along with English, as an official language and mandated the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino.^[11] The 1987 constitution designated Filipino as the national language, mandating that as it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.^[12] However, in practice, Filipino is simply Tagalog.^[13]

Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines specifies, in part:

Subject to provisions of law and as the Congress may deem appropriate, the Government shall take steps to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.

—^[12]

The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.

—^[12]

In 2009, the Department of Education promulgated an order institutionalizing a system of mother-tongue based multilingual education ("MLE"), wherein instruction is conducted primarily in a student's mother tongue until at least grade three, with additional languages such as Filipino and English being introduced as separate subjects no earlier than grade two. In secondary school, Filipino and English become the primary languages of instruction, with the learner's first language taking on an auxiliary role.^[14]

Tagalog and Filipino[link]

In 1937, Tagalog was selected as the basis of the national language of the Philippines by the National Language Institute. In 1939, Manuel L. Quezon named the national language "Wikang Pambansâ" ("National Language").^[9][15] Twenty years later, in 1959, it was renamed by then Secretary of Education, José Romero, as Pilipino to give it a national rather than ethnic label and connotation. The changing of the name did not, however, result in acceptance among non-Tagalogs, especially Cebuanos who had not accepted the selection.^[10]

In 1971, the language issue was revived once more, and a compromise solution was worked out—a "universalist" approach to the national language, to be called Filipino rather than Pilipino. When a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, it named Filipino as the national language.^[10] The constitution specified that as the Filipino language evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages. However, more than two decades after the institution of the "universalist" approach, there seems to be little if any difference between Tagalog and Filipino.

Classification[link]

Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages such as Malagasy, Javanese, Indonesian, Malay, Tetum (of Timor), and Tao language (of Taiwan). It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol and Visayas regions such as Bikol and the Visayan group including Hiligaynon and Cebuano.

Languages that have made significant contributions to Tagalog vocabulary are especially Spanish and English.

Dialects[link]

At present, no comprehensive dialectology has been done in the Tagalog-speaking regions, though there have been descriptions in the form of dictionaries and grammars on various Tagalog dialects. Ethnologue lists Lubang, Manila, Marinduque, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Tanay-Paete, and Tayabas as dialects of Tagalog. However, there appear to be four main dialects of which the aforementioned are a part; Northern (exemplified by the Bulacan dialect), Central (including Manila), Southern (exemplified by Batangas), and Marinduque.

Some example of dialectal differences are:

• Many Tagalog dialects, particularly those in the south, preserve the glottal stop found after consonants and before vowels. This has been lost in standard Tagalog. For example standard Tagalog ngayon (now, today), sinigang (broth stew), gabi (night), matamis (sweet), are pronounced and written ngay-on, sinig-ang, gab-i, and matam-is in other dialects.
• In Teresian-Morong Tagalog, [ɾ] is usually preferred over [d]. For example, bundók, dagat, dingdíng, and isdâ become bunrók, ragat, ringríng, and isrâ, as well as their expression seen in some signages like "sandok sa dingdíng" was changed to "sanrok sa ringríng".
• In many southern dialects, the progressive aspect infix of -um- verbs is na-. For example, standard Tagalog kumakain (eating) is nákáin in Quezon and Batangas Tagalog. This is the butt of some jokes by other Tagalog speakers since a phrase such as nakain ka ba ng pating is interpreted as "did a shark eat you?" by those from Manila, but means "do you eat shark?" in the south.
• Some dialects have interjections which are considered a trademark of their region. For example, the interjection ala e! usually identifies someone from Batangas as does hane?! in Rizal and Quezon provinces.

Perhaps the most divergent Tagalog dialects are those spoken in Marinduque. Linguist Rosa Soberano identifies two dialects, western and eastern, with the former being closer to the Tagalog dialects spoken in the provinces of Batangas and Quezon.

One example is the verb conjugation paradigms. While some of the affixes are different, Marinduque also preserves the imperative affixes, also found in Visayan and Bikol languages, that have mostly disappeared from most Tagalog dialects by the early 20th century; they have since merged with the infinitive.

Northern dialects and the central dialects are the basis for the national language.

