Tagalog, The Language of the Philipines

INTRODUCTION

Spoken by over 28 million people around the world, Tagalog is the national language and one of two official languages in the Philippines, the other being English. Tagalog, is also referred to as Filipino, it is considered the most important of the many tongues and dialects throughout the Philippines, because it is the most understood and has the most development. It is mainly spoken in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and the surrounding eight provinces around it including the provinces of Bataan, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite Batangas, Quezon, Mindoro, Marinduque, and Bulacan. It is also spoken in many outer-lying islands and seaport towns throughout the archipelago. Today, Tagalog is spoken as a first language by around 23 million people and as a second language by over 66 million people.

ORIGIN

Tagalog is ones of the many dialects derived from the Malay language family and belongs to the Malayan branch of the great Malayo-Polynesian linguistic family. The Malay language is not specifically a language of any nation, but of communities spread throughout the Pacific islands such as Sumara, Sunda, Java, Bornea, Flores, Timor, and the Philippines. In the early sixteenth century Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, and his Malay interpreter both noticed how the interpreter could easily be understood from one island to the next, indicating that there was a similarity between the different dialects of the Malay language.

Tagalog can mainly attribute its influence from the Spanish, but it does contain some minor influences of Sanskrit, Arabic, and some other Semitic languages. Found in the oldest dictionaries in the Philippines, the Noceda and Sanlucar dictionary of 1832 contains 16,842 roots in Tagalog with 284 of thes...

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... as a form of expression that is true to the Filipino identity. Teodore M Locsin of the Philippines Free Press wrote, "Should English then, be the national language... English is not our own no matter how much mastery we gain of it. The first should be Filipino, for we must have a common language that is our own. “Locsin was only just a sample of the feeling among the educated and articulate members of the community.

Today, there is a growing interest to learn Tagalog all around the world. Foreign embassies from around the world are requesting study materials of the Tagalog language. The Institute of the National Language have received multiple requests from countries in South American, Africa, and Europe all eager to learn the language. Even in the United States, many universities are beginning to teach Tagalog as a second language. Examples are Harvard, Yale, etc.