Tagalog is an Austronesian language, commonly spoken in the Philippines, and is the basis for the national language called Filipino. There are an estimated 17 million native speakers of Tagalog and about 50 million others who speak it as a second language.
Tagalog was used as the basis for the national language Filipino language by the National Language Institute.
| Tagalog | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Philippines |
| Total speakers: | 17 Million (native), 50 million (secondary) |
| Ranking: | 58 |
| Genetic classification: |
Austronesian |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | - |
| Regulated by: | - |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1: | tl |
| ISO 639-2: | tgl |
| SIL: | TGL |
Tagalog
Geographic distribution and Classification
While most Filipinos are capable of speaking some form of Tagalog, the native speakers are concentrated in southwestern regions of Luzon island, especially in the areas around Manila. Some 17 million people in this area speak Tagalog as their native tongue while many Filipinos in other parts of the country understand the language and is usually their secondary language.
Increased emigration of Filipinos to other parts of the world have created many communities of Tagalog-speakers especially in the United States. In fact, Tagalog ranks among the top Asian languages spoken in the U.S.
The dialects of Tagalog often correspond to the provinces in and around the former Southern Tagalog region. The Ethnologue language database identifies the following dialects spoken in their respective provinces: Lubang (spoken in Mindoro), Manila, Marinduque, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Tanay-Paete (spoken in Rizal and Laguna), and Tayabas (spoken in Quezon.
Sounds
Tagalog has only five vowel sound, corresponding to the five vowels. The vowel a is pronounced as in hat while u is pronounced as in moon.
The words written as ng and mga are pronounced nang and manga respectively.The ng is pronounced as in singer and hanger.
g is pronounced as in the hard g of gutter and good.
Vowels
Before the Spanish colonization, Tagalog had only 3 vowels, a, o/u, and e/i. With the introduction of a romanized alphabet, however, the language differentiated the o from the u sound and the e from the i sound. This can explain why the adopted Spanish words such as ventana are written as bintana, because essentially the Tagalog e and i are of the same vowel, varying only in degree of vocal intensity.
Consonants
Phonology
Historical sound changes
Grammar
Nouns
Pronouns
Most pronouns or panghalip, in Tagalog have direct translations in English.
Personal pronouns. There are seven personal pronouns in Tagalog. The first person pronouns are ako, kami, and tayo, corresponding to the English I, exclusive we (as in "we excluding you"), and inclusive we (as in "we including you"). The second person pronouns are ikaw, kayo, corresponding to the singular and plural you. The third person pronouns are siya (singular) and sila (plural). Tagalog does not distinguish gender for the singular third person unlike English's he, she, and it. Tagalog pronouns have nominative (subjective), two objective, and genitive (possessive) cases. The table below lists all of these cases, some of which are accompanied by contracted forms. The apostrophe is actually a formality and is almost always left out in written texts.
| Singular | Plural | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Objective A | Objective B | Genitive | Nominative | Objective A | Objective B | Genitive | |
| First person | ako | ko | sa akin sa'kin |
akin | kami | namin | sa amin sa'min |
amin |
| First-second person | — | tayo | natin | sa atin sa'tin |
atin | |||
| Second person | ikaw ka |
mo | sa iyo sa'yo |
iyo | kayo | ninyo | sa inyo | inyo |
| Third person | siya s'ya |
niya n'ya |
sa kaniya sa kan'ya |
kaniya kan'ya |
sila | nila | sa kanila | kanila |
The singular second person pronoun, ikaw, has an alternate form, ka, which can be used in place of the original form when it isn't the first word in a clause (when it follows the predicate). See the section on sentence patterns. The sentence You are happy is translated to the following three equivalent Tagalog sentences, differing only in word order.
- Ikaw ay masaya. Masaya ikaw. Masaya ka.
The first objective case denotes that the person the pronoun is referring to is the one doing the action signified by the verb. This is much like the by me construct used in passive voice in English.
- Tagalog: Nahanap ko ang libro.
- English: literally Found by me, the book. (The book was found by me.)
The second objective case is formed by preceding the genitive case with the word sa, which is actually a preposition. The word sa, in this case, is actually a clitic. This objective case is often contracted in speech. Here is an example of this objective case as a direct object:
- Tagalog: Bumati ako sa kaniya.
- English: literally Greeted I him. (I greeted him.)
And here is the objective case as an indirect object:
- Tagalog: Magbibigay ako sa kaniya ng regalo.
- English: literally Will give I him a gift. (I will give him a gift.)
In addition, Tagalog has another personal pronoun, kita, which combines ko-ikaw (by me–you) constructs. For example, Mahal kita means I love you (literally You are loved by me). This form is preferred instead of the more formal and stilted Mahal ko ikaw or even Ikaw ay mahal ko.
