Tagalog
Tagalog is an Austronesian language, commonly spoken in the Philippines, and is the basis for the national language called Filipino. There are an estimated 17 million native speakers of Tagalog and about 50 million others who speak it as a second language.
| 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 |
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 and Canada. In fact, Tagalog ranks among the top Asian languages spoken in the U.S. and Canada.
The dialects of Tagalog often correspond to the provinces in and around the former Southern Tagalog region and parts of Central Luzon. 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.
Tagalog has five principle vowel sounds, corresponding to the five musical vowels sounds. The vowel a is pronounced as in father. e as in egg. i as in beet. o as in over. u as in moon.
Other vowel constructs exist with the consonant y. ay as in island. oy as in spoil.
The words written as ng and mga by themselves are pronounced nang and manga respectively. The ng as part of a word is pronounced as in Sing-a-song and hanger. Ng is difficult for most Westerners to produce. It is made while holding the mouth and tongue in the form for producing the hard g sound but instead inflecting an n sound.
g is pronounced as in the hard g of gutter and good.
Tagalog also uses a glottal stop on ending vowels in some words. These are noted in writing with a 'house' character or dot above the vowel as in â and å .
Names of persons and places may have retained the Spanish spelling and consonants such as ñ as in Nuñez and the J or X like an H as in Jose and Roxas (Pronounced Nunyes, Hose and Rohas respectively).
Consonant pairs and non-native consonants which are common in English are translated into the best equivalent as in; tsokolate (Chocolate) or dyus (juice).
AN nouns turn root words into the places where the root word is performed or found. AN is a suffix. These words will end in an for roots that end in a consonant or glottal stop. They will end in han for roots that end in normal vowels. Many AN places have noun roots as in the case of aklat (book) and aklatan (library).
Geographic distribution and Classification
Sounds
Vowels
Before the Spanish colonization, Tagalog had only 3 vowels, a, o/u, and e/i. With the introduction of a romanized alphabet, however, the language differentiated the o from the u sound and the e from the i sound. This can explain why the adopted Spanish words such as ventana are written as bintana, because essentially the Tagalog e and i are of the same vowel, varying only in degree of vocal intensity.Consonants
The Official Tagalog alphabet has 15 consonants. The consonants are all pronounced will the short 'a' vowel following the consonant. They are namely; b,k,d,g,h,l,m,n,ng,p,r,s,t,w,y. The distinction between d and r in the Tagalog alphabet is as recent as the colonization as evidenced in baybayin.Phonology
Historical sound changes
Grammar
Nouns
Most Tagalog nouns are simply words with a specific meaning. This is common for object nouns. Some nouns are constructs of a root word and prefixes and/or suffixes. Some of the most common are listed here.
| English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| root | upo | simba | tinda | |||
| noun | chair | upuan | church | simbahan | store | tindahan |
| verb | to sit | umupo | to go to church | magsimba | to sell | magtinda |
KA-AN nouns turn root words into the concepts about the root word. KA-AN is a prefix-suffix combination where ka is the prefix and an is the suffix. The an will follow the same rules as above for AN nouns in regards to their use with consonants, vowels and glottal stops.
| English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| root | utos | ligaya | tipon | |||
| noun | commandment | kautusan | happiness | kaligayahan | society/brotherhood | katipunan |
| verb | to command | magutos | to become happy | lumigaya | to meet | magtipon |
PANG nouns turn root words into the instruments used to perform the root word's task. PANG is a prefix.
| English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | English | Tagalog | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| root | ahit | bura | akyat | |||
| noun | razor | pang-ahit | eraser | pamura | climbing equipment | pang-akyat |
| verb | to shave | mag-ahit | to erase | magbura | to climb | umakyat |
Pronouns
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.
| ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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.
- Tagalog: Nahanap ko ang libro.
- English: literally Found by me, the book. (The book was found by me.)
- Tagalog: Bumati ako sa kaniya.
- English: literally Greeted I him. (I greeted him.)
- Tagalog: Magbibigay ako sa kaniya ng regalo.
- English: literally Will give I him a gift. (I will give him a gift.)
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.
Interrogatives
Tagalog interrogatives are as follows.
| Tagalog | sino | ano | kailan | saan | bakit | alin | paano | ilan | gaano | magkano |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | who | what | when | where | why | which | how | how many | how much (mass) | how much (cost) |
| ang Subjective | English | ng Objective | English | sa Locative | English | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Immediate | ito | this | nito | this | dito | here |
| Approximate | iyan | that | niyan | that | diyan | there |
| Extremity | iyon | that (far) | niyon | that (far) | doon | there (far) |
| Comparative | English | Temporal | English | |||
| Immediate | ganito | like this | ||||
| Approximate | ganiyan(ganyan) | like that | ||||
| Extremity | ganoon | like that (far) | noon | years before |
UM Verbs are considered 'natural' action verbs or actions which can be performed by nature or by natural things such as animals or plants. Examples include the English equivalent of: to eat, to run, to become strong. UM Verbs will appear as a suffix or infix to the verb root except for the future tense. Also the infinite and past tense forms are identical.
