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Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 22 million people.[2] It is related to Austronesian languages such as Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Indonesian, Malay, Javanese and Paiwan (of Taiwan), Cham (of Vietnam and Cambodia), and Tetum (of East Timor). It is the first language of the Philippines' Region IV (CALABARZON and MIMAROPA) and is the basis[4] for the national and the official language of the Philippines, Filipino.[5]
[edit] History The Tagalog Baybayin script. The word Tagalog derived from tagailog, from tagá- meaning "native of" and ílog meaning "river." Thus, it means "river dweller." Very little is known about the history of the language. However, according to linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust, the Tagalogs originated, along with their Central Philippine cousins, from Northeastern Mindanao or Eastern Visayas.[6][7] The first written record of Tagalog is in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, written in the year 900 and uses fragments of the language along with Sanskrit, Malay, and Javanese. Meanwhile, 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 the Baybayin script and the other in the Latin alphabet. Throughout the 333 years of Spanish occupation, there were grammar 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 administración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850). Poet Francisco Baltazar (1788–1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer. His most famous work is the early 19th-century Florante at Laura. [edit] Tagalog and FilipinoIn 1937, Tagalog was selected as the basis of the national language of the Philippines by the National Language Institute. In 1939, Manuel L. Quezon named the national language "Wikang Pambansâ" ("National Language").[8] 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.[9]. In 1971, the language issue was revived once more, and a compromise solution was worked out—a "universalist" approach to the national language, to be called Filipino rather than Pilipino. When a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, it named Filipino as the national language.[9] 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. [edit] ClassificationTagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages such as Javanese, Indonesian, Malay,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 and the Visayan group including Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, and Cebuano. Languages that have made significant contributions to Tagalog are Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Sanskrit, Old Malay, Chinese, Javanese, and Tamil. [edit] DialectsAt 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 (exemplified by the Bulacan dialect), Central (including Manila), Southern (exemplified by Batangas), and Marinduque. Some example of dialectal differences are:
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.
Northern and Central Dialects have influences from Kapampangan while those near the Bicol have influences from Daet Bikol. [edit] Features[edit] Geographic distributionThe Tagalog homeland, or Katagalugan, covers roughly much of the central to southern parts of the island of Luzon - particularly in Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Camarines Norte, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Nueva Ecija, Quezon, Rizal, and large parts of Zambales. Tagalog is also spoken natively by inhabitants living on the islands, Marinduque, Mindoro, and large areas of Palawan. It is spoken by approximately 64.3 million Filipinos, 96.4% of the household population.[10] 21.5 million, or 28.15% of the total Philippine population,[11] 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] 2003, the US Census bureau reported (based on data from the 2000 census) that it was the fourth most-spoken language in the United States, with over 1.2 million speakers.[12] [edit] Official status Predominantly Tagalog-speaking regions in the Philippines. The color-schemes represent the 4 dialect zones of the language: Northern, Central, Southern, and Marinduque. Main article: Filipino language Tagalog was declared the official language by the first constitution in the Philippines, the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato in 1897.[13] 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.[14] 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.[9][15] 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.[15] In 1939 President Quezon renamed the proposed Tagalog-based national language as wikang pambansâ (national language).[9] In 1939, the language was further renamed as "Pilipino".[9] The 1973 constitution designated the Tagalog-based "Pilipino", along with English, as an official language and mandated the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino.[16] The 1987 constitution designated Filipino as the national language, mandating that as it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.[5] As Filipino, Tagalog has been taught in schools throughout the Philippines. It is the only one out of over 170 Philippine languages that is officially used in schools and businesses, (info from culturegrams)[citation needed] though Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines does specify, in part:
Other Philippine languages have influenced Filipino, primarily through migration from the provinces to Metro Manila of speakers of those other languages. Besides the Philippines, the language enjoys relative minority status in Canada, the United Kingdom, and also Hong Kong, where street signs commonly display the language. In the United States, the language is used in censuses and elections.[17] [edit] Code-switchingTaglish and Englog are portmanteaus given to a mix of English and Tagalog. The amount of English vs.Tagalog varies from the occasional use of English loan words to outright code-switching where the language changes in mid-sentence. Such code-switching is prevalent throughout the Philippines and in various of the languages of the Philippines other than Tagalog.
Code switching 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.
Although it is generally looked down upon, code-switching is prevalent in all levels of society; however, city-dwellers, the highly educated, and people born around and after World War II are more likely to do it. Politicians as highly placed as President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have code-switched in interviews. 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. The Chinese and the non-Tagalog communities in the Philippines also frequently code-switch their language, be it Cebuano or Min Nan Chinese, with Taglish. [edit] PhonologyMain article: Tagalog phonology
Tagalog has 32 phonemes: 21 of them are consonants, 5 are vowels, and 6 are dipthongs.[1] Syllable structure is relatively simple. Each syllable contains at least a consonant and a vowel,[18], and begins in at most one consonant, except for borrowed words such as trak which means "truck", or tsokolate meaning "chocolate". [edit] VowelsBefore appearing in the coastal region of Manila, Tagalog had three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/, and /u/. This was later expanded to five vowels with the introduction of Kapampangan and Spanish words. They are:
There are six main diphthongs; /ai/, /ei/, /oi/, /ui/, /au/, and /iu/.[1][18] [edit] ConsonantsBelow 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.
