History Of Tagalog The National Language Of The Philippines

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Tagalog: The National Language of the Philippines
Tagalog is one of the languages spoken by Filipinos in the Republic of the Philippines. According to Paz M. Belvez, “After a thorough and earnest effort in studying the case, the committee recommended Tagalog to be the basis of the national language. Hence, the Executive Order No. 134 s. 1937 stating that the national language will be based on Tagalog” (Para. 4). It served as the country’s official language along with English. Philippines was surrounded by different countries and that allowed them to trade and correspondence. This kind of activities gave them opportunities to be influence by other languages throughout the history. The word Tagalog was a short term for Taga-ilog which means river dweller. According to the location, presented in Ethnologue, “Tagalog speakers are mostly found in Manila, a Luzon area”.
It was thought that Indonesians were the first groups to have come in the Philippines around 1500 B.C. There was a connection between Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia. It was possible that the language may came from those groups. But another groups like Malay people are also thought to have come much earlier. According to Philippine History, presented in Pinas, “The Malayan tribes that came later had more highly developed material cultures” (Para. 1). They made up the largest percentage of population in the country.
Before the arrival of other explorers, they build small towns and called it Barangays. A Datu was assigned to lead their barangay. They lived together so they would have higher chance of safety and protection from other dwellers. But they weren’t united as one government and just settle into smaller groups. This caused creating many languages and speak diff...

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...l dialects that differ, especially at the phonological and lexical levels” (Para. 2).
The Tagalog continued to borrow words from different Languages especially English and Spanish languages. This kind of process can make it hard to distinguish which words are the original Tagalog. Often, those borrowed words could never have the same meanings as the others. According to Dr. Teresita V. Ramos, “One of the factors that complicate the language situation in the Philippines is diversity. Linguists say there are 75 to 150 native languages spoken by Filipinos” (Para. 2). In the end, Tagalog language have develop a lot since the time of trading and colonization. It have been influenced by English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and many others. However, Filipino people have managed to owned, maintained, separated their languages from one language to another.

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