Geographic distribution[link]

The Tagalog homeland, or Katagalugan, covers roughly much of the central to southern parts of the island of Luzon—particularly in Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Camarines Norte, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Rizal, and large parts of Zambales. Tagalog is also spoken natively by inhabitants living on the islands, Marinduque, Mindoro, and large areas of Palawan. It is spoken by approximately 64.3 million Filipinos, 96.4% of the household population.^[16] 21.5 million, or 28.15% of the total Philippine population,^[17] speak it as a native language.

Tagalog speakers are found in other parts of the Philippines as well as throughout the world, though its use is usually limited to communication between Filipino ethnic groups. In^[update] 2010, the US Census bureau reported (based on data collected in 2007) that in the United States it was the fourth most-spoken language at home with almost 1.5 million speakers, behind Spanish or Spanish Creole, French (including Patois, Cajun, Creole), and Chinese. Tagalog ranked as the third most spoken language in metropolitan statistical areas, behind Spanish and Chinese but ahead of French.^[18]

Accents[link]

The Tagalog language also boasts accentations unique to some parts of Tagalog-speaking regions. For example, in some parts of Manila: a strong pronunciation of i exists and vowel-switching of o and u exists so words like "gising" (to wake) is pronounced as "giseng" with a strong 'e' and the word "tagu-taguan" (hide-and-go-seek) is pronounced as "tago-tagoan" with a mild 'o'.

Batangas Tagalog boasts the most distinctive accent in Tagalog compared to the more Hispanized northern accents of the language. The Batangas accent has been featured in film and television and Filipino actor Leo Martinez speaks this accent.

Code-switching[link]

Taglish and Englog are portmanteaus given to a mix of English and Tagalog. The amount of English vs. Tagalog varies from the occasional use of English loan words to outright code-switching where the language changes in mid-sentence. Such code-switching is prevalent throughout the Philippines and in various of the languages of the Philippines other than Tagalog.

Code Mixing also entails the use of foreign words that are Filipinized by reforming them using Filipino rules, such as verb conjugations. Users typically use Filipino or English words, whichever comes to mind first or whichever is easier to use.

Magshoshopping kami sa mall. Sino ba ang magdadrive sa shopping center?

"We will go shopping at the mall. Who will drive to the shopping center?"

Although it is generally looked down upon, code-switching is prevalent in all levels of society; however, city-dwellers, the highly educated, and people born around and after World War II are more likely to do it. Politicians as highly placed as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have code-switched in interviews.

The practice is common in television, radio, and print media as well. Advertisements from companies like Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart, Albertsons, McDonald's, and Western Union have contained Taglish.

Phonology[link]

Tagalog has 26 phonemes: 21 of them are consonants and 5 are vowels.^[19] Syllable structure is relatively simple. Each syllable contains at least a consonant and a vowel,^[20] and begins in at most one consonant, except for borrowed words such as trak which means "truck", or tsokolate meaning "chocolate".

Vowels[link]

Before appearing in the area north of Pasig river, Tagalog had three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/, and /u/. This was later expanded to five vowels with the introduction of words from Northern Philippine languages like Kapampangan and Ilocano and Spanish words.

They are:

• /a/ an open central unrounded vowel similar to English "stack"; in the middle of a word, a near-open central vowel similar to RP English "cup"
• /ɛ/ an open-mid front unrounded vowel similar to English "bed"
• /i/ a close front unrounded vowel similar to English "machine"
• /o/ a close-mid back rounded vowel similar to English "forty"
• /u/ a close back unrounded vowel similar to English "flute"

Nevertheless pairs 'o' and 'u and 'e' and 'i' are likely to be interchanged by the people without a very high command of the language.

