Tagalog

This article is about the national language of the Philippines. For an overview of all languages spoken in the Philippines, see Languages of the Philippines.

**Tagalog** is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by the ethnic Tagalog people, who make up a quarter of the population of the Philippines, and as a second language by the majority. Its standardized form, officially named *Filipino*, is the national language of the Philippines, and is ne of two official languages, alongside English.

Tagalog is closely related to other Philippine languages, such as the Bikol languages, Ilocano, the Bisayan languages, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan, and more distantly to other Austronesian languages, such as the Formosan languages of Taiwan, Malay (of many varieties include Indonesian), Hawaiian, Māori, and Malagasy.

 Region
 Ethnicity
 Native speakers
 Language family
* Malayo-Polynesian
	+ Philippine
		- Greater Central Philippine
			* Central Philippine
 Early forms
* Proto-Malayo-Polynesian
	+ Proto-Philippine
		- Old Tagalog
 Standard forms
 Dialects
* Batangas
* Bulacan
* Lubang
* Manila
* Marinduque
* Tanay–Paete (Eastern Rizal-Northern Laguna)
 Writing system
Philippine Braille
 Official language in

 Recognised minority
language in
 Regulated by
 ISO 639-1
 Linguasphere
  Countries with more than 500,000 speakers
 Countries with between 100,000–500,000 speakers
 Countries where it is spoken by minor communities

## Classification

Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages, such as Malagasy, Javanese, Malay (incl. Malaysian Malay and Indonesian), Tetum (of Timor), and Yami (of Taiwan). It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol Region and the Visayas islands, such as the Bikol group and the Visayan group, including Waray-Waray, Hiligaynon and Cebuano.

Tagalog differs from its Central Philippine counterparts with its treatment of the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel \*ə. In most Bikol and Visayan languages, this sound merged with /u/ and [o]. In Tagalog, it has merged with /i/. For example, Proto-Philippine \*dəkət (adhere, stick) is Tagalog *dikít* and Visayan & Bikol *dukot*.

Proto-Philippine \*r, \*j, and \*z merged with /d/ but is /l/ between vowels. Proto-Philippine \*ŋajan (name) and \*hajək (kiss) became Tagalog *ngalan* and *halík*.

Proto-Philippine \*R merged with /ɡ/. \*tubiR (water) and \*zuRuʔ (blood) became Tagalog *tubig* and *dugô*.

## History[edit]

Main article: Old Tagalog

The word *Tagalog* is derived from the endonym *taga-ilog* ("river dweller"), composed of *tagá-* ("native of" or "from") and *ilog* ("river"). Linguists such as David Zorc and Robert Blust speculate that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine ethno-linguistic groups originated in Northeastern Mindanao or the Eastern Visayas.

Possible words of Old Tagalog origin are attested in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription from the tenth century, which is largely written in Old Malay. The first known complete book to be written in Tagalog is the *Doctrina Christiana* (Christian Doctrine), printed in 1593. The *Doctrina* was written in Spanish and two transcriptions of Tagalog; one in the ancient, then-current Baybayin script and the other in an early Spanish attempt at a Latin orthography for the language.
*Vocabulario de la lengua tagala*, 1794.
Throughout the 333 years of Spanish rule, various grammars and dictionaries were written by Spanish clergymen. In 1610, the Dominican priest Francisco Blancas de San Jose published the *Arte y reglas de la lengua tagala* (which was subsequently revised with two editions in 1752 and 1832) in Bataan. In 1613, the Franciscan priest Pedro de San Buenaventura published the first Tagalog dictionary, his *Vocabulario de la lengua tagala* in Pila, Laguna.

The first substantial dictionary of the Tagalog language was written by the Czech Jesuit missionary Pablo Clain in the beginning of the 18th century. Clain spoke Tagalog and used it actively in several of his books. He prepared the dictionary, which he later passed over to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. Further compilation of his substantial work was prepared by P. Juan de Noceda and P. Pedro de Sanlucar and published as *Vocabulario de la lengua tagala* in Manila in 1754 and then repeatedly reedited, with the last edition being in 2013 in Manila.

Among others, *Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos* (1850) in addition to early studies of the language.

The indigenous poet Francisco Balagtas (1788–1862) is known as the foremost Tagalog writer, his most notable work being the early 19th-century epic *Florante at Laura*.

 Mag-aaral siya sa Maynila.
 Magluto ka na.
 Kainin mo iyan.
 Tinatawag tayo ni Tatay.
 Tutulungan ba kayo ni Hilario?

### Latin alphabet

#### Abecedario

Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called '**ABECEDARIO'** (Spanish for "alphabet"). The additional letters from the 26-letter English alphabet are: ch, ll, ng, ñ, n͠g / ñg, and rr.