Tagalog vs Filipino: What’s The Difference?
Any country with at least two widely spoken languages creates a certain level of confusion, particularly for visitors who aren’t keen on the history, politics, and linguistic distribution of those languages.
Exhibit A (and maybe the best example of all): The Philippines.
Both Filipino and Tagalog are spoken by millions of people in the country. Not only that, but the two languages are closely related (as we’ll see in a minute) – which muddies the linguistic waters even more.
Are Tagalog and Filipino the same language? What are the principal differences between Tagalog and Filipino? If you’re interested in the country and culture, for travel reasons or otherwise, which language is worth learning?
Plenty of questions surface in the Tagalog vs Filipino debate – and Pimsleur is here to answer them!
Understanding Tagalog and Filipino as Languages
Many visitors to the Philippines ask, are Filipino and Tagalog the same language?
The answer? Sort of. Here’s the explanation.
Filipino is the Philippines’ national language, derived from (mostly) the Tagalog language. Tagalog is simply a regional language spoken in the Philippines, with a rich history and legacy in the country.
Tagalog is spoken in many parts of Luzon, the country’s largest and most populous island. In particular, the central and southern parts of Luzon – including the capital city of Manila – frequently speak Tagalog.
Despite Luzon’s large population, when the Philippine Continental Constitution was written in the early 20th century, only about a quarter of the population spoke Tagalog. And this makes sense. The Philippines is a vast country with over 7,500 islands, so even if you visited one island per day, it would take you 20 years to visit them all!
Given Manila’s influence on Philippine politics, commerce, and culture, Tagalog grew in usage across the country. In the meantime, another “parallel” language developed right alongside Tagalog, a tongue called Filipino. This derivation of Tagalog was much more accommodating to accepting words from other languages, which helped its own growth and popularity. For a good portion of the 20th century, both Tagalog and Filipino experienced considerable growth as the population of the Philippines expanded.
By the early 1980s, around 50% of Filipinos spoke Tagalog, making it the most widely spoken language in the country, even more than Filipino. But a few years later, the national language was suddenly declared to be Filipino.
Back to the question: Are Tagalog and Filipino the same language? Think of Filipino as the younger offshoot of Tagalog. Filipino essentially took its roots from Tagalog. Over the years, Filipino absorbed and incorporated loanwords from different cultures – Spanish, English, and others. Many of these loanwords were “Filipino-ized” and became a regular part of the Filipino vocabulary.
While they’re very similar and use some of the same vocabulary, they’re not the same. Filipino is an official language, while Tagalog is simply a widely spoken regional tongue.
Key Differences Between Tagalog and Filipino
Here are some of the crucial differences between Tagalog and Filipino:
- Vocabulary. Given that Tagalog preceded Filipino – remember, Filipino is another form of Tagalog – there are plenty of Tagalog words found in Filipino. But not vice versa. Tagalog is the “pure” language of the Philippines (at least one major region of the country, anyway), while Filipino also includes loanwords and adaptations from English and Spanish. For language learners, at least from a vocabulary standpoint, it’s easier to learn Tagalog first since many of those words exist in Filipino.
- National recognition. While Filipino is the official language of the Philippines (along with English), Tagalog is only officially recognized as a regional language. Given the country’s vast array of islands, it’s easy to see why there are about two dozen regional languages in the Philippines. Of all regional languages, Tagalog is the most widely spoken.
- Sentence structure. Since Filipino is a modern, updated version of Tagalog, the rules and guidelines around building sentences are much more relaxed. Tagalog’s historical roots developed over the centuries in its own certain way, while Filipino quickly adapted to new speakers with easily accessible, more adaptable sentence structure rules.
- Alphabet. Filipino’s tendency to adapt foreign words meant that the language had to literally expand its alphabet. The letters c, f, j, x, and z don’t exist in Tagalog, as the language didn’t have any equivalent phonemes (sounds). Filipino’s solution was to simply tack on the extra letters, making this a key difference between Tagalog and Filipino.
Tagalog vs Filipino: Which One Should You Learn?
Now that you know Filipino and Tagalog are not the same language – though they’re very similar – the next question is, which language should you learn?
It all depends on your ultimate goals. If a visit to Luzon and Manila is in your future, Tagalog might be the ticket. If you’d like to visit other parts of the Philippines, Filipino would be a great choice. But both languages are helpful for helping you vacation in the country, learn more about Filipino culture and history, or simply enjoy conversations with native speakers.
Pimsleur offers a language learning program built around your goals, and that includes your pursuit of conversational fluency in Tagalog. Our Premium monthly subscription includes one language of your choice. If your language learning goals are more ambitious, and you’d like to learn Tagalog and other languages, our All Access monthly subscription is hard to beat. You’ll not only settle the Tagalog vs Filipino choice, but you’ll also get access to dozens of other languages in the Pimsleur catalog – more than 50 in all!
Whatever route you choose, Pimsleur is here to help you start speaking Tagalog after your very first lesson.