To construct a UM verb in the past and infinitive form, the um will be prepended to the word if the word starts with a vowel. If the word begins with a consonant, the um will be infixed proceeding the first vowel. For example we will use the the root word 'kain' (having to do with food) and 'iyak' (having to do with crying). These words in their infinitive and past forms are 'kumain' and 'umiyak' meaning 'to eat' and 'to cry' and also 'ate' and 'cried' depending on context of the sentence.
For ease of learning we will discuss future tense and work back to present tense in the following paragraph. As metioned earlier in this section, present and future tenses duplicate the first syllable. For UM verbs the future tense duplicates the first syllable and does nothing more. Giving the words 'kakain' and 'iiyak', which mean 'will eat' and 'will cry', respectively.
Present tense in the UM verb form uses both the rules for future tense and past tense in that order. First we duplicate the first syllable and then inject the um according to the aforementioned rule for past tense. This gives us 'kumakain' and 'umiiyak'.
MAG Verbs are considered 'unnatural' action verbs or actions which are performed by the force or will of man. Examples include the English equivalent of: to shave, to put, to teach. MAG Verbs will appear as a suffix to the verb root.
To construct a MAG verb in the infinitive form, the mag will be prepended to the word. For example we will use the root word 'turo' (having to do with teaching) and 'ahit' (having to do with shaving). These words in their infinitive forms are 'magturo' and 'magahit', meaning 'to teach' and 'to shave'.
For past tense nag is used instead of mag. Giving you 'nagturo' and 'nagahit', meaning 'taught' and 'shaved'.
For present tense nag is used but the first syllable is duplicated first. Giving you 'nagtuturo' and 'nagaahit', meaning 'teaching' and 'shaving'.
For future tense mag is again used and like the present tense, the first syllable is duplicated first. Giving you 'magtuturo' and 'magaahit', meaning 'will teach' and 'will shave'.
IN Verbs are object focus verbs or verbs which focus on the object above the doer. IN verb forms are very, very common in conversational Tagalog. Examples of usage are 'Binasa ko ang aklat', literally 'Was read, by me, the book' or the equivalent 'I read the book'. This is the preferrable form as opposed to 'Nagbasa ako ng aklat' which translates to the English equivelant but takes complete focus off of the book.
Construction of IN verbs is similair to UM with some subtle differences. Consider the following root verbs 'basa' (having to do with reading), and 'akyat' (having to do with climbing). Their infinitive, past, present and future forms are; basahin, binasa, binabasa, babasahin, and akyatin, inakyat, inaakyat and aakyatin.
I Verbs are goal oriented verbs or verbs which focus on an achievement or its accomplishment. Since a goal is the purpose of the verb, the common construction is in infinitive or future tense. Examples of usage are 'Ibabalik ko ang aklat sa eskwela', literally 'Will return, by me, the book to the school' or the equivalent 'I will return the book to the school'. This puts the focus to the task on hand.
Construction of I verbs is similair to UM with some differences. The i will always prepend the entire construct. Consider the following root verbs 'balik' (having to do with return), and 'sama' (having to do with companionship or being with). Their infinitive, past, present and future forms are; ibalik, ibinalik, ibinabalik, ibabalik, and isama, isinama, isinasama and isasama.
AN Verbs are place or person focus verbs or verbs which focus on a destination or towards a person. Examples of usage are 'Ingatan mo sa lason', literally 'Take care(self), you, of poison' or the equivalent 'Beware of the poison'. This put focus on the person.
Construction of AN verbs put an or han (in the case of non-glottal stopped vowels) at the end of the root verb. The in affix is added for past and present tenses. Their infinitive, past, present and future forms are for 'ingat' and 'upo' (a root with an ending glottal stopped vowel) ; ingatan, iningatan, iniingatan, iingatan and upuan inupuan, inuupuan, uupuan.
Other verb roots exist for specific purposes, including; IPAG, MAGPATI and others. Some like MAGPATI, which is a verb one does violently or with force to one's self, only have a few roots with which they can be combined to have meaningful purpose.
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 referred 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.
Tagalog is a VSO language. 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.
The vocabulary of Tagalog is a wide mix of native vernaculars and foreign loan words. The Tagalog language before the Spanish era can trace its common roots to Malay and Polynesian influences. Three centuries as a colony of Spain have left an indelible mark on the vocabulary of Tagalog and a further half a century of American imperialism have also added a number of words into Tagalog.
