Identification

• According to a Filipino census, over 95 percent of Filipino households speak Tagalog (although most of them don't speak it as a native language). Tagalog is an Austronesian language, related to the other languages of the Southeastern Asian islands, such as Malay and Javanese. However, the makeup of Tagalog reflects the many peoples who have influenced the Philippines, and the language contains words from Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese and English.
  
  

History

• The first known example of Tagalog is from a copper plate from around 900 A.D. The first surviving book written in Tagalog was "Doctrina Cristiano," or "Christian Doctrine," written in Spanish and in Tagalog in the Latin and Baybayin alphabets. In the twentieth century, the Filipino government established Tagalog as the basis of a national language. After protests from non-Tagalog speaking groups, the name of the national language was changed to "Filipino"; however, it is still mostly based on Tagalog.
  
  

System

• The Tagalog language can be written using the Latin alphabet (the alphabet used to write English) or the Baybayin alphabet. Tagalog is written horizontally from left to right, just as English is. The Baybayin alphabet is different from the Latin alphabet because each letter contains the "a" sound---so instead of k, d and g, Baybayin contains ka, da and ga. To change the "a" sound to another vowel, Baybayin writers add a symbol above or below the letter.
  
  

Dialects

• The Tagalog language varies throughout the Philippines. Dialects may sound different or use different verb formations. Since English is a common language in the Philippines, some Filipinos speak "Taglish" or "Englog," switching back and forth between English and Tagalog while speaking, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Advertisements sometimes contain this mixture of English and Tagalog.
  
  

English

• Some common words in English come from Tagalog. If you've ever called a far-off place "the boondocks" or "the boonies," you've borrowed from Tagalog. "Boondocks" derives from the Tagalog word "bundok," meaning "mountain." The English word "cooties" also comes from the Tagalog "kuto"---not surprisingly, "kuto" translates into "head lice." The name of the toy yo-yo also may come from Tagalog (modern yo-yos were invented in the Philippines).