• /a/ is raised slightly to [ɐ] in unstressed positions and also occasionally in stressed positions (inang bayan [inˈɐŋ ˈbɐjən])
• Unstressed /i/ is usually pronounced [ɪ] as in English "bit"
• At the final syllable, /i/ can be pronounced [i ~ e ~ ɛ], as [e ~ ɛ] is an allophone of [ɪ ~ i] in final syllables.
• Unstressed /ɛ/ and /o/ can sometimes be pronounced [i ~ ɪ ~ e] and [u ~ ʊ ~ ɔ], except in final syllables. [o~ ʊ ~ ɔ] and [u ~ ʊ] were also former allophones.
• /ɛ/ can be pronounced as a close-mid front unrounded vowel [e].
• Unstressed /u/ is usually pronounced [ʊ] as in English "book"
• The diphthong /aɪ/ and the sequence /aʔi/ have a tendency to become [eɪ ~ ɛː].
• The diphthong /aʊ/ and the sequence /aʔu/ have a tendency to become [oʊ ~ ɔː].
• /e/ or /i/ before s-consonant clusters have a tendency to become silent.
• /o/ tends to become [ɔ] in stressed positions.

There are six main diphthongs; /ai/, /ei/, /oi/, /ui/, /au/, and /iu/.^[19][20]

Consonants[link]

Below is a chart of Tagalog consonants. All the stops are unaspirated. The velar nasal occurs in all positions including at the beginning of a word.

• /k/ between vowels has a tendency to become [x] as in Spanish "José", whereas in the initial position it has a tendency to become [kx], especially in the Manila dialect.
• Intervocalic /ɡ/ and /k/ tend to become [ɰ] (see preceding), as in Arabic "ghair", especially in the Manila dialect.
• /ɾ/ and /d/ are sometimes interchangeable as /ɾ/ and /d/ were once allophones in Tagalog.
• A glottal stop that occurs at the end of a word is often omitted when it is in the middle of a sentence, especially in the Metro Manila area. The vowel it follows is then usually lengthened. However, it is preserved in many other dialects.
• /ts/ may be pronounced [tʃ], as in English "chimney."
• /ɾ/ can be pronounced [r].
• /b/ can be pronounced [ɓ]^{[citation needed]}.

Tones[link]

Tone (mistakenly known as stress) is phonemic in Tagalog. Primary tones occurs on either the last or the next-to-the-last (penultimate) syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary tone except when tone occurs at the end of a word. Tone on words is highly important, since it differentiates words with the same spellings, but with different meanings, e.g. tayô (to stand) and tayo (us; we).

Example:

Tagalog

Person A: Bababà bá?^[23]

Person B: Bababâ.

English

Person A: Is (it) going down?

Person B: Going down.

Grammar[link]

Writing system[link]

This article contains Baybayin script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Baybayin characters.

Baybayin[link]

Tagalog was written in an abugida, or alphasyllabary, called Baybayin prior to the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, in the 16th century. This particular writing system was composed of symbols representing three vowels and 14 consonants. Belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts, it shares similarities with the Old Kawi script of Java and is believed to be descended from the script used by the Bugis in Sulawesi.

Although it enjoyed a relatively high level of literacy, Baybayin gradually fell into disuse in favor of the Latin alphabet taught by the Spaniards during their rule.

There has been confusion of how to use Baybayin, which is actually an abugida, or an alphasyllabary, rather than an alphabet. Not every letter in the Latin alphabet is represented with one of those in the Baybayin alphasyllabary. Rather than letters being put together to make sounds as in Western languages, Baybayin uses symbols to represent syllables.

A "kudlit" resembling an apostrophe is used above or below a symbol to change the vowel sound after its consonant. If the kudlit is used above, the vowel is an "E" or "I" sound. If the kudlit is used below, the vowel is an "O" or "U" sound. A special kudlit was later added by Spanish missionaries in which a cross placed below the symbol to get rid of the vowel sound all together, leaving a consonant. Previously, the final vowel was just left out, leaving the reader to use context to determine the final vowels.