Tagalog was heavily influenced by the Spanish language. Possibly a third of the words in Tagalog are of Spanish origin. A classic example is the Tagalog phrase “Kumusta?” (How are [you]?). This phrase directly came from the Spanish “ÿCómo está (usted)?”.
The adoption of Spanish words into Tagalog was so prevalent that Tagalog speakers can now vaguely understand rudimentary Spanish, although do not realize it.
This idea has been used effectively in Spanish classes for Filipinos by letting students read a complete essay in Spanish where most of the words are also found in Tagalog.
Majority of the Spanish words adopted into Tagalog were those that referred to foreign concepts such as the names of the days of the week and months, such as Huwebes and Mayo, which came from the Spanish jueves (Thursday) and mayo (May).
Certain words have changed in meaning such as siyempre which means of course in Tagalog but in Spanish (siempre ) means always. Also
siguro (Spanish seguro) means maybe in Tagalog but sure, safe, or secure in Spanish.
The adoption of Spanish also gave rise to the curious phenomenon of two or more words referring to the same concept. For example, the Tagalog word for chair is either the native upuan or salampuwit, but the Spanish-based silya (from silla) is prevalent in popular speech. Another example is the Tagalog words for city: lunsod and siyudad (from the Spanish ciudad). Spanish numbers as opposed to the native Tagalog numbers, are also used frequently, especially in telling the time and in counting money.
The Spanish Empire did not treat the Philippines as a population colony and sent only a few speakers of Spanish.
This could be attributed to the enormous distance needed to travel.
In contrast with Spanish America, there were only a few Spanish speakers in the Philippine islands who were Spanish priests, officers, their descendents and a few other civillians. A greater number of the Spaniards arrived after the openning of the Suez canal. However, certain families have maintained the language and still speak it. Speakers are typically, but not always the 'elite'. Many older people speak it well in Zamboanga where the general population still speak a Spanish-based creole.
The American occupation has also introduced many English words. Some examples are titser (teacher), bus (bus, pronounced boos), dyip (jeep), and restawran (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.
Tagalog long before the Spanish colonized the islands has also adopted words from Chinese, Hindu, and Arabic, mainly due to precolonial trade with mainland Asian cultures.
Following is a short list of Tagalog words of foreign origin.
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.
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.
There is a Tagalog Wikipedia at tl.wikipedia.org
Verbs
There are numerous verb forms in Tagalog ranging from the very common to the very rare. Tagalog uses prefixes, suffixes or infixes for their verb forms even using combinations of the two or even all three affixes depending on the verb form. A common element of all verbs is the duplication of the first syllable of the root verb form for present and future tense. The more common verb forms are 'um', 'mag', 'in' 'i' and 'an'.Adjectives and Adverbs
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. It's also called a trigger system.
Transformed: Ako ay nagbasa ng aklat. I read a book.
Transformed: Ang aklat ay binasa ko. The book was read by me.
Transformed: Ang mga bulaklak dito sa Baguio City ay makulay. The flowers here in Baguio City are colorful.Vocabulary
Spanish influence
American English influence
Other influences
Examples of adopted words
Cognates
Tagalog is an Austronesian language.
The following cognates can be found in Indonesian, Malaysian, and Polynesian languages.Tagalog as a source of words
Writing system
Examples
Numbers
Spanish and English based numbers are
frequently used aside from the following.
Spanish based numbers are used in revealing one's age, telling time,
games, and sometimes when dealing with currencies aside from other
purposes. Tagalog Sp. based Spanish
1 isa uno uno
2 dalawa dos dos
3 tatlo tres tres
4 apat kuwatro cuatro
5 lima singko cinco
6 anim sais seis
7 pito siyete siete
8 walo otso ocho
9 siyam nuwebe nueve
10 sampu diyes diez
11 labing-isa onse once
12 labindalawa dose doce
13 labintatlo trese trece
14 labing-apat katorse catorce
15 labing-anim kinse quince
20 dalawampu bente veinte
21 dalawampu't isa bentiuno veintiuno
30 tatlumpu trenta trenta
40 apatnapu kuwarenta cuarenta
50 limampu singkuwenta cincuenta
60 animnapu sesenta sesenta
70 pitumpu setenta setenta
80 walumpu otsenta ochenta
90 siyamnapu nobenta noventa
100 daan siyento ciento
1,000 libo mil mil
10,000 laksa diyes mil diez mil
100,000 yuta siyento mil cien mil
1,000,000 angaw milyon millón
Days of the week
week linggo
Monday Lunes
Tuesday Martes
Wednesday Miyerkoles
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
I love you Mahal kita
You speak Tagalog? Nagsasalita ka ba ng Tagalog? (Slang: Tagalog ka?)
Where are you from? Saan ka galing?
What is your name? Ano ang pangalan mo? or better Ano'ng pangalan mo?
Forgive me Patawarin mo ako
Goodbye Paalam
See also
External links