Tagalog language

Countries with a significant number of tagalo speakers

Tagalog or Tagalog is a language widely spoken in the Philippines. It is within the Austronesian phylum, more specifically in the western branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family. It is indigenous to the central and southern parts of the island of Luzon, where its capital, Manila, is located. By 2007, Tagalog ranked 37th among the world's languages and was spoken by more than 23 million people as a native language; if the data for second language speakers are added, the figure reaches more than 100 million. The increasing emigration of Filipinos to other parts of the world has created many communities of Tagalog speakers, especially in the United States and Canada. It is, along with Portuguese, in the ninth position of the most spoken languages in the United States.

It is spoken by more than 23 million Filipinos as their first language and by more than 80 million as a second language. It is the basis of the national language, Filipino (or Pilipino before 1987). The first Tagalog grammar was written by Fray Sebastián de Totanés, a Franciscan friar born in Totanés (Toledo) in 1688.

Name

On November 13, 1937, the first Philippine National Assembly created the National Language Institute, which designated Tagalog as the basis for a new national language. In 1961, this language became known as Pilipino and was later called Filipino.

The national language of the Philippines has been the subject of various controversies and misunderstandings, which still persist today. Many Filipinos hold one of the following thoughts when asked about the Filipino language:

1. Filipino is simply another name for the tagalo language, just like its previous name: pilipino.
2. The Filipino is an amalgam of all the languages of the Philippines, with possible influences of tagalo and English.
3. The Filipino is tagalo with English aggregates and other Philippine languages; it is the tagalo as spoken in Gran Manila.

Most of the Filipino people consider Filipino to be essentially and virtually identical to Tagalog. Thus, one Filipino asks another if he speaks "Tagalog", not if he speaks "Filipino". Adherents to the second opinion maintain that Tagalog does not include words like guapa, 'beautiful', and that although their meaning can be easily interpreted by Tagalog speakers, they are not terms used in areas where Tagalog is spoken. There are also people who believe that the Philippine language should include commonly used English terms, which Tagalog does not. However, this position is also highly criticized by the most respected linguists in the country and in general by the feelings of the people who even call the language they speak "Taglish" due to the mixture that is made of both languages in a standard daily use.

On the other hand, Filipino is strictly based on Tagalog, to the point of trying to replace words of English or Spanish origin with artificially coined Tagalog root terms.

In academia, there are those who define the Filipino language as an amalgamation of the languages spoken in the Philippines, and some even propose the inclusion of English terms in the lexicon. The problem here is that the Philippine languages are not dialects of the same language, but true languages per se, unintelligible from each other. If vocabulary and grammar were included in the lexicon, it would defeat the purpose of achieving a true lingua franca because Filipino-speaking Tagalog people would not be able to communicate with Filipino-speaking Cebuano.

Specifically, perhaps Filipino is the only language spoken in Metro Manila. With the increasing migrations, words from the other Filipino languages have been incorporated into the speech of the native Manileño. The Tagalog used in the capital, however, is difficult to serve as a standard. It evolves quickly and there are no dictionaries or guides that define the correct use or indicate which words are part of the official language. Faced with this linguistic problem, many Filipinos who speak two or more languages, with English predominating among them, today speak Taglish as their everyday language. Even when this language is suitable for informal communication, its implementation in formal and written communications remains difficult.

Tagala predominant speaking regions in the Philippines

Dialects

Tagalog dialects often correspond to provinces in and around the Tagalog region and the southern parts of central Luzon. The Ethnologue Language Database identifies the following dialects spoken in their respective provinces:

• Lubang (spoke in Mindoro Island)
• Manila (and its environs)
• Marinduque
• Bataan
• Batangas
• Bulacán
• Tanay-Paete (spoke in Rizal and Laguna)
• Tayabas (spoke in Quezon)

Phonology

Vowels

Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the Philippine archipelago, Tagalog had three vowels: /a/, /i/ and /u/. With the introduction of Spanish, the number of vowels increased to five vowels, each of which has its long version. The chart below shows the vowels in modern Tagalog.