Example:

Baybayin is encoded in Unicode version 3.2 in the range 1700-171F under the name "Tagalog".

a

e/i

o/u

ka	ga	nga
ta	da/ra	na
pa	ba	ma

ya

la

wa

sa

ha

Latin alphabet[link]

Abecedario[link]

Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called 'ABECEDARIO'^[24][25]:

Abakada[link]

When the national language was based on Tagalog, grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced a new alphabet consisting of 20 letters called ABAKADA in school grammar books called balarilà^[26][27][28]:

Revised alphabet[link]

In 1987 the department of Education, Culture and Sports issued a memo stating that the Philippine alphabet had changed from the Pilipino-Tagalog Abakada version to a new 28-letter alphabet^[29][30] to make room for loans, especially family names from Spanish and English:^[31]

[edit] ng and mga

The genitive marker ng and the plural marker mga are abbreviations that are pronounced nang [naŋ] and mangá [mɐˈŋa]. Ng, in most cases, roughly translates to "of" (ex. Siya ay kapatid ng nanay ko. She is the sibling of my mother) while nang usually means "when" or can describe how something is done or to what extent (equivalent to the suffix -ly in English adverbs), among other uses. Mga (pronounced as "muh-NGA") denotes plurality as adding an s, es, or ies does in English (ex. Iyan ang mga damit ko. (Those are my clothes)).

• Nang si Hudas ay madulas.—When Judas slipped.
• Gumising siya nang maaga.—He woke up early.
• Gumalíng nang todo si Juan dahil nag-ensayo siya.—Juan greatly improved because he practiced.

In the first example, nang is used in lieu of the word noong (when; Noong si Hudas ay madulas). In the second, nang describes that the person woke up (gumising) early (maaga); gumising nang maaga. In the third, nang described up to what extent that Juan improved (gumaling), which is "greatly" (nang todo). In the latter two examples, the ligature na and its variants -ng and -g may also be used (Gumising na maaga/Maagang gumising; Gumaling na todo/Todong gumaling).

The longer nang may also have other uses, such as a ligature that joins a repeated word:

• Naghintay sila nang naghintay.—They kept on waiting.

[edit] po/ho and opo/oho

The words po/ho and opo/oho are traditionally used as polite iterations of the affirmative "oo" ("yes"). It is generally used when addressing elders or superiors such as bosses or teachers.

"Po" and "opo" are specifically used to denote a high level of respect when addressing older persons of close affinity like parents, relatives, teachers and family friends. "Ho" and "oho" are generally used to politely address older neighbors, strangers, public officials, bosses and nannies, and may suggest a distance in societal relationship. However, "po" and "opo" can be used in any case in order to express an elevation of respect.

• Example: "Pakitapon naman po/ho yung basura". ("Please throw away the trash.")

Used in the affirmative:

• Ex: "Gutom ka na ba?" "Opo/Oho". ("Are you hungry yet?" "Yes").

Po/Ho may also be used in negation.

• Ex: "Hindi ko po/ho alam 'yan."("I don't know that.")

Vocabulary and borrowed words[link]

Tagalog vocabulary is composed mostly of words of native Austronesian origin. However it has significant Spanish loanwords. Spanish is the language that has bequeathed the most loan words to Tagalog. According to linguists, Spanish (5,000) has even surpassed Malay (3,500) in terms of loan words borrowed. About 40% of everyday (informal) Tagalog conversation is practically made up of Spanish loanwords.

Tagalog also includes loanwords from Indian (Sanskrit), Chinese (Hokkien), Japanese, Arabic, Mexican (Nahuatl) and English. Tagalog has also been significantly influenced by other Austronesian languages of the Philippines as well as Indonesia and Malaysia. In pre-hispanic times, Trade Malay was widely known and spoken throughout Southeast Asia.

Due to trade with Mexico via the Manila galleon from the 16th to the 19th centuries, many words from Nahuatl, a language spoken by Native Americans in Mexico, were introduced to Tagalog.

English has borrowed some words from Tagalog, such as abaca, barong, balisong, boondocks, jeepney, Manila hemp, pancit, ylang-ylang, and yaya, although the vast majority of these borrowed words are only used in the Philippines as part of the vocabularies of Philippine English.^{[citation needed]}

Tagalog has contributed several words to Philippine Spanish, like barangay (from balan͠gay, meaning barrio), the abacá, cogon, palay, dalaga etc.

Tagalog words of foreign origin[link]

Tagalog words of region origin[link]

Austronesian comparison chart[link]

Below is a chart of Tagalog and twenty other Austronesian languages comparing thirteen words; the first thirteen languages are spoken in the Philippines and the other nine are spoken in Indonesia, East Timor, New Zealand, Hawaii, Madagascar and Borneo.