Tag Archives: Tagalog

Survival phrases in Tagalog (Filipino)

800px-Jeepney_Carbon_Market

Today’s blog post will take us to the Philippines and its national language, Tagalog or Filipino (Pilipino). Tagalog is an Austronesian language, the language family that also includes languages such as Malay, Bahasa Indonesia, Malagasy and Hawaiian to name but a few. The name Tagalog itself derives from ‘taga-ilog’, which means river dweller. Filipino, the national languages of the Philippines, was developed as a lingua franca in the 1930s, and Tagalog, a language spoken predominantly in Manila and Central and South Luzon, was chosen as its base, into which words and elements from other Phillipine languages were then incorporated. Tagalog vocabulary includes a wealth of words from Spanish and English, and the words for numbers, days of the week and for months are actually loanwords from Spanish, but spelled in Filipino.

Here are some ‘survival phrases’ in Tagalog 🙂 :

Kumusta                                      Hello

Babay                                         Goodbye

Salamat                                      Thank you

Walang anuman                         You’re welcome

Ako si…..                                    My name is……

Oo                                              Yes

Hindi                                           No

Hindi ko naiintindihan                 I don’t understand

Sori                                            Sorry

Eksyus mi                                  Excuse me

Kumusta po kayo?                    How are you?

Mabuti po                                  I’m fine

Author: B. Navez, Wikipedia Commons Ylang-ylang plant, a native plant from the Phillipines

Author: B. Navez, Wikipedia Commons
Ylang-ylang plant, a native plant from the Phillipines

Tagalog has also contributed some words to the English language. Some words of Tagalog-origin commonly used in English  are:

Ylang-ylang        a tropical tree with yellow flowers from the Phillipines, from which a fragrance is derived

Capiz                  a shiny oyster shell, which is used in the production of crafts

Abaca                a type of hemp fibre made from the Abaca-plant, a plant in the banana family

Cogon               a type of grass used for thatching, from the word kugon (a species of tall grass)

Boondocks       a word meaning ‘rural’ or ‘backcountry’ in English, which is derived from a mispronunciation of the word bundok (“mountain”)

Jeepney in the Phillipines

Jeepney in the Phillipines