Tagalog has six diphthongs: /aɪ/, /ɔɪ/, /ʊɪ/, /iʊ/, /aʊ/ and /ei/.

Consonants

First books

• Art and Vocabulary of the Tagala LanguageManila, 1745.^{[chuckles]required]} Fray Sebastián de Totanés, Franciscan friar born in Totanés, province of Toledo in 1688.

In the printing house of San Miguel, Manila, it dates from the year 1593 and is titled Christian Doctrine, written in Spanish and Tagalog, by the Dominican religious. [1] The questions appear first in Romãce and then in Tanogang:

• Romãce Q. Are you christian? A. if by the mercy of God.Tanongan: Christiano sings? Sagot. Oo.t aua nang atin pãnginoon god.
• Romãce Q. What is christian? A. The baptized man who believes what entangles God, and the sanctity mother nrã.Tanongan: Anus Caia ang christian? S. ang binãgan his masangpalataia sa aral nang god at nang sancta church yna natin.

Influence of the Spanish language

The Spanish language had a great influence on Tagalog. One third of the words in Tagalog are possibly of Spanish origin. A classic example is the Tagalog phrase 'Kumusta?'. This phrase came directly from 'How are you?'. In most cases, Spanish-influenced Tagalog words refer to objects unknown to the indigenous inhabitants until the arrival of the Spanish. Examples of this are: mesa, silya or kutsara. Many of the adopted words refer to foreign concepts such as the names of the days of the week and the names of the months; as the word huwebes (Thursday) and mayo (May).

This adoption of words also recreates the curious phenomenon of two or more words referring to the same concept. For example, the word for silla in Tagalog may be native upuan or Spanish silya; or the word for city may be native lungsod or Spanish siyudad.

For example the sentence: "Can you turn on the fan in the window?" in Tagalog it is "Pwede mo ba buksan ang bentilador na malapit sa bintana?".

Other examples of words of Hispanic origin:

Certain words have changed meaning at times, such as siempre (always), which means "of course" in Tagalog. Also sure (for sure), which means "perhaps".

Pre-colonial Tagalog did not have as many sounds as Spanish. The original vowels of Tagalog were three: /a/, /i/ and /u/. The vowels /e/ and /o/ were not distinguishable, but were allophones of /i/ and /u/. After the entry of Spanish words that have these distinctions, the number increased to five, adding /e/ and /o/.

Writing

Baybayin

Tagalog was written in an abugida (alphasyllabary) called Baybayin before the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, in the 16th century. This particular writing system was made up of symbols representing three vowels and 14 consonants. Belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts, it shares similarities with the Old Kawi script of the Java language 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 out of favor in favor of using the Latin alphabet that had been introduced in the Spanish colonial era.

There has been confusion about how to use baybayin, which is actually an abugida, or alphasyllabary, rather than an alphabet. Not all the letters of the Latin alphabet are represented with one of them in the baybayin alphasyllabary. Instead of letters being put together to make sounds like 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". If the kudlit is used below, the vowel is an "O" or "U". A special kudlit was added later by Spanish missionaries in which a cross was placed below the symbol to get rid of the vowel sound entirely, leaving a consonant. Previously, the consonant without a following vowel was simply dropped (for example, "bundok" was translated as "budo"), forcing the reader to use context when reading such words.

Example:

Tagalog in baybayin

"ba-y-ba-yi-n"

"Lupang Hinirang" (Philippine national anthem) in baybayin

Latin alphabet

Alphabet Spelling (Based on Spanish)

Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of forms based on the Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called "ABECEDARIO". The additional letters are: ch, ll, ng, ñ, n͠g/ñg and rr.

The spelling had different rules, such as using H for J, and Y for I (Yloylo for Iloilo, Ylocano for Ilocano) descending from Old Spanish spelling, while which also had its own unique letter as N͠g/Ñg.

