Tagalog, like other Philippines languages today, is written using the Latin alphabet. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in 1521 and the beginning of their colonization in 1565, Tagalog was written in an
abugida—or
alphasyllabary—called
Baybayin. This system of writing gradually gave way to the use and propagation of the Latin alphabet as introduced by the Spanish. As the Spanish began to record and create grammars and dictionaries for the various languages of the Philippine archipelago, they adopted systems of writing closely following the orthographic customs of the Spanish language and were refined over the years. Until the first half of the 20th century, most Philippine languages were widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography. In the late 19th century, a number of educated Filipinos began proposing for revising the spelling system used for Tagalog at the time. In 1884, Filipino doctor and student of languages
Trinidad Pardo de Tavera published his study on the ancient Tagalog script
Contribucion para el Estudio de los Antiguos Alfabetos Filipinos and in 1887, published his essay
El Sanscrito en la lengua Tagalog which made use of a new writing system developed by him. Meanwhile, Jose Rizal, inspired by Pardo de Tavera's 1884 work, also began developing a new system of orthography (unaware at first of Pardo de Tavera's own orthography). Pedro Laktaw, a schoolteacher, published the first Spanish-Tagalog dictionary using the new orthography in 1890. The orthography as used by Tagalog would eventually influence and spread to the systems of writing used by other Philippine languages (which had been using variants of the Spanish-based system of writing). In 1987, the Abakada was dropped and replaced by the expanded Filipino alphabet.
Baybayin Tagalog was written in an
abugida (
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 "kudlít" 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 consonant without a following vowel was simply left out (for example,
bundók being rendered as
budo), forcing the reader to use context when reading such words. Example:
Latin alphabet Abecedario Until the first half of the 20th century, Tagalog was widely written in a variety of ways based on Spanish orthography consisting of 32 letters called '
ABECEDARIO' (
Spanish for "alphabet"). The additional letters beyond the 26-letter
English alphabet are: ch, ll, ng, ñ, n͠g / ñg, and rr.
Abakada 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
balarilâ. The only letter not in the
English alphabet is ng.
Revised alphabet 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. The additional letters beyond the 26-letter
English alphabet are: ñ, ng.
ng and mga The
genitive marker
ng and the plural marker
mga (e.g.
Iyan ang mga damít ko. (Those are my clothe
s)) are abbreviations that are pronounced
nang and
mangá .
Ng, in most cases, roughly translates to "of" (ex.
Siyá ay kapatíd 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 (equivalent to the suffix
-ly in English adverbs), among other uses. •
Nang si Hudas ay nadulás.—When
Judas slipped. •
Gumising siya nang maaga.—He woke up early. •
Gumalíng nang si Juan dahil nag-ensayo siyá.—Juan greatly improved because he practiced. In the first example,
nang is used in lieu of the word
noong (when;
Noong si Hudas ay madulás). 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 (
gumalíng), which is "greatly" (
nang ). In the latter two examples, the ligature
na and its variants
-ng and
-g may also be used (
Gumising na maaga/Maagang gumising;
Gumalíng na /Todong gumalíng). The longer
nang may also have other uses, such as a
ligature that joins a repeated word: •
Naghintáy sila nang naghintáy.—They kept on waiting" (a closer calque: "They were waiting and waiting.")
pô/hô and opò/ohò The words originated from the word "." and "." ("Lord."). When combined with the basic affirmative "yes" (from
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *heqe), the resulting forms are and . "" and "" are specifically used to denote a high level of respect when addressing older persons of close affinity like parents, relatives, teachers and family friends. "" and "" are generally used to politely address older neighbours, strangers, public officials, bosses and nannies, and may suggest a distance in societal relationship and respect determined by the addressee's social rank and not their age. However, "" and "" can be used in any case in order to express an elevation of respect. • Example: "" ("Please throw away the trash.") Used in the affirmative: • Ex: "". ("Are you hungry yet?" "Yes.") may also be used in negation. • Ex: "" ("I don't know that.") ==Vocabulary and borrowed words==