Tagalog language

Tagalog (pronounced tə-GAH-log, or [tɐˈɡaːloɡ] in its native sound, and written as ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔ in Baybayin) belongs to the Austronesian language family. It is the first language of the ethnic Tagalog people, who account for about a quarter of the Philippines' population, and is spoken as a second language by most Filipinos. Its standardized and codified version, Filipino, serves as the country's national language and, alongside English, is one of its two official languages.

Like other Austronesian languages, Tagalog typically follows a verb-subject-object word order, though subject-verb-object is also possible. It uses the trigger system of morphosyntactic alignment common among Philippine languages and is head-initial. The language is agglutinative but can also show inflection. It is not tonal; instead, it can be considered a pitch-accent language and is syllable-timed. Tagalog has nine basic parts of speech.

Tagalog is closely related to other Philippine languages, including Bikol, the Bisayan languages, Ilocano, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan. More distantly, it connects to other Austronesian languages such as the Formosan languages of Taiwan, Indonesian, Malay, Hawaiian, Māori, and Malagasy.

**Classification**

Tagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian family, part of the Malayo-Polynesian branch. This makes it related to languages like Malagasy, Javanese, Indonesian, Malay, Tetum (spoken in Timor), and Yami (from Taiwan). It has especially close ties to the languages of the Bicol Region and the Visayas, such as the Bikol group and the Visayan group (including Waray, Hiligaynon, and Cebuano).

A key difference between Tagalog and other Central Philippine languages lies in how it handled the Proto-Philippine schwa vowel *ə. In most Bikol and Visayan languages, this sound merged with /u/ and [o], but in Tagalog, it merged with /i/. For instance, the Proto-Philippine word *dəkət (meaning "adhere" or "stick") became *dikít* in Tagalog but *dukót* in Visayan and Bikol.

Additionally, the Proto-Philippine sounds *r, *j, and *z merged into /d/ in Tagalog, but become /l/ when placed between vowels. For example, *ŋajan* ("name") and *hajək* ("kiss") became *ngalan* and *halík*. However, when an affix is added next to these sounds, they shift to /r/ instead: *bayád* ("paid") becomes *bayaran* ("to pay").

**History**

The name "Tagalog" likely comes from the endonym *taga-ilog* ("river dweller"), combining *tagá-* ("native of" or "from") with *ilog* ("river"). Another possibility is *taga-alog*, from *alog* ("pool of water in the lowlands" or "rice or vegetable plantation"). Linguists David Zorc and Robert Blust have suggested that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine groups originally came from northeastern Mindanao or the eastern Visayas.

Old Tagalog words may appear in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription from the tenth century, though that text is mostly written in Old Malay. The first known complete book in Tagalog is the *Doctrina Christiana* (Christian Doctrine), printed in 1593. It was written in Spanish and included two Tagalog transcriptions: one in the ancient Baybayin script and another in an early Spanish attempt at a Latin-based orthography.

During the 333 years of Spanish rule, Spanish clergy produced various grammars and dictionaries. In 1610, Dominican priest Francisco Blancas de San José published *Arte y reglas de la lengua tagala* in Bataan, later revised in 1752 and 1832. In 1613, Franciscan priest Pedro de San Buenaventura released the first Tagalog dictionary, *Vocabulario de la lengua tagala*, in Pila, Laguna. The first substantial dictionary was compiled by Czech Jesuit missionary Pablo Clain in the early 18th century. He spoke Tagalog and used it in his books, then passed his dictionary to Francisco Jansens and José Hernandez. Further work by P. Juan de Noceda and P. Pedro de Sanlucar led to the *Vocabulario de la lengua tagala*, published in Manila in 1754 and reissued many times, most recently in 2013. Other works include *Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos* (1850) and early linguistic studies. The indigenous poet Francisco Balagtas (1788–1862) is considered the foremost Tagalog writer, best known for the 19th-century epic *Florante at Laura*.

**Official Status**

Tagalog was declared the official language in the Philippines' first revolutionary constitution, the Constitution of Biak-na-Bato in 1897. The 1935 constitution designated English and Spanish as official languages but required the development of a common national language based on an existing native language. After study, the National Language Institute—a seven-member committee representing various regions—chose Tagalog as the basis. On December 30, 1937, President Manuel L. Quezon proclaimed this selection. In 1939, Quezon renamed the proposed language *Wikang Pambansâ* (national language). Quezon himself was born and raised in Baler, Aurora, a native Tagalog-speaking area. During World War II, the Japanese puppet government strongly promoted Tagalog as the national language, and the 1943 Constitution stated: "The government shall take steps toward the development and propagation of Tagalog as the national language." In 1959, *Wikang Pambansâ* was renamed *Pilipino*. Along with English, the national language has held official status under the 1973 constitution (as "Pilipino") and the 1987 constitution (as "Filipino").