[edit] StressStress is phonemic in Tagalog. Primary stress occurs on either the last or the next-to-the-last (penultimate) syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary stress except when stress occurs at the end of a word. Stress on words is highly important, since it differentiates words with the same spellings, but with different meanings, e.g. tayo(to stand) and tayo(us; we) [edit] Sounds[edit] Vowels
[edit] Consonants
[edit] Historical changesTagalog differs from its Central Philippine counterparts with its treatment of the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel *ə. In Bikol & Visayan, 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 *nɡajan (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. [edit] GrammarFurther information: Tagalog grammar [edit] Writing system[edit] BaybayinMain article: 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 final vowel was just left out, leaving the reader to use context to determine the final vowels. Example: Baybayin is encoded in Unicode version 3.2 in the range 1700-171F under the name "Tagalog". [edit] Latin alphabetMain article: Abakada Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography. 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: 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: to make room for loans, especially family names from Spanish and English.[24] [edit] ng and mga
The genitive marker ng and the plural marker mga 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, among other uses. Mga (pronounced as "muh-NGA") denotes plurality as adding an s, es, or ies does in English (ex. Iyan ang mga damit ko. (Those are my clothes)).
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:
[edit] Vocabulary and borrowed wordsSpanish is the language that has bequeathed the most loan words to Tagalog. According to linguists, Spanish (5,000) has even surpassed Malayo-Indonesian (3,500) in terms of loan words borrowed. About 40% of everyday (informal) Tagalog conversation is practically made up of Spanish loanwords.[citation needed] Tagalog vocabulary is composed mostly of words of Austronesian origin with borrowings from Japanese, Tamil, Sanskrit, Min Nan Chinese (also known as Hokkien), Javanese, Malay, Arabic, Persian, Kapampangan, languages spoken on Luzon, and others, especially other Austronesian languages. Due to trade with Mexico via the Manila galleon from the 16th to the 19th centuries, many words from Nahuatl, a language spoken by Native Americans in Mexico, were introduced to Tagalog. English has borrowed some words from Tagalog, such as abaca, adobo, aggrupation, 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] [edit] Tagalog words of foreign origin chartMain article: List of Tagalog loanwords For the Min Nan Chinese borrowings, the parentheses indicate the equivalent in standard Chinese.
[edit] Austronesian comparison chartBelow is a chart of Tagalog and twenty other Austronesian languages comparing thirteen words; the first thirteen languages are spoken in the Philippines and the other seven are spoken in Indonesia, East Timor, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Madagascar.
[edit] Contribution to other languagesTagalog itself has contributed a few words into English.
Yo-yo is reportedly a Tagalog word; however, no such word exists in Tagalog. Tagalog has contributed several words to Philippine Spanish, like barangay (from balan͠gay, meaning barrio), the abacá, cogon, palay, etc. [edit] Religious literatureReligious Literature remains to be one of the most dynamic contributors to Tagalog literature. In 1970, the Philippine Bible Society translated the Bible into Tagalog, the first full translation to any of the Philippine languages. Even before the Second Vatican Council, devotional materials in Tagalog had been circulating. At present, there are three circulating Tagalog translations of the Holy Bible—the Magandang Balita Biblia (a parallel translation of the Good News Bible), which is the ecumenical version; the Ang Biblia, which is a more Protestant version published in 1909; and the Bagong Sinlibutang Salin ng Banal na Kasulatan, one of about sixty parallel translations of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures published by Jehovah's Witnesses. The latter was released in the year 2000. Jehovah's Witnesses previously published a hybrid translation: Ang Biblia was used for the Old Testament, while the Bagong Sinlibutang Salin was used for the New Testament. 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. In fact, the Roman Missal in Tagalog was published as early as 1982, while not published in English until 1985. Jehovah's Witnesses were printing Tagalog literature at least as early as 1941[25] and The Watchtower (the primary magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses) has been published in Tagalog since at least the 1960s. 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. [1] 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. [edit] Examples[edit] The Lord's Prayer (Ama Namin)
[edit] Universal Declaration of Human RightsIsinilang na malaya at pantay-pantay sa karangalan at mga karapatan ang lahat ng tao. Pinagkalooban sila ng katwiran at budhi at dapat magpalagayan ang isa't isa sa diwa ng pagkakapatiran. (Every person is born free and equal with honor and rights. They are given reason and conscience and they must always trust each other for the spirit of brotherhood.) [edit] Numbers
[edit] Common phrases
[edit] ProverbsAng hindî marunong lumingón sa pinanggalingan ay hindî makaráratíng sa paroroonan. (José Rizal) Ang hindî magmahál sa kanyang sariling wika ay mahigít pa sa hayop at malansang isdâ. (José Rizal) Hulí man daw at magalíng, nakákahábol pa rin. (Hulí man raw at magalíng, nakákahábol pa rin.) Magbirô ka na sa lasíng, huwág lang sa bagong gising. Ang sakít ng kalingkingan, ramdám ng buong katawán. Nasa hulí ang pagsisisi. Pagkáhába-haba man ng prusisyón, sa simbahan pa rin ang tulóy. Kung dî mádaán sa santong dasalan, daanin sa santong paspasan. [edit] See also[edit] References
[edit] External linksTagalog language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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