Unlike in English, Tagalog does not have intensive or reflexive forms for the personal pronouns (pronouns with the suffix -self, such as myself). These forms are approximated by inserting the word sarili (self) and the first objective form into the sentence. For example:
- Intensive. I did it myself. Ako, sarili ko, ang gumawa niyan.
- Reflexive. He shaves himself. Siya ang umaahit sa sarili niya.
Interrogative pronouns. English who, what, when, where, why, which, and how directly translate to Tagalog sino, ano, kailan (also kelan), saan, bakit, alin, and paano.
Verbs
Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives and adverbs are words that describe or modify nouns or verbs respectively. In Tagalog, an adjective is called pang-uri and an adverb is pang-abay. However, adjectives and adverbs in Tagalog have the same form, unlike English, which usually adds a -ly suffix to an adjective to change it into an adverb. Adjectives/adverbs (now on referred to as adjectives) in Tagalog can be classified into three types: neutral, comparative, and superlative. This correspond to the degrees of adjectives in English which give us good, better, and best.
There are two kinds of neutral adjectives in Tagalog. The first are the simple adjectives, which are words that are already adjectives in their basic form. The second are ma- adjectives, which add the prefix ma- to words to turn them into adjectives. Examples of simple adjectives are pandak (short), itim (black), and mahal (expensive). Examples of the second kind are mahaba (long; from haba meaning length), mayaman (rich; from yaman meaning richness), and mabilis (fast, from bilis meaning speed). The ma- suffix essentially functions the same way as the English suffix -ful, which turns nouns into adjectives.
Sentence patterns
Sentences in Tagalog are often in the predicate-subject order, reverse that of English. Sometimes, the predicate, if it contains a transitive verb, is split into two with the object of the verb following the subject. Almost all sentences can be transformed into the subject-predicate order, but is rarely done, and usually only for emphasis.
Here are examples with their literal English translations preserving word order.
- Common order: Nagbasa ako ng aklat. Read I a book.
- Transformed: Ako ay nagbasa ng aklat. I read a book.
- Common order: Binasa ko ang aklat. Read by me was the book.
- Transformed: Ang aklat ay binasa ko. The book was read by me.
- Common order: Makulay ang mga bulaklak dito sa Baguio City. Colorful are the flowers here in Baguio City.
- Transformed: Ang mga bulaklak dito sa Baguio City ay makulay. The flowers here in Baguio City are colorful.
The difference between the first and second examples is one not of meaning but of focus, as with their English translations (I read a book versus The book was read by me). The verb comes first and is marked according to which following constituent is focused on. This syntactic arrangement is unusual in the world's languages but is typical of the Philippines, and in fact linguists call it Philippine-type marking. It's also called a trigger system.
Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Tagalog is a wide mix of native vernaculars and foreign loan words. Three centuries as a colony of Spain have left an indelible mark on the vocabulary of Tagalog and a further half a century of American imperialism have also added a number of words into Tagalog.
Spanish influence
Among the indigenous languages of the Philippines, Tagalog was most heavily influenced by the Spanish language. Possibly a third of the words in Tagalog are of Spanish origin. A classic example is the Tagalog phrase “Kumusta?” (How are [you]?). This phrase directly came from the Spanish “¿Cómo está (usted)?”Tagalog was the most-influenced language because the center of the Spanish colonial government was in Manila, in the heart of the Tagalog-speaking region.
The adoption of Spanish words into Tagalog was so prevalent that Tagalog speakers can now vaguely understand rudimentary Spanish, although do not realize it. This idea has been used effectively in Spanish classes for Filipinos by letting students read a complete essay in Spanish where most of the words are also found in Tagalog.
Majority of the Spanish words adopted into Tagalog were those that referred to foreign concepts such as the names of the days of the week and months, such as Huwebes and Mayo, which came from the Spanish Jueves (Thursday) and Maio (May).
Certain words have changed in meaning such as syempre which means of course in Tagalog but siempre in Spanish means always.
The adoption of Spanish also gave rise to the curious phenomenon of two or more words referring to the same concept. For example, the Tagalog word for chair is either the native upuan or salampuwit, but the Spanish-based silya (from silla) is prevalent in popular speech. Another example is the Tagalog words for city: lungsod and syudad (from the Spanish ciudád). Spanish numbers as opposed to the native Tagalog numbers, are also used frequently, especially in telling the time and in counting money.
The Spanish Empire did not treat the Philippines as a population colony and sent only a few speakers of Spanish. This could be attributed to the enormous distance needed to travel. In contrast with Spanish America, there were only a few Spanish speakers in the Philippine islands who were Spanish priests, officers , their descendents and a few other civillians. A greater number of the Spaniards arrived after the openning of the Suez canal. Since Tagalog speakers were the ethnic Filipino group closest to Spanish seat of government(Malacañang Palace), culture and education; they formed the native elite and after the independence, Tagalog formed the basis of the national language despite the fact that other vernaculars had more speakers at that time such as Cebuano.
