Ta·ga·log (t?-gن'lôg, -l?g) pronunciation
n., pl. Tagalog or -logs.

   1. A member of a people native to the Philippines and inhabiting Manila and its adjacent provinces.
   2. The Austronesian language of the Tagalog on which Filipino is based.

[Perhaps Tagalog, river people : taga-, native of + ilog, river.]


Tagalog

Any member of the largest cultural-linguistic group in the Philippines. They are the dominant population of Manila and of several provinces near the city. Most are Roman Catholic, and most are farmers; their main cash crops are sugarcane and coconuts. Manila's dominance has given the urban Tagalog economic leadership in the Philippines. The Tagalog language is the basis of Pilipino, the national language.
For more information on Tagalog, visit Britannica.com.
 

Tagalog (t?gن'l?g, tنgن'lo(g) or Tagal (tنgنl') , dominant people of Luzon, the Philippines, and the second largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines. They number about 16 million. Most of the population is Christian. Tagalog, a Malayo-Polynesian language that had a written standard form before the coming of the Spanish, is the legal national language of the Philippines, where it is called Pilipino.

 
WordNet
The noun Tagalog has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: a member of a people native to the Philippines chiefly inhabiting central Luzon around and including Manila

Meaning #2: language of the Tagalog people on which Filipino is based
 

Tagalog (pronunciation: [t??ga?log]) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. It is the largest of the Philippine languages in terms of the number of speakers.

Tagalog, as its standardized counterpart, Filipino, is the principal language of the national media in the Philippines. It is the primary language of public education. It is, along with English, a co-official language and the sole national language. Tagalog is widely used as a lingua franca throughout the country, and in overseas Filipino communities. However, while Tagalog may be prevalent in those fields, English, to varying degrees of fluency, is more prevalent in the fields of government and business.

History

The word Tagalog was derived from tagل-يlog, from tagل- meaning "native of" and يlog meaning "river", thus, it means "river dweller." Since there are no surviving written samples of Tagalog before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, very little is known about the history of the language. However there is speculation among linguists that the ancestors of the Tagalogs originated, along with their Central Philippine cousins, from northeastern Mindanao or eastern Visayas.

The first known book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Cristiana (Christian Doctrine) of 1593. It was written in Spanish and two versions of Tagalog; one written in Baybayin and the other in the Latin alphabet.

Throughout the 333 years of Spanish occupation, there have been grammars and dictionaries written by Spanish clergymen such as Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala by Pedro de San Buenaventura (Pila, Laguna, 1613), Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (1835) and Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la adminstraciَn de los Santos Sacramentos (1850).

Poet Francisco "Balagtas" Baltazar (1788-1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer. His most famous work is the early 19th-century Florante at Laura.
Tagalog in the world.
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Tagalog in the world.

Outside the Philippines, the Tagalog language is usually limited to communication within ethnic Filipino groups. Light blue boxes indicate significant Filipino communities where Tagalog is spoken.

Classification

Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being a Malayo-Polynesian it is related to other Austronesian languages such as Indonesian, Malay, Fijian, Maori (of New Zealand), Hawaiian, Malagasy (of Madagascar), Samoan, Tahitian, Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tetum (of East Timor), and Paiwan (of Taiwan).

It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol and Visayas regions such as Bikol, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, and Cebuano.

Languages that have made significant contributions to Tagalog are Spanish, Min Nan Chinese, English, Malay, Sanskrit (via Malay), Arabic (via Malay/Spanish), and Northern Philippine languages such as Kapampangan spoken on the island of Luzon.

Geographic distribution

The Tagalog homeland, or 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, and Rizal. Tagalog is also spoken natively by inhabitants living on the islands of Lubang, Marinduque, and the northern and eastern parts of Mindoro. According to the Philippine Census of 2000, 21,485,927 out of 76,332,470 Filipinos claimed Tagalog as their first language. An estimated 50 million Filipinos speak it in varying degrees of proficiency.
Tagalog language spread in the United States.
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Tagalog language spread in the United States.

Tagalog speakers are to be found in other parts of the Philippines as well as throughout the world; it is the sixth most-spoken language in the United States.

Official status

After weeks of study and deliberation, Tagalog was chosen by the National Language Institute, a committee composed of seven members who represented various regions in the Philippines. President Manuel L. Quezon then proclaimed Tagalog the national language or wikang pambansâ of the Philippines on December 30, 1937. This was made official upon the Philippines' restoration of independence from the United States on July 4, 1946.

