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Is Tagalog dying? | ||
Tags: Tagalog | Language Importance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5614 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes  Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 17 of 56 27 February 2011 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You can still use those dictionaries, but you will sound dated or provincial at worst, or a 'makata' (poet) at best. Also, the National Language Commission has published a Filipino dictionary with words taken from the other local languages to "enrich" Tagalog, but be careful with some of those words as their comprehension would be uneven. People will give you a quizzical look. You would be lucky if there's an etymological entry, even for the really good dictionaries.
You're spot on with filling the rest with borrowed words. If you use whole English phrases and clauses, then you are code-switching and now talking Taglish. Filipinos are aware that English phrases are not considered part of the Filipino language, even if used by heaps of Filipinos simply because these are collocations learned by studying English at school. The choice of donor language for borrowing technical terms will determine if you're speaking Taglish or Tagalog. You have to use English words for Taglish and Spanish words for Tagalog, unless the Spanish equivalent haven't been borrowed there yet.
You see, there are 2 Tagalog languages: the Taglish of the cities, on line and abroad, and purer Tagalog outside of cities in Southern Luzon. Definitely, its easier to learn Taglish since you can go by with 2,000 words plus simplified grammar. But real purer Tagalog is harder, otherwise it wouldn't have that rating (more Malay-like rating?). Earlier I mentioned it has 30 thousand base words, plus it has 700 affixes, VSO word order, tenseless, weak noun-verb distinction, neither ergative nor accusative alignment, topic marker, 3 kinds of passive sentences, and linguists are still debating whether it has a subject, topic, pivot, or trigger. BUT impoverished lexicon in a modern era. And that describes pretty much all the languages in the islands, including my native language. Its not a pleasing sight to behold. The best thing for you to do is spend some time in the islands and check out for yourself the language situation. I know the language situation is not that bad but choose wisely where you will stay. Nueva Ecija has Ilokano influence, Bulacan has a funny accent (Kapampangan influence), Camarines Norte & Quezon have a lot of words and syntax similar to Bikol language, and Mindoro, Batangas and especially Marinduque have Bisayan language influences. The area surrounding Laguna lake is a good choice, as well as Cavite and Bataan. Here is a map showing where in the Philippines Tagalog is spoken. Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 27 February 2011 at 8:34am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5614 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 18 of 56 27 February 2011 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Ok, for those who want to read more Tagalog (not Taglish), try reading
Tagalog wikipedia. If there is any grammar point or vocabulary that you want to ask, just start a thread and I will try to explain (provided I have the time!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5260 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 19 of 56 09 March 2011 at 6:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Just got back from my week-long vacation in the Philippines, and, well, I heard a whole
lot of Tagalog, so I guess it's safe to say the language is not heading for extinction right at this very moment. On the other hand, there were a lot of English phrases intermixed with the Tagalog, much more than in any other language I have ever heard, and I found this very interesting and weird. For example on the plane the announcements would run something like: "Tagalog Tagalog Tagalog fasten your seat belt sign Tagalog overhead lockers Tagalog Tagalog mobile phones Tagalog electronic devices Tagalog Tagalog" Since I am not involved directly with the language and culture, I can remain emotionally neutral about this situation and just say how fascinating I found it, but at the same time I can certainly understand those who are worried about the "take-over" of Tagalog by English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JFman00 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5325 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 20 of 56 14 March 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My father grew up speaking Ilocano and Kapangpangan in addition to Tagalog but forgot
the first two from lack of use. He enjoys ridiculing Tagalog as a lexically poor language. One of his favorite jokes is that Tagalog/Filipino's "true" term for chair (normally silla, Spanish) is an expression meaning "catch the butt". My mother grew up speaking Tagalog but even with old classmates from more than 50 years ago, she regularly codeswitches into English for expressions that would sound downright absurd if rendered only in Tagalog. Efforts to excise Tagalog of its foreign etymologies would leave only a shell of a language. For better or worse, the language mixing you hear *is* Tagalog. I would hardly blame English, as, as other posters have noted, Tagalog vocabulary is drawn from an extremely wide range of sources. I don't see many people bemoaning the death of original English lexicon... Hwæt. We Gardena in gear-dagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5846 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 21 of 56 15 March 2011 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I said right in the beginning, As a side note, I know that languages always change so the word "dying" is polemic. I realize that English is a combination of many other languages so I don't want to be lectured on that. There is a difference between out right code switching, as well as cultural inferiority complex relating with the language (which you may have related in your post), and simply acquiring new vocab. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| gambi Newbie New Zealand Joined 4905 days ago 37 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English Studies: Indonesian, Burmese | Message 22 of 56 15 March 2011 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think there is a difference between acquiring new vocabulary from another language and then adapting, blending and deriving it to fit the grammar and phonology (as is the case with English having borrowed thousands of words from French and Latin over the past millenium, and code-switching in which whole phrases and sentences from another language are simply spliced into a conversation (as in the case of Taglish). So yea, comparing Old English to modern English is not really a good example. I mean, how often do you hear a native English speaker mixing whole phrases and sentences in Latin, Ancient Greek or Norman French in their speech in a typical conversation? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| JFman00 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5325 days ago 20 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Russian | Message 23 of 56 15 March 2011 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The example definitely was a little extreme but I still don't see what the loss is when
Tagalog speakers use other languages to fill gaps in their vocabulary. Tagalog often does apply its morphology to foreign words "cute na-cute siya" or "John guma-gradwet". I think there's something quite interesting and even beautiful to hear reports on TV Patrