Tagalog (Filipino)

Introduction

History
The word Tagálog is derived from tagá-ílog, from tagá- "native"+ ílog "river." Little is known about the history of Tagalog due to the absence of written records prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines in the 16th century. The first book in Tagalog was Doctrina Cristiana published in 1593. The first grammars and dictionaries of Tagalog were created by Spanish clergymen during the 300-year Spanish occupation of the Philippines.

Tagalog is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines and functions as its lingua franca. It is spoken in central and southern Luzon, in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and on some of the other islands. According to the Philippine Census of 2000, 21.5 million people claim Tagalog as their first language. Ethnologue puts the number somewhat lower at 15 million. It is estimated that 50 million Filipinos speak Tagalog as a second language. Tagalog is also spoken in Canada, Guam, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and USA. It is the sixth most-spoken language in the US and the lingua franca of Filipinos anywhere in the world. It is also the language of major literary works, of films, and of the media.

Tagalog became the official languageof the Philippines when they gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946. From 1961 to 1987, Tagalog was also known as Pilipino. In 1987, the name was changed to Filipino. Since 1940, Tagalog has been taught in schools throughout the Philippines. Today, it is the only one of over 160 Philippine languages taught in schools.

Many Filipinos fluent in English frequently switch between Tagalog and English for a variety of reasons. This mixed language is called Taglish. It is more common among educated city dwellers than in rural areas. Frequent contact between Tagalog and Spanish during the Spanish occupation of the Philippines has resulted in Philippine Creole Spanish known as Chabacano.

There are four major mutually intelligible dialects of Tagalog.

Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Tagalog is spoken in the United States.

Structure

Sound System

children

small girl

Tagalog is a non-tonal language with a relatively small number of phonemes.

Vowels
Tagalog has 5 vowel phonemes: /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/.

Consonants
Tagalog has 16 consonant phonemes. It does not have the sounds /f/ and /v/ common in most languages. As a result, the word Filipino is pronounced as /pilipino/.

Syllable structure and stress
Tagalog syllables have a relatively simple structure. Most syllables are either open (end in a vowel) or in /n/, /ng/ or /m/. The sound /ng/ can occur at the beginning of words. Stress falls on either the last or the next-to-the-last syllable and is accompanied by lengthening of the vowel.

Click here to listen to some basic conversational phrases in Tagalog.

Grammar

man carrying bananas

woman

child sitting

Grammar
Tagalog grammar is fairly complex.

Noun phrase
While Tagalog nouns are not inflected, they are usually preceded by case markers. One set of case markers is used for names of people (personal markers), and the other set for all the other nouns (common markers).

Absolutive (nominative) markers indicate the actor of an intransitive verb and the object of an transitive verb;
Ergative (genitive) markers indicate the actor of a transitive verb and the object of an intransitive verb. They also mark possession.
Oblique markers are similar to English spatial prepositions.

	Absolutive	Ergative	Oblique
Common singular	ang	ng	sa
Common plural	ang mga	ng mga	sa mga
Personal singular	si	ni	kay
Personal plural	sina	nina	kina

For example,

Absolutive common singular	Dumating ang lalaki. Arrived the man." ("The man arrived.")
Absolutive personal singular	Nakita ni Juan si Maria. Saw Juan Maria. ("Juan saw Maria.")

Verb phrase
Tagalog verbs are morphologically complex and take on a variety of affixes to mark focus,tense, aspect, and mood. Verbal affixes consist of a variety of prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and circumfixes.

An interesting feature of verbs in Tagalog and in other Malayo-Polynesian languages is its focus system. This means that the role or relationship of the noun marked by the absolutive marker is reflected in the verb. There are six main types of focus: actor, object, location, beneficiary, instrument, and reason. All of the focuses, with the exception of the actor focus, are naturally transitive.

Sentence structure
Tagalog word order is normally Verb-Subject-Object, as you can see in the examples above.

Click here to learn more about Tagalog grammar.

Vocabulary

Tagalog has loanwords from Spanish, Min Nan Chinese, English, Malay, Sanskrit, Arabic, Tamil, Persian, and other Austronesian languages. A considerable portion of Tagalog vocabulary derives from Sanskrit and Tamil. It is interesting to note that Tagalog contains about twice as many Sanskrit words as the Visayan languages such as Cebuano or Ilocano.This suggests that Manila may have held a prominent position in the trade routes. Much of Sanskrit vocabulary pertains to words that relate to religious and intellectual concepts.

Here are some examples of borrowings from Spanish and English:

Tagalog	Origin
kabayo	From Spanish caballo "horse"
kotse	From Spanish coche "car"
nars	From English nurse
drayber	From English driver

Take a look at this paragraph from the Tagalog-language newspaper Philstar. Find as many words as you can that look like borrowings from Spanish or from English. Remember also that Tagalog does not have an /f/. It uses /p/ instead of /f/ in borrowed words.

Tama ang aksiyon ng Presidente na imbestigahan ang kasangkot pero mas magiging epektibo kung agad niyang ipag-uutos ang pagdurog sa illegal na sugal. Isang kumpas lang naman niya at siguradong the end ang jueteng. Sa ganitong paraan lamang matatapos ang problema sa jueteng na pati pamilya niya ay nahahatak sa kontrobersiya.

Writing

Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century, Tagalog was written in an syllabic script, based on the Brahmi script, called Baybayin, which was popular until the 17th century. It was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet that is still in use today.

The alphabet was revised several times. The most recent reform occurred in 1987. The number of letters was reduced from 33 to 28:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N N Ng O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Tagalog.

Can you find any noun markers in it?
Can you find any words that contain consonant clusters?

Ang lahat ng tao'y isinilang na malaya at pantay-pantay sa karangalan at mga karapatan. Sila'y pinagkalooban ng katwiran at budhi at dapat magpalagayan ang isa't isa sa diwa ng pagkakapatiran.

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Tagalog words in English
Did you know that these English words came from Tagalog?

boondocks	from Tagalog bundok "mountain." Adopted by occupying American soldiers in the Philippines for "remote and wild place." Reinforced or re-adopted during World War II.
manila	capital of the Philippines, gave its name to manilla hemp (1814), original source of manilla paper
yo-yo	Apparently from a language of the Philippines. Registered as a trademark in Vancoucer, Canada, in 1932, the year the first craze for them began.

Resources

Tagalog language learning resources
Tagalog Lessons Online from Northern Illinois University Southeast Asia Site
Less Commonly Taught Languages Course Offerings
UCLA Language Materials Project
Yamada Language Center Guides - Tagalog/Filipino
Filipino Study Abroad
Filipino and Filipino Literature Resources