Tagalog is an Austronesian language, commonly spoken in the Philippines, and is the basis for the national language called Filipino. There are an estimated 15 million native speakers of Tagalog and about 50 million others who speak it as a second language. Tagalog is given the ISO 639 codes of tl and tgl.
Due to three centuries of colonization by Spain, many Spanish words have been incorporated into Tagalog. The Tagalog phrase “Kumusta?” (How are [you]?) directly came from the Spanish “¿Cómo estás?”. Foreign concepts such as names of the week and months have been directly adopted. In many other cases, there are equivalent Spanish and Tagalog terms, which can be used interchangeably. An example is the Tagalog words for chair which are upuan, and silya. Silya was adopted from the Spanish silla.
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.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Phonology 3 Loan words 4 Tagalog words and phrases 5 Related Articles 6 External Link |
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.
Grammar
Nouns
Pronouns
| 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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
The common diacritic used was the circumflex accent (ˆ). It was placed over a final vowel to indicate a stress and glottal stop after that vowel. For example, the verb basâ (to wet) is pronounced bah-SA as opposed to the verb bása (to read), which is pronounced BAH-sah.
Before the Spanish came to the Philippines, Tagalog had a script called baybayin (also called alibata), which has largely been replaced with a Latin-based script. This script is part of Unicode and is called Tagalog.
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:
Verbs
Sentence patterns
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.Phonology
Pronunciation and diacritics
Baybayin, the Tagalog script
Loan 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.Tagalog words and phrases
Numbers
1 isa
2 dalawa
3 tatlo
4 apat
5 lima
6 anim
7 pito
8 walo
9 siyam
10 sampu
11 labing-isa
12 labingdalawa
13 labingtatlo
20 dalawampu
30 tatlumpu
40 apatnapu
50 limampu
60 animnapu
70 pitumpu
80 walumpu
90 siyamnapu
100 daan
1000 libo
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
Related Articles
External Link