Tagalog language

Tagalog was used as the basis for the national language Filipino language by the National Language Institue.

Tagalog
Spoken in:	Philippines
Total speakers:	17 Million (native), 50 million (secondary)
Ranking:	58
Genetic classification:	Austronesian   Malayo-Polynesian   Western    Meso Philippine     Central Philippine      Tagalog
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

Unlike in English, 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.

Vowels

Consonants

Phonology

Historical sound changes

Grammar

Nouns

Pronouns

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 preceeding 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 reffered 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.

Vocabulary

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.

Due to foreign colonial influences from Spain and the United States, Tagalog has adopted many words coming from Spanish and English (mainly American English). Tagalog has also adopted words from Chinese, Hindu, and Arabic, due to precolonial trade with mainland Asian cultures. Spanish, however, has contributed the most number of words to Tagalog. In fact, many speakers of Tagalog are unaware that many of the words they use are of Spanish origin. Some examples are:

• 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)

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

Days of the week

Months of the year

Common expressions

See also

• Languages of the Philippines
• Filipino
• Cebuano
• Kapampangan

External links

• Ethnologue report for Tagalog

• Northern Illinois University Tagalog page

• Tagalog Learner's Home - Tagalog language training for non-speakers. Features sound recordings, the 100 most frequently used verbs and the 500 most frequently used words, exercises and self-tests.

Referenced By