Other examples of agglutinative languages include Turkish, Finnish, Hungarian, and Korean. Tagalog is considered an “ agglutinative language” (“glued together”) because many words are formed through the combination of small morphemes (the smallest meaningful component of a linguistic expression).Instead, affixes (additional elements) and markers are attached to words to indicate who is the focus or taking the action in a sentence. The order of the words in a sentence does not indicate who is doing what.While the verb typically remains in the initial position, the order of noun phrase complements that follows can vary. Tagalog has a flexible word order compared to English.This practice of switching between two languages in one conversation is popular among younger people in the Philippines as well as Filipinos living in other parts of the world. For example, “Did you do your homework this morning?” might translate into Ginawa mo ba yung homework mo this morning? This code-mixing can entail reforming (“Filipinizing”) English grammar using Filipino rules, such as verb conjugations. In a single conversation, speakers may use Tagalog or English words, whichever comes to mind first or whichever is easiest to say. Many Filipinos, especially those in urban areas, have adopted “Taglish” or “Englog,” a mix of English and Tagalog. Because it is widely understood throughout the Philippines, Filipino serves as a lingua franca in the country, allowing people from different regions to communicate. They are in fact not different languages, as Filipino is the mutually intelligible, standardized, prestige register of Tagalog. Finally, in 1987, the Philippine Constitution formally declared Filipino as the national language of the Philippines.Ĭonfusion exists as to the linguistic distinction between Filipino and Tagalog. This ideology was especially conducive to the adoption of a national language. Support for Filipino as the national language gained steam in the 70s when the government, under the rule of President Ferdinand Marcos, focused on developing a “new society” in the country. Today’s modern Filipino alphabet consists of 28 letters, primarily the English alphabet with the addition of the Spanish ñ and Tagalog ng. Eight new letters were added to the Filipino alphabet, including c, f, j, ñ (borrowed from Spanish), q, v, x, and z. While the Filipino vocabulary first and foremost borrowed from other Philippine languages, it was also augmented with words borrowed from English, Spanish, Malay, and Chinese. In 1959, Tagalog was named “Pilipino” and eventually renamed “Filipino” to give it a stronger national identity. The Making of a National Language: Filipino While Tagalog was viewed by many as a natural frontrunner, it was decades before a national language was formally established. When the Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, ending colonization, the Philippine Assembly proposed the adoption of a national language. replaced Spain as the colonial influence, and brought the English language into the mix. Over time, Spanish became the lingua franca of the islands. During the country’s 333 years of Spanish rule (1565-1898), the Spaniards established schools and taught the Spanish language. ![]() The Philippines has a long history of diverse cultures, ethnicities, and languages coexisting throughout the archipelago. has the largest number of Tagalog speakers, with 1.3 million people speaking the language as their mother tongue. ![]() Worldwide, it is estimated that approximately 35.2 million people speak Tagalog as their native language. Per the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, 10.2 million Filipinos live outside the Philippines, in more than 200 countries and territories. Migration has brought Filipinos to all corners of the globe. Filipino is also one of the most common languages in the Austronesian family, which includes about 1,200 languages (such as Indonesian and Malay) spoken throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, as well as Madagascar. Filipino (the standardized version of Tagalog) serves as the official language of the Philippines, along with English. Tagalog is the most widely spoken, used by approximately 29% of the population. Of these, the most common are Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicolano, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinense. The Philippines is a very ethnically diverse nation, with 120 to 175 languages spoken throughout the country. In this article, we look at the history and influence of this complex and interesting language. Tagalog is one of the most widely spoken non-English languages in the U.S., and its usage is growing in other parts of the world. The Tagalog language has a reach that stretches far beyond its country of origin, the Philippines.
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