Filipino / Tagalog

Filipino is the official language of the Philippines and spoken by about 90 Million people within the country. Filipino belongs to the Austronesian language group which makes it be related to other languages of the same group such as for example Indonesian, Malay, and Javanese.

Filipinog has 2 different scripts, Baybayin and Latin script. Today, the Baybayin script (see alphabet below) is only used for decorative purposes and the Latin script is used in all other cases to write Filipino.

Now what is the difference between Filipino and Tagalog. It is common that many use the 2 different names interchangeably so you might wonder if they are the same or really different. You can see Filipino as Tagalog +. Filipino adds and embraces contributions of languages other than Tagalog (for example words that are derived from English or Spanish). So somebody who uses strictly Tagalog would use different words in certain cases but besides that the 2 languages are identical.

The word “Tagalog” is derived from “tagailog” which means as much as “river dweller”. Not much is known about the history of the language before the 16th century when the Spanish arrived.

The Baybayin Alphabet