Abakada Spelling (Based on baybayin)

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". The 20 letters were based on the old Baybayin script, however the rules are unique to Abakada. Removed unnecessary letters (C, Q, V, Z), letters that did not have an exact baybayin character (F, J, Ñ, X), and spelling rules such as C (k) for vowels A, O, and U, Qu (k) for I and E vowels, etc.

Modern Philippine Alphabet

In 1987, the Department of Education published a memo stating that the Philippine alphabet had changed from the Pilipino-Tagalog Abakada version to a new 28-letter alphabet. The additional letters of the 26-letter English alphabet are ñ, ng.

Numbers

Tagalog has 2 sets of numbers, one native and the other based on Spanish. Tagalog speakers also use numbers in English, as they are better able to count in English and say dates in English.

Months and days

Tagalog months and days are also localized forms of months and days in Spanish. "Month" in Tagalog it is "buwan" (also the word for moon) or "month" (archaic) and "day" is "araw" (the word also means sun). Unlike Spanish, however, Tagalog months and days are always capitalized.

Dates and times

Date and time can be expressed in Tagalog using native or Spanish-derived numbers, but Spanish-derived numbers are commonly used.

Times are usually written in 12-hour format, with ng umaga (morning), ng hapon (afternoon), and ng gabi (at night) adjuncts. Ng tanghali' (midday) and ng hatinggabi (midnight) is always used with times from 12:01 to 12:59; 12:00 can simply be denoted as "tanghali" or "hatinggabi". Clock times can be spoken with native Spanish or ordinal numbers, the former being more common.

• 1:00 - wing-one, ikaisa
• 2:00 - wings-two, ikalawa
• 3:00 - wings-three, ikatlo
• 4:00 - wings-kuwatro, ika-apat
• 5:00 - wings-singko, ikalima
• 6:00 - wings-sais, ika-anim
• 7:00 - wings-siyete, ikapito
• 8:00 - wings-otso, ikasiyam
• 9:00 - wings-nuwebe, ikasiyam
• 10:00 - wings-diyes, ikasampu
• 11:00 - wings-onse, ikalabing-isa
• 12:00 - wings-dose, ikalabindalawa

Half hours are expressed using "kalahati makalipas ng" or "y mediya"/medya", for example, "alas-dos y mediya" or "kalahati makalipas ng wings two" (2:30, two thirty).

Dates are usually in "day-month-year" and they can be said using native or Spanish-derived numbers (the latter being the most preferred).

• 1 January 1985
  • using Spanish derivative numbers: First ng January, any one thousand ninety and singko.
  • using native numbers: Ikaisa ng January, taong isang libo siyam na raan walumpu't lima.
• 9 April 2010
  • using Spanish derivative numbers: Nuwebe ng April, any two thousand diyes.
  • using native numbers: Ikasiyam ng April, taong dalawanlibo't sampu.

Sometimes, month-day-year is used.

• January 1, 1985
  • using Spanish derivative numbers: January a-one/ikauno/akauno/primro, any one thousand nobesiyentos otsenta y singko.
  • using native numbers: January ikaisa, taong isang libo siyam na raan walumpu't lima.
• April 9, 2010
  • using Spanish derivative numbers: April a-nuwebe/ikanuwebe/akanuwebe, any two thousand diyes.
  • using native numbers: April ikasiyam, taong dalawanlibo't sampu.

Century and decade names generally use ordinals (for example, ikalawampung century). Decade names from around the 1910s to the 1990s, however, are usually borrowed from Spanish (for example, dekada sixty, dekada nobenta)..

The calculation of time usually uses native numbers, for example:

• Dalawang Dekada - Two decades.
• Tatlong Taon - Three years.
• Apat na oras - Four hours.
• Limang minute - Five minutes.
• Tatlumpung second - Thirty seconds.