Featured Language: Tagalog
Fast Facts
Tagalog is one of the major languages spoken in the Philippines. Tagalog is an Austronesian language with about 57 million speakers in the Philippines, particularly in Manila, central and southern parts of Luzon, and also on the islands of Lubang, Marinduque, and the northern and eastern parts of Mindoro. Tagalog speakers can also be found in many other countries, including Canada, Guam, Midway Islands, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.
Tagalog used to be written with the Baybayin alphabet. Today the Baybayin alphabet is used mainly for decorative purposes and the Latin alphabet is used to write to Tagalog. According to Omniglot.com, the name Tagalog derives from tagá-ílog, which means "resident beside the river." Little is known of the history of the language before the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines during the 16th century as no earlier written materials have been found.
Language software provider Rosetta Stone® calls Tagalog an easy to learn language because most letters of the alphabet have only one corresponding sound. It states that learning prepositions is easy, too, since the language has only two prepositions, nasa and sa.
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Sources
Ethnologue
CIA World Fact Book
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