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Tagalog
.mw-parser-output .script-baybayin{font-family:"Tagalog Doctrina 1593","Baybayin Lopez","Tagalog Stylized","Noto Sans Tagalog",Code2000} ᜏᜒᜃᜅ᜔ ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔ Wikang Tagalog
Pronunciation	[tɐˈɡaːloɡ]
Native to	Philippines
Region	Manila, Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon
Ethnicity	Tagalog people
Native speakers	28 million (2007)[1] 45 million L2 speakers (2013)[2] Total: 70+ million (2000)[3]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Philippine Central Philippine Tagalog
Early forms	Proto-Philippine Old Tagalog Classical Tagalog
Standard forms	Filipino
Dialects	Bataan Batangas Bulacan Lubang Manila Marinduque Tanay–Paete (Rizal-Laguna) Tayabas (Quezon) Mindoro
Writing system	Latin (Tagalog/Filipino alphabet), Philippine Braille Baybayin (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Philippines (in the form of Filipino)
Recognised minority language in	Philippines (Regional language; apart from national standard of Filipino)
Regulated by	Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tl
ISO 639-2	tgl
ISO 639-3	tgl – inclusive code Individual code: fil – Filipino
Glottolog	taga1280  Tagalogic[4] taga1269  Tagalog/Filipino[5]
Linguasphere	31-CKA
Predominantly Tagalog-speaking regions in the Philippines. The color-schemes represent the four dialect zones of the language: Northern, Central, Southern and Marinduque. The majority of residents in Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur speak Bikol as their first language but these provinces nonetheless have significant Tagalog minorities. In addition, Tagalog is used as a second language throughout the Philippines.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For a guide to IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tagalog (/təˈɡɑːlɒɡ/;^[6]Tagalog pronunciation: [tɐˈɡaːloɡ]) is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a quarter of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by the majority.^[7][8] Its standardized form, officially named Filipino, is the national language of the Philippines, and is one of two official languages alongside English.

It is related to other Philippine languages, such as the Bikol languages, Ilocano, the Visayan languages, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan, and more distantly to other Austronesian languages, such as the Formosan languages of Taiwan, Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Hawaiian, Māori, and Malagasy. Tagalog is the predominant language used in the tanaga, a type of Filipino poem and the indigenous poetic art of the Tagalog people.

History

The Tagalog Baybayin script

The word Tagalog is derived from the endonym taga-log ("river dweller"), composed of tagá- ("native of" or "from") and ilog ("river"). Linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust speculate that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine ethno-linguistic groups originated in Northeastern Mindanao or the Eastern Visayas.^[9][10]

The first written record of Tagalog is the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, which dates to 900 CE and exhibits fragments of the language along with Sanskrit, Old Malay, Javanese and Old Tagalog. 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.

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.^[11] 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^[12] reedited, with the last edition being in 2013 in Manila.^[13]

Among others, Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850) in addition to early studies^[14] of the language.

The indigenous poet Francisco Baltazar (1788–1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer, his most notable work being the early 19th-century epic Florante at Laura.^[15]

Historical changes

Diariong Tagalog (Tagalog Newspaper), the first bilingual newspaper in the Philippines founded in 1882 written in both Tagalog and Spanish.

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.

Official status

Tagalog was declared the official language by the first revolutionary constitution in the Philippines, the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato in 1897.^[16]

In 1935, the Philippine constitution designated English and Spanish as official languages, but mandated the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages.^[17] After study and deliberation, the National Language Institute, a committee composed of seven members who represented various regions in the Philippines, chose Tagalog as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines.^[18][19] President Manuel L. Quezon then, on December 30, 1937, proclaimed the selection of the Tagalog language to be used as the basis for the evolution and adoption of the national language of the Philippines.^[18] In 1939, President Quezon renamed the proposed Tagalog-based national language as Wikang Pambansâ (national language).^[19] Under the Japanese puppet government during World War II, Tagalog as a national language was strongly promoted; the 1943 Constitution specifying: The government shall take steps toward the development and propagation of Tagalog as the national language.".

