50 Fun Facts About Filipino Language (Tagalog)

Filipino is a standardized form of which Philippine language?

It is the form spoken and written in Metro Manila and other urban centres.

In the 1948 census, roughly what share of Filipinos spoke the national language?

Nearly half of those seven million speakers had learnt it as a second language.

Which constitution mandates that Filipino be enriched by the other languages of the Philippines?

It also names Filipino the national language and, with English, an official language.

How many living languages originate in the Philippines, by one count cited for the country?

Ethnologue counts 182 native languages, four of them extinct.

Most Philippine languages descend from a Malayo-Polynesian ancestor tied to migration from where?

Through Malay they picked up words originating in Sanskrit, Hokkien, Arabic and Japanese.

The first Tagalog dictionary, the Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, was published in which year?

It was printed by Tomás Pinpin, the 'Father of Filipino Printing', in Pila, Laguna.

Paul Klein, who wrote an early 18th-century Tagalog dictionary, was a Jesuit from which country?

Known locally as Pablo Clain, he spoke Tagalog and used it in several books.

Which president proclaimed Tagalog the basis of the national language on December 30, 1937?

He was born in Baler, Aurora, a native Tagalog-speaking area.

Commonwealth Act No. 184 of 1936 created which body, later called the Surián ng Wikang Pambansâ?

Later known as the Surián ng Wikang Pambansâ, it studied each native language before choosing.

Who chaired the seven-member body that chose the base language in 1937, representing Samar-Leyte?

Cecilio Lopez represented the Tagalogs and Hadji Butu the languages of Muslim Filipinos.

Which grammarian's 1940 Balarílà introduced the 20-letter Abakada?

Every consonant in the Abakada is named with an -a suffix: ba, ka, da.

In 1959 the national language was renamed what, to distance it from one ethnic group?

Education Secretary José E. Romero made the change; many Cebuanos still did not accept it.

Congressman Geruncio Lacuesta's anti-purist movement promoted what he called a 'Manila' what?

His MOLAM movement wanted a 32-letter alphabet and an end to respelling loanwords.

Which 1991 law created the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino?

The KWF reports directly to the President and superseded the Institute of Philippine Languages.

What ISO 639-2 code did Filipino receive in 2004?

It was registered by an Ateneo de Manila student, Martin Gomez.

In 2007, trial courts in which Bulacan city began using Filipino instead of English?

Twelve stenographers trained at Bulacan State University for the pilot.

Buwan ng Wika, the national language celebration, is held in which month?

It coincides with the birth month of Manuel L. Quezon, the 'Ama ng Wikang Pambansa'.

Before 1997, how long did the national language celebration last?

It was called Linggo ng Wika and ran from August 13 to 19.

The original 1946 Language Week ended on April 2, the birthday of which Tagalog writer?

He wrote the Tagalog epic Florante at Laura.

Why did Ramon Magsaysay move Language Week out of March-April in 1955?

The new dates, August 13-19, ended on Quezon's birthday.

Which president extended Language Week to a full month in 1997?

Proclamation 1041 of July 15 renamed it Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa.

In 2007 KWF chair Ricardo Nolasco said Filipino's grammar was simply that of which language?

He argued that was contrary to RA 7104's requirement to enrich it from other Philippine languages.

The word 'Tagalista' is used in language debates to label people who promote what?

Literally it just means a Tagalog specialist.

Tagalog belongs to which language family?

Its relatives include Malay, Malagasy, Hawaiian and Māori.

The name Tagalog is thought to come from taga-ilog, meaning what?

An alternative derivation is taga-alog, from a word for a lowland pool of water.

What is the first known complete book written in Tagalog, printed in 1593?

It gave the Tagalog text twice: in Baybayin and in an early Latin spelling.

Old Tagalog words may appear in which 10th-century artefact, written mostly in Old Malay?

It is the earliest known written document found in the Philippines.

Tagalog was first declared official in 1897 by the charter of which revolutionary republic?

That was 1897; the 1899 Malolos Constitution effectively made Spanish official instead.

How many phonemes does Tagalog have?

Sixteen are consonants and five are vowels.

Native Tagalog words typically follow which syllable structure?

More complex consonant clusters turn up only in loanwords.

In Tagalog, the marker 'mga' before a noun indicates what?

It is pronounced mangá; 'ng' is pronounced nang and roughly means 'of'.

Tagalog has two number systems: native words and numbers derived from which language?

'Seven' can be pitó or siyete, from Spanish siete.

Tagalog's Chinese loanwords come mostly from which variety?

Many cover cuisine, household objects and kinship terms.

Which English word for a remote place was borrowed from Tagalog?

Abaca, balisong, jeepney, ylang-ylang and yaya made the same trip.

What is the name for the mix of Tagalog and English common in Philippine media?

Companies from McDonald's to Western Union have run ads in it.

Whose 1884 study of the ancient Tagalog script inspired Rizal's orthography reform?

Critics attacked the new letters k and w as 'German'.

Tagalog is the first language of roughly what fraction of Filipinos?

It is a second language for most of the rest of the population.

Which word order does Tagalog most commonly use?

It can also use subject-verb-object, and it is not a tonal language.

Baybayin is classified as what type of writing system?

Each consonant carries an inherent /a/ vowel.

How many letters does Baybayin have?

Three are vowels and 14 are consonants; /e/ and /i/ share a character.

In Baybayin, what is the diacritic that changes a consonant's inherent vowel called?

Above the letter it gives e/i; below it gives o/u.

Which priest added the krus virama, a cross that cancels a vowel, to Baybayin in 1620?

Native Baybayin experts praised it, then declined to adopt it.

The name Baybayin comes from the root baybay, meaning what?

The word first appears as baibayin in the 1613 Vocabulario de la lengua tagala.

Whose archives in Manila hold the largest collection of surviving Baybayin writings?

The script today shows up on tattoos, logos, banknotes and passports.

Baybayin was encoded in Unicode in 2002 under which block name?

Buhid, Hanunoo and Tagbanwa scripts were encoded alongside it.

What word appears in Baybayin on the New Generation Currency peso notes issued from 2010?

The script also appears on government logos and Philippine passports.

The Abakada was superseded in 1987 by a Filipino alphabet with how many extra letters?

The letter K was also repositioned in the new 28-letter alphabet.

Rizal and other 19th-century reformers wanted to replace the letters C and Q with which letter?

The change became popular only in the early 20th century.

Which law of 1998 requires the national anthem always to be sung in the national language?

The Flag and Heraldic Code also fixes the anthem to Julián Felipe's arrangement.

Around 600 American teachers who arrived in 1901 to teach in English were nicknamed what?

They were named after the ship that brought them, the USAT Thomas.