Tagalog (ta-GA-log) is the national language of the
Republic of the Philippines. It was officially renamed Pilipino in 1961. Today, it is
taught in the elementary and secondary schools of the Philippines, where it is spoken by
approximately 45 million people. In the United States, there are at least 900,000 speakers
of Tagalog.
The Tagalog people migrated to the island of Luzon from the
Malay Peninsula and settled around the area which today encompasses the city of Manila.
Tagalog was selected as the national language of the Philippines in 1946 because it had a
rich literary tradition, it was the most widely spoken language in the Republic, and it
was considered the language of the revolution against colonialism.
Tagalog is a member of the Western group of
Malayo-Polynesian languages. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are unique and do not appear
to be related to any other language group. Other Malayo-Polynesian languages include:
Malagasy, Malay, and Indonesian.
Other languages of the Philippine Islands include: Visayan,
Pampangan, Bikol, and Ilocano. As a result of rule by the United States from 1899 to 1941,
English is widely spoken and serves as a second official language.
The Tagalog alphabet consists of twenty letters: 15
consonants and 5 vowels. Tagalog has had a written form for hundreds of years. Over time,
many words from Malay, Spanish, and English have been introduced. Tagalog grammar has
retained its original form and has remained unchanged as new words have been incorporated.
Some of the vocabulary in Tagalog will be familiar to
speakers of English:
bangko means
bank,
sero means
zero,
tiket means
ticket, and
kompyuter is recognizable as
computer.
But don’t be fooled, there are many other words that look the same yet carry very
different meanings! For example,
at means
and,
noon means
at that
time rather than "midday", and
mama means
uncle or
mister.
Did you know that the English word
boondocks is from
Tagalog? In Tagalog,
bundok means
mountain.
In Tagalog, the particle
po is used to
express respect to the person to whom you are speaking. If you meet a friend on the street
you might say,
Magandang araw (literally,
beautiful day). If you meet an
older person or a stranger you might say
Magandang araw po.
Po is often
translated as "sir" or "ma’am".
The sentence order in Tagalog is markedly different
from the sentence structure to which we are accustomed. We might say "The crocodile
is big." A native speaker of Tagalog would probably say "Malaki ang
buwaya," or "Big the crocodile."
To express plurals in Tagalog, the particle
mga is
often used. For example, "the child" would be "ang bata"; "the
children" would be "ang
mga bata".
Most nouns in Tagalog are neuter, but some of the nouns
which have been borrowed from Spanish are gender specific. Of these, the feminine nouns
such as "
blusa" (blouse) almost always end in "a" while the
masculine nouns such as "
amo" (boss) usually end in "o".
Using numbers in Tagalog can be difficult because native
speakers use not only Tagalog, but also Spanish and English numbers! Dates, for example,
may be expressed in any of these languages. You might hear "sa August one" on
August first; "unang araw ng Nobyembre" on November first, or even
"a-primero ng Mayo" for May first! If you learn both Spanish and Tagalog numbers
you’ll be better equipped to deal with situations involving numbers such as dates,
times, prices, and measurements.
Tagalog is a phonetic language and the letters and letter
combinations virtually always have the same pronunciation.
It can be a lot of fun to learn Tagalog with good
Tagalog software programs!
