Tagalog Language - Still Widely Spoken in the Philippines?   by Carlo Padilla

in Education / Languages    (submitted 2011-03-12)

Filipino or Tagalog are both languages of the Philippines. In fact, they only refer to the same thing. Both languages are identical in terms of diction, grammatical structure, spelling and meaning. Tagalog was the name of the country's national language before it was renamed to Filipino during the constitutional assembly in 1987.

The National Language Institute decided to replaced the name from Tagalog to Filipino as the nation's official language to create separation and avoid false judgement between the national language and the country's largest ethnic group, which is the Tagalog. Ever since the traced existence of the Philippine ancestry, Tagalog was the native language that dominated the entire nation, despite the existence of other aboriginal dialects. There are about 25 million speakers of Tagalog who consider it as their first language and over 60 million speakers consider it as their second language in the Philippines alone. Overall, around 90 million people are able to speak well in Tagalog including those who are now living in foreign areas.

Tagalog is still widely spoken in the Philippines because it has been firmly preserved by the people throughout the years, despite the occurrence and influential practices of other languages. Filipinos of today, kept the value of their nation's language as much as they can for it is the existing proof of the Philippines' freedom from the Spanish and American colonies. Thousands of lives where lost and hundreds of homes were wrecked just to defend the country's own identity and to escape from all those who want to claim their independence. Filipinos continue to spread the usage of their language, despite what country they live in.

Since Tagalog is the native dialect of the country, most Filipinos find comfort in expressing themselves and sharing their ideas. Even though other provinces especially those in the Visayas and Mindanao regions does not consider Tagalog as their first language, they still have good Tagalog comprehension and they may not be able to pronounce the words with its proper accent, but they are able to construct accurate grammatical sentences. The Filipino language will continue to reign as longs as there are people willing partake what they have and determined to go beyond what is expected to them.

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Go to http://www.FilipinotoEnglish.com if you want to learn more about the Tagalog language, how to speak it, and how to translate from filipino to english.