American English influence
The American occupation has also introduced many English words. Some examples are titser (teacher), bus (bus, pronounced boos), dyip (jeep), and restawrant (restaurant).
Modern colloquial Tagalog or Filipino typically adopts English nouns and verbs into the speech, even if there are equivalent terms in the native language. This pseudo-dialect is called Taglish. The name is a portmanteau combining the words Tagalog and English.
Other influences
Tagalog long before the Spanish colonized the islands has also adopted words from Chinese, Hindu, and Arabic, mainly due to precolonial trade with mainland Asian cultures.
Examples of adopted words
Following is a short list of Tagalog words of foreign origin.
- guro (teacher; from Sanskrit guru)
- kuya (elder brother; from Chinese ko + a)
- alak (wine; from Arabic)
- probinsya (province; from Spanish provincia)
- rehiyon (region; from Spanish región)
- libro (book; from Spanish libro)
- mesa (table; from Spanish mesa)
- kalye (street; from Spanish calle)
- kabayo (horse; from Spanish caballo)
- Hulyo (July; from Spanish julio)
- Miyerkules (Wednesday; from Spanish miércoles)
- dyip (jeep; from English)
- titser (teacher; from English)
- kompyuter (computer; from English)
Cognates
Tagalog is an Austronesian language. The following cognates can be found in Indonesian and the Malaysian language.
- ako (I ; Indonesian :aku)
- tulong (help; Indonesian: tolong)
- basá (wet; Indonesian :basa)
- lalake (man,male; Indonesian :lalaki)
- mura (cheap; Indonesian :murah)
- mahal (expensive; Indonesian :mahal)
- Sayang! (What a waste! -expression-; Indonesian :Sayang!)
- lima (five; Indonesian :lima)
- dating (to come; Indonesian :datang)
- inum (drink; Indonesian :meminum, Japanese:nomu)
- anak (son/daughter; Indonesian :anak)
- yung (that-adjective-; Indonesian :yang)
- si (person subject designate;Indonesian:si)
- kanan (right side;Indonesian:kanan)
- kalabaw (water buffalo;Indonesian:kerbau)
- Salamat.(Thank you;Indonesian:Selamat--Congratulations,Welcome,Good--)
Tagalog as a source of words
Tagalog itself has contributed a few words into English. The word boondocks, which means 'rural' or 'back country', was imported by American soldiers stationed in the Philippines from the Tagalog bundok, which means 'mountain.' Another word is cogon, which is a type of grass, used for thatching. This word came from the Tagalog word kugon.
Writing system
Modern Tagalog is written using a modified Latin alphabet. Tagalog used to have diacritics in written text to indicate pronunciation, but has gradually been dropped in modern texts. The only diacritic remaining is the tilde (~), which is used for the letter ñ.
Peculiarities of note are the words ng ( pronounced nang) and mga ( pronounced ma-nga).
There was also a precolonial writing system ultimately derived from the Indian Brahmic scripts called baybayin (also called alibata). This script is part of Unicode and is called Tagalog. Usage of this writing system has died out in favor of the Latin alphabet.
Examples
There is a Tagalog Wikipedia at tl.wikipedia.org
Numbers
Spanish and English based numbers are frequently used aside from the following. Spanish based numbers are used in revealing one's age, telling time, games, and sometimes when dealing with currencies aside from other purposes.
1 isa uno 2 dalawa dos 3 tatlo tres 4 apat kuwatro 5 lima singko 6 anim sais 7 pito siyete 8 walo otso 9 siyam nuebe 10 sampu diyes 11 labing-isa onse 12 labingdalawa dose 13 labingtatlo trese 14 labing-apat katorse 15 labing-anim kinse 20 dalawampu beinte 21 dalawampu't isa beinte uno 30 tatlumpu trenta 40 apatnapu kuwarenta 50 limampu singkuwenta 60 animnapu sisenta 70 pitumpu sitenta 80 walumpu otsenta 90 siyamnapu nobenta 100 daan siyento 1000 libo mil
Days of the week
week linggo Monday lunes Tuesday martes Wednesday miyerkules Thursday huwebes Friday biyernes Saturday sabado Sunday linggo
Months of the year
month buwan January Enero February Pebrero March Marso April Abril May Mayo June Hunyo July Hulyo August Agosto September Setyembre October Oktubre November Nobyembre December Disyembre
Common expressions
How are [you]? Kumusta? Good morning Magandang umaga Good afternoon Magandang hapon Good evening Magandang gabi What is your name? Ano ang pangalan mo? or better Ano'ng pangalan mo? Goodbye Paalam