In 1959, the language was further renamed as "Pilipino".^[19] Along with English, the national language has had official status under the 1973 constitution (as "Pilipino")^[20] and the present 1987 constitution (as Filipino).

Controversy

The adoption of Tagalog in 1937 as basis for a national language is not without its own controversies. Instead of specifying Tagalog, the national language was designated as Wikang Pambansâ ("National Language") in 1939.^[18][21] Twenty years later, in 1959, it was renamed by then Secretary of Education, José Romero, as Pilipino to give it a national rather than ethnic label and connotation. The changing of the name did not, however, result in acceptance among non-Tagalogs, especially Cebuanos who had not accepted the selection.^[19]

The national language issue was revived once more during the 1971 Constitutional Convention. Majority of the delegates were even in favor of scrapping the idea of a "national language" altogether.^[22] A compromise solution was worked out—a "universalist" approach to the national language, to be called Filipino rather than Pilipino. The 1973 constitution makes no mention of Tagalog. When a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, it named Filipino as the national language.^[19] The constitution specified that as the Filipino language evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages. However, more than two decades after the institution of the "universalist" approach, there seems to be little if any difference between Tagalog and Filipino.

Many of the older generation in the Philippines feel that the replacement of English by Tagalog in the popular visual media has had dire economic effects regarding the competitiveness of the Philippines in trade and overseas remittances.^[23]

Use in education

Upon the issuance of Executive Order No. 134, Tagalog was declared as basis of the National Language. On 12th of April 1940, Executive No. 263 was issued ordering the teaching of the national language in all public and private schools in the country. ^[24]

Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines specifies, in part:

Subject to provisions of law and as the Congress may deem appropriate, the Government shall take steps to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.

— ^[25]

The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.

— ^[25]

In 2009, the Department of Education promulgated an order institutionalizing a system of mother-tongue based multilingual education ("MLE"), wherein instruction is conducted primarily in a student's mother tongue (one of the various regional Philippine languages) until at least grade three, with additional languages such as Filipino and English being introduced as separate subjects no earlier than grade two. In secondary school, Filipino and English become the primary languages of instruction, with the learner's first language taking on an auxiliary role.^[26] After pilot tests in selected schools, the MLE program was implemented nationwide from School Year (SY) 2012-2013.^[27][28]

It is the first language of a quarter of the population of the Philippines (particularly in Central Luzon) and a second language of the majority.^[29]

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 (Malaysian and Indonesian), Tetum (of Timor), and Yami (of Taiwan).^[30] 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 Hiligaynon and Cebuano.^[30]

Dialects

The Ten Commandments in Tagalog.

At present, no comprehensive dialectology has been done in the Tagalog-speaking regions, though there have been descriptions in the form of dictionaries and grammars of various Tagalog dialects. Ethnologue lists Manila, Lubang, Marinduque, Bataan (Western Central Luzon), Batangas, Bulacan (Eastern Central Luzon), Tanay-Paete (Rizal-Laguna), and Tayabas (Quezon) as dialects of Tagalog; however, there appear to be four main dialects, of which the aforementioned are a part: Northern (exemplified by the Bulacan dialect), Central (including Manila), Southern (exemplified by Batangas), and Marinduque.

Some example of dialectal differences are:

• Many Tagalog dialects, particularly those in the south, preserve the glottal stop found after consonants and before vowels. This has been lost in Standard Tagalog. For example, standard Tagalog ngayón (now, today), sinigáng (broth stew), gabí (night), matamís (sweet), are pronounced and written ngay-on, sinig-ang, gab-i, and matam-is in other dialects.


• In Teresian-Morong Tagalog, [ɾ] is usually preferred over [d]. For example, bundók, dagat, dingdíng, and isdâ become bunrók, ragat, ringríng, and isrâ, e.g. "sandók sa dingdíng" becoming "sanrók sa ringríng".


• In many southern dialects, the progressive aspect infix of -um- verbs is na-. For example, standard Tagalog kumakain (eating) is nákáin in Quezon and Batangas Tagalog. This is the butt of some jokes by other Tagalog speakers, for should a Southern Tagalog ask nákáin ka ba ng patíng? ("Do you eat shark?"), he would be understood as saying "Has a shark eaten you?" by speakers of the Manila Dialect.