From 1961 to 1987, Tagalog was also known as Pilipino. Since 1987, the name Filipino has been used to refer to a Tagalog-based national language that borrows from other languages.

Since 1940, Tagalog has been taught in schools throughout the Philippines. It is the only one out of over 160 Philippine languages that is officially used in schools.

Dialects

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 on various Tagalog dialects. Ethnologue lists Lubang, Manila, Marinduque, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Tanay-Paete, and Tayabas as dialects of Tagalog. However, there appear to be four main dialects of which the aforementioned are a part; Northern, Central (including Manila), Southern, 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 ngayon (now, today), sinigang (stew), gabi (night), matamis (sweet), are pronounced and written ngay-on, sinig-ang, gab-i, and matam-is in other dialects.
    * In Morong Tagalog, [r] is usually preferred over [d]. For example, bundَk, dagat, dingdيng, and isdâ become bunrok, ragat, ringring, and isra.
    * In many southern dialects, the progressive aspect prefix of -um- verbs is na-. For example, standard Tagalog kumakain (eating) is nلkلin in Quezon and Batangas Tagalog. This is the butt of some jokes by other Tagalog speakers since a phrase such as nakain ka ba ng pating is interpreted as "did a shark eat you?" by those from Manila but in reality means "do you eat shark?" to those in the south.
    * Some dialects have interjections which are a considered a trademark of their region. For example, the interjection ala eh usually identifies someone from Batangas while as does hani in Morong.

Perhaps the most divergent Tagalog dialects are those spoken in Marinduque. 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 are 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 dialects by the early 20th century; they have since merged with the infinitive.

Standard Tagalog: Susulat sina Maria at Fulgencia kay Juan.
Marinduque Tagalog: Mلsْlat da Maria at Fulgencia kay Juan.
"Maria and Fulgencia will write to Juan."

ST: Mag-aaral siya sa Ateneo.
EM: Gaaral siya sa Ateneo.
"He will study at Ateneo."

ST: Magluto ka!
EM: Pagluto ka!
"Cook!"

ST: Kainin mo iyan.
EM: Kaina mo yaan.
"Eat that."

ST: Tinatawag ngâ tayo ni Tatay.
EM: Inatawag nganى kitل ni Tatay.
"Father is calling us indeed."

ST: Tutulungan ba kayَ ni Hilarion?
EM: Atulungan ga kamo ni Hilarion?
"Will Hilarion help you (pl.)?"

Derived languages

Filipino, the national language of the Philippines, is the standardized variant of this language. It has heavy borrowings from English. Other Philippine languages have also influenced Filipino, which is caused primarily by the migration to Metro Manila by people from the provinces.

Taglish and code-switching

Taglish is the name given to a mix of English and Tagalog. The amount of English in Tagalog ranges from simple loan words to outright code-switching where the language changes in midsentence; this is prevalent throughout the Philippines and various Philippine languages.

Nasirà ang computer ko kahapon!
"My computer broke down yesterday!"

Huwلg kang maninigarilyo, because it is harmful to your health.
"Never smoke cigarettes, ..."

Although it is generally looked down upon, code-switching is prevalent in all levels of society, though urban-dwellers, those with high education, and those born around and after World War II are more likely to do it. Politicians, such as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, have code-switched in interviews.

It is common in television, radio, and print media as well. In the US, advertisements from companies like Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart, Albertsons, McDonald's, and Western Union have contained Taglish.

The Chinese and the non-Tagalog communities also frequently code-switch their language, be it Cebuano or Min Nan Chinese, with Taglish.

Binaliktad

A kind of slang called binaliktلd (reversed) is where the word is modified by changing around the syllables. Equivalents in other languages are vesre, verlan, and Pig Latin. For example, tigلs (hard, strong), dito (here), hindî (no), and sigarilyَ (cigarettes) respectively become astيg, todits, dehins, and yosi.

Sounds

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

Tagalog has 21 phonemes; 16 consonants and five vowels. Syllable structure is relatively simple. Each syllable contains at least a consonant and a vowel.

Vowels

Before the arrival of the Spanish, Tagalog had three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/, and /u/. This was later expanded to five vowels with the introduction of Spanish words.

They are:

    * /a/ an open front unrounded vowel similar to English "father"
    * /?/ an open-mid front unrounded vowel similar to English "bed"
    * /i/ a close front unrounded vowel similar to English "machine"
    * /o/ a close-mid back rounded vowel similar to English "forty"
    * /u/ a close back unrounded vowel similar to English "flute"

There are four main diphthongs; /a?/, /o?/, /a?/, and /i?/.

Consonants