• Some dialects have interjections which are considered a regional trademark. For example, the interjection ala e! usually identifies someone from Batangas as does hane?! in Rizal and Quezon provinces.

Perhaps the most divergent Tagalog dialects are those spoken in Marinduque.^[31] Linguist Rosa Soberano identifies two dialects, western and eastern, with the former being closer to the Tagalog dialects spoken in the provinces of Batangas and Quezon.

One example is the verb conjugation paradigms. While some of the affixes are different, Marinduque also preserves the imperative affixes, also found in Visayan and Bikol languages, that have mostly disappeared from most Tagalog early 20th century; they have since merged with the infinitive.

Northern and central dialects form the basis for the national language.

Geographic distribution

No dumping sign along the highway in the Laguna province, Philippines.

Welcome sign in Bay, Laguna.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, as of 2014 there were 100 million people living in the Philippines, where almost all of whom will have some basic level of understanding of the language. The Tagalog homeland, Katagalugan, covers roughly much of the central to southern parts of the island of Luzon—particularly in Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Rizal and Zambales. Tagalog is also spoken natively by inhabitants living on the islands of Marinduque and Mindoro, as well as Palawan to a lesser extent. It is spoken by approximately 64 million Filipinos, 96% of the household population;^[32] 22 million, or 28% of the total Philippine population,^[33] speak it as a native language.

Tagalog speakers are found in other parts of the Philippines as well as throughout the world, though its use is usually limited to communication between Filipino ethnic groups. In^[update] 2010, the US Census bureau reported (based on data collected in 2007) that in the United States it was the fourth most-spoken language at home with almost 1.5 million speakers, behind Spanish or Spanish Creole, French (including Patois, Cajun, Creole), and Chinese. Tagalog ranked as the third most spoken language in metropolitan statistical areas, behind Spanish and Chinese but ahead of French.^[34]

Accents

The Tagalog language also boasts accentations unique to some parts of Tagalog-speaking regions. For example, in some parts of Manila, a strong pronunciation of i exists and vowel-switching of o and u exists so words like "gising" (to wake) is pronounced as "giseng" with a strong 'e' and the word "tagu-taguan" (hide-and-go-seek) is pronounced as "tago-tagoan" with a mild 'o'.

Batangas Tagalog boasts the most distinctive accent in Tagalog compared to the more Hispanized northern accents of the language.^{[citation needed][35]} The Batangas accent has been featured in film and television and Filipino actor Leo Martinez speaks with this accent. Martinez's accent, however, will quickly be recognized by native Batangueños as representative of the accent in western Batangas which is milder compared to that used in the eastern part of the province.^{[citation needed]}

Code-switching

Taglish and Englog are names given to a mix of English and Tagalog. The amount of English vs. Tagalog varies from the occasional use of English loan words to changing language in mid-sentence. Such code-switching is prevalent throughout the Philippines and in various languages of the Philippines other than Tagalog.

Code-mixing also entails the use of foreign words that are "Filipinized" by reforming them using Filipino rules, such as verb conjugations. Users typically use Filipino or English words, whichever comes to mind first or whichever is easier to use.

"Magshoshopping kami sa mall. Sino ba ang magdadrive sa shopping center?"

"We will go shopping at the mall. Who will drive to the shopping center?"

City-dwellers are more likely to do this.

The practice is common in television, radio, and print media as well. Advertisements from companies like Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart, Albertsons, McDonald's, and Western Union have contained Taglish.

Phonology

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tagalog has 33 phonemes: 19 of them are consonants and 14 are vowels. Syllable structure is relatively simple, being maximally consonant-ar-vowel-consonant, where consonant-ar only occurs in borrowed words such as trak "truck" or sombréro "hat".^[36]

Vowels

Tagalog has ten simple vowels, five long and five short, and four diphthongs.^[36] Before appearing in the area north of Pasig river, Tagalog had three vowel qualities: /a/, /i/, and /u/. This was later expanded to five with the introduction of words from Northern Philippine languages like Kapampangan and Ilocano and Spanish words.

• 
  /a/ an open central unrounded vowel roughly similar to English "father"; in the middle of a word, a near-open central vowel similar to Received Pronunciation "cup"; or an open front unrounded vowel similar to Received Pronunciation or California English "hat"


• 
  /ɛ/ an open-mid front unrounded vowel similar to General American English "bed"


• 
  /i/ a close front unrounded vowel similar to English "machine"


• 
  /o/ a mid back rounded vowel similar to General American English "soul" or Philippine English "forty"


• 
  /u/ a close back rounded vowel similar to English "flute"

Nevertheless, simplification of pairs [o ~ u] and [ɛ ~ i] is likely to take place, especially in some Tagalog as second language, remote location and worker class registers.

The four diphthongs are /aj/, /uj/, /aw/, and /iw/. Long vowels are not written apart from pedagogical texts, where an acute accent is used: á é í ó ú.^[36]

The table above shows all the possible realizations for each of the five vowel sounds depending on the speaker's origin or proficiency. The five general vowels are in bold.

Consonants

Below is a chart of Tagalog consonants. All the stops are unaspirated. The velar nasal occurs in all positions including at the beginning of a word. Loanword variants using these phonemes are italicized inside the angle brackets.

• 
  /k/ between vowels has a tendency to become [x] as in loch, German "Bach", whereas in the initial position it has a tendency to become [kx], especially in the Manila dialect.


• Intervocalic /ɡ/ and /k/ tend to become [ɰ], as in Spanish "agua", especially in the Manila dialect.


• 
  /ɾ/ and /d/ were once allophones, and they still vary grammatically, with initial /d/ becoming intervocalic /ɾ/ in many words.^[36]
  


• A glottal stop that occurs in pausa (before a pause) is omitted when it is in the middle of a phrase,^[36] especially in the Metro Manila area. The vowel it follows is then lengthened. However, it is preserved in many other dialects.


• The /ɾ/ phoneme is an alveolar rhotic that has a free variation between a trill, a flap and an approximant ([r~ɾ~ɹ]).


• The /dʒ/ phoneme may become a consonant cluster [dd͡ʒ] in between vowels such as sadyâ [sadˈd͡ʒäʔ].

Glottal stop is not indicated.^[36] Glottal stops are most likely to occur when:

• the word starts with a vowel, like "aso" (dog)


• the word includes a dash followed by a vowel, like "mag-aral" (study)


• the word has two vowels next to each other, like "paano" (how)


• the word starts with a prefix followed by a verb that starts with a vowel, like "mag-aayos" ([will] fix)

Lexical stress

Lexical stress, coupled with glottalization, is a distinctive feature in Tagalog. Primary stress normally occurs on either the final or the penultimate syllable of a word. Long vowel accompany primary or secondary stress unless the stress occurs at the end of a word.

Tagalog words are often distinguished from one another by the position of the stress and the presence of the glottal stop. In general, there are four types of phonetic emphases, which, in formal or academic settings, are indicated with a diacritic (tuldík) above the vowel. The penultimate primary stress position (malumay) is the default stress type and so is left unwritten except in dictionaries. The name of each stress type has its corresponding diacritic in the final vowel.

Grammar

Writing system

This article contains Baybayin script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Baybayin characters.

Tagalog, like other Philippines languages today, is written using the Latin alphabet. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1521 and the beginning of their colonization in 1565, Tagalog was written in an abugida–or alphasyllabary—called Baybayin. This system of writing gradually gave way to the use and propagation of the Latin alphabet as introduced by the Spanish. As the Spanish began to record and create grammars and dictionaries for the various languages of the Philippine archipelago, they adopted systems of writing closely following the orthographic customs of the Spanish language and were refined over the years. Until the first half of the 20th century, most Philippine languages were widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography.

In the late 19th century, a number of educated Filipinos began proposing for revising the spelling system used for Tagalog at the time. In 1884, Filipino doctor and student of languages Trinidad Pardo de Tavera published his study on the ancient Tagalog script Contribucion para el Estudio de los Antiguos Alfabetos Filipinos and in 1887, published his essay El Sanscrito en la lengua Tagalog which made use of a new writing system developed by him. Meanwhile, Jose Rizal, inspired by Pardo de Tavera's 1884 work, also began developing a new system of orthography (unaware at first of Pardo de Tavera's own orthography).^[37] A major noticeable change in these proposed orthographies was the use of the letter ⟨k⟩ rather than ⟨c⟩ and ⟨q⟩ to represent the phoneme /k/.

In 1889, the new bilingual Spanish-Tagalog La España Oriental newspaper, of which Isabelo de los Reyes was an editor, began publishing using the new orthography stating in a footnote that it would "use the orthography recently introduced by ... learned Orientalis". This new orthography, while having its supporters, was also not initially accepted by several writers. Soon after the first issue of La España, Pascual H. Poblete's Revista Católica de Filipina began a series of articles attacking the new orthography and its proponents. A fellow writer, Pablo Tecson was also critical. Among the attacks was the use of the letters "k" and "w" as they were deemed to be of German origin and thus its proponents were deemed as "unpatriotic". The publishers of these two papers would eventually merge as La Lectura Popular in January 1890 and would eventually make use of both spelling systems in its articles.^[38][37] Pedro Laktaw, a schoolteacher, published the first Spanish-Tagalog dictionary using the new orthography in 1890.^[38]

In April 1890, Jose Rizal authored an article Sobre la Nueva Ortografia de la Lengua Tagalog in the Madrid-based periodical La Solidaridad. In it, he addressed the criticisms of the new writing system by writers like Pobrete and Tecson and the simplicity, in his opinion, of the new orthography. Rizal described the orthography promoted by Pardo de Tavera as "more perfect" than what he himself had developed.^[38] The new orthography was however not broadly adopted initially and was used inconsistently in the bilingual periodicals of Manila until the early 20th century.^[38] The revolutionary society Kataás-taasan, Kagalang-galang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃á Anak ng̃ Bayan or Katipunan made use of the k-orthography and the letter k featured prominently on many of its flags and insignias.^[38]

In 1937, Tagalog was selected to serve as basis for the country's national language. In 1940, the Balarílà ng Wikang Pambansâ (English: Grammar of the National Language) of grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced the Abakada alphabet. This alphabet consists of 20 letters and became the standard alphabet of the national language.^[39] The orthography as used by Tagalog would eventually influence and spread to the systems of writing used by other Philippine languages (which had been using variants of the Spanish-based system of writing). In 1987, the ABAKADA was dropped and in its place is the expanded Filipino alphabet.

Baybayin

Tagalog was written in an abugida—or alphasyllabary—called Baybayin prior to the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, in the 16th century. This particular writing system was composed of symbols representing three vowels and 14 consonants. Belonging to the Brahmic family of scripts, it shares similarities with the Old Kawi script of Java and is believed to be descended from the script used by the Bugis in Sulawesi.

Although it enjoyed a relatively high level of literacy, Baybayin gradually fell into disuse in favor of the Latin alphabet taught by the Spaniards during their rule.

There has been confusion of how to use Baybayin, which is actually an abugida, or an alphasyllabary, rather than an alphabet. Not every letter in the Latin alphabet is represented with one of those in the Baybayin alphasyllabary. Rather than letters being put together to make sounds as in Western languages, Baybayin uses symbols to represent syllables.

A "kudlit" resembling an apostrophe is used above or below a symbol to change the vowel sound after its consonant. If the kudlit is used above, the vowel is an "E" or "I" sound. If the kudlit is used below, the vowel is an "O" or "U" sound. A special kudlit was later added by Spanish missionaries in which a cross placed below the symbol to get rid of the vowel sound all together, leaving a consonant. Previously, the consonant without a following vowel was simply left out (for example, bundok being rendered as budo), forcing the reader to use context when reading such words.

Example:

Baybayin is encoded in Unicode version 3.2 in the range 1700-171F under the name "Tagalog".

a

e/i

o/u

ka	ga	nga
ta	da/ra	na
pa	ba	ma

ya

la

wa

sa

ha

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"):^[40][41]

Abakada

When the national language was based on Tagalog, grammarian Lope K. Santos introduced a new alphabet consisting of 20 letters called ABAKADA in school grammar books called balarilà:^[42][43][44]

Revised alphabet

In 1987, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports issued a memo stating that the Philippine alphabet had changed from the Pilipino-Tagalog Abakada version to a new 28-letter alphabet^[45][46] to make room for loans, especially family names from Spanish and English:^[47]

ng and mga

The genitive marker ng and the plural marker mga (e.g. Iyan ang mga damit ko. (Those are my clothes)) are abbreviations that are pronounced nang [naŋ] and mangá [mɐˈŋa]. Ng, in most cases, roughly translates to "of" (ex. Siya ay kapatid ng nanay ko. She is the sibling of my mother) while nang usually means "when" or can describe how something is done or to what extent (equivalent to the suffix -ly in English adverbs), among other uses.

• 
  Nang si Hudas ay nadulás.—When Judas slipped.


• 
  Gumising siya nang maaga.—He woke up early.


• 
  Gumalíng nang todo si Juan dahil nag-ensayo siya.—Juan greatly improved because he practiced.

In the first example, nang is used in lieu of the word noong (when; Noong si Hudas ay madulas). In the second, nang describes that the person woke up (gumising) early (maaga); gumising nang maaga. In the third, nang described up to what extent that Juan improved (gumaling), which is "greatly" (nang todo). In the latter two examples, the ligature na and its variants -ng and -g may also be used (Gumising na maaga/Maagang gumising; Gumaling na todo/Todong gumaling).

The longer nang may also have other uses, such as a ligature that joins a repeated word:

• 
  Naghintáy sila nang naghintáy.—They kept on waiting" (a closer calque: "They were waiting and waiting.")

pô/hô and opò/ohò

The words pô/hô and opò/ohò are traditionally used as polite iterations of the affirmative "oo" ("yes"). It is generally used when addressing elders or superiors such as bosses or teachers.

"Pô" and "opò" are specifically used to denote a high level of respect when addressing older persons of close affinity like parents, relatives, teachers and family friends. "Hô" and "ohò" are generally used to politely address older neighbours, strangers, public officials, bosses and nannies, and may suggest a distance in societal relationship and respect determined by the addressee's social rank and not their age. However, "pô" and "opò" can be used in any case in order to express an elevation of respect.

• Example: "Pakitapon naman pô/ho yung basura." ("Please throw away the trash.")

Used in the affirmative:

• Ex: "Gutóm ka na ba?" "Opò/Ohò". ("Are you hungry yet?" "Yes.")

Pô/Hô may also be used in negation.

• Ex: "Hindi ko pô/hô alam 'yan." ("I don't know that.")

Vocabulary and borrowed words

Tagalog vocabulary is composed mostly of words of native Austronesian origin - most of the words that end with the diphthongs -iw, (e.g. saliw) and those words that exhibit reduplication (e.g. halo-halo, patpat, etc.). However it has a significant number of Spanish loanwords. Spanish is the language that has bequeathed the most loanwords to Tagalog.

Tagalog also includes many loanwords from English, Indian languages (Sanskrit and Tamil), Chinese languages (Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin), Japanese, Arabic and Persian.

Due to trade with Mexico via the Manila galleons from the 16th to the 19th centuries, many words from Nahuatl were introduced to Tagalog, but some of them were replaced by Spanish loanwords in the latter part of the Spanish colonization in the islands.

The Philippines has long been a melting pot of nations. The islands have been subject to different influences and a meeting point of numerous migrations since the early prehistoric origins of trading activities, especially from the time of the Neolithic Period, Silk Road, Tang Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Ryukyu Kingdom and Manila Galleon trading periods. This means that the evolution of the language is difficult to reconstruct (although many theories exist).

In pre-Hispanic times, Trade Malay was widely known and spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia.

English has borrowed some words from Tagalog, such as abaca, barong, balisong, boondocks, jeepney, Manila hemp, pancit, ylang-ylang, and yaya, although the vast majority of these borrowed words are only used in the Philippines as part of the vocabularies of Philippine English.^{[citation needed]}

Tagalog has contributed several words to Philippine Spanish, like barangay (from balan͠gay, meaning barrio), the abacá, cogon, palay, dalaga etc.

Tagalog words of foreign origin

Cognates with other Philippine languages

Austronesian comparison chart

Below is a chart of Tagalog and a number of other Austronesian languages comparing thirteen words.

Religious literature

Religious literature remains one of the most dynamic contributors to Tagalog literature. The first Bible in Tagalog, then called Ang Biblia^[48] ("the Bible") and now called Ang Dating Biblia^[49] ("the Old Bible"), was published in 1905. In 1970, the Philippine Bible Society translated the Bible into modern Tagalog. Even before the Second Vatican Council, devotional materials in Tagalog had been in circulation. There are at least four circulating Tagalog translations of the Bible

• the Magandang Balita Biblia (a parallel translation of the Good News Bible), which is the ecumenical version


• the Bibliya ng Sambayanang Pilipino
  


• the 1905 Ang Biblia is a more Protestant version


• the Bagong Sanlibutang Salin ng Banal na Kasulatan (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures)

When the Second Vatican Council, (specifically the Sacrosanctum Concilium) permitted the universal prayers to be translated into vernacular languages, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines was one of the first to translate the Roman Missal into Tagalog. The Roman Missal in Tagalog was published as early as 1982.

Jehovah's Witnesses were printing Tagalog literature at least as early as 1941^[50] and The Watchtower (the primary magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses) has been published in Tagalog since at least the 1950s. New releases are now regularly released simultaneously in a number of languages, including Tagalog. The official website of Jehovah's Witnesses also has some publications available online in Tagalog.^[51]

Tagalog is quite a stable language, and very few revisions have been made to Catholic Bible translations. Also, as Protestantism in the Philippines is relatively young, liturgical prayers tend to be more ecumenical.

Examples

Lord's Prayer

In Tagalog, the Lord's Prayer is exclusively known by its incipit, Amá Namin (literally, "Our Father").

Amá namin, sumasalangit Ka

Sambahín ang ngalan Mo.

Mapasaamin ang kaharián Mo.

Sundín ang loób Mo,

Dito sa lupà, gaya nang sa langit.

Bigyán Mo kamí ngayón ng aming kakanin sa araw-araw,

At patawarin Mo kamí sa aming mga salâ,

Para nang pagpápatawad namin,

Sa nagkakasalà sa amin;

At huwág Mo kamíng ipahintulot sa tuksó,

At iadyâ Mo kamí sa lahát ng masamâ.

[Sapagkát sa Inyó ang kaharián, at ang kapangyarihan,

At ang kaluwálhatian, ngayón, at magpakailanman.]

Amen

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Pángkalahatáng Pagpapahayag ng Karapatáng Pantao)

Bawat tao'y isinilang na may layà at magkakapantáy ang tagláy na dangál at karapatán. Silá'y pinagkalooban ng pangangatwiran at budhî na kailangang gamitin nilá sa pagtuturingan nilá sa diwà ng pagkakapatiran.
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.^[52]

Numbers

The numbers (mga numero) in Tagalog language are of two sets. The first set consists of native Tagalog words and the other set are Spanish loanwords. (This may be compared to other East Asian languages, except with the second set of numbers borrowed from Spanish instead of Chinese.) For example, when a person refers to the number "seven", it can be translated into Tagalog as "pito" or "syete" (Spanish: siete).

Months and days

Months and days in Tagalog are also localised forms of Spanish months and days. "Month" in Tagalog is buwán (also the word for moon) and "day" is araw (the word also means sun). Unlike Spanish, however, months and days in Tagalog are always capitalised.

Time

Time expressions in Tagalog are also Tagalized forms of the corresponding Spanish. "Time" in Tagalog is panahon, or more commonly oras. Unlike Spanish and English, times in Tagalog are capitalized whenever they appear in a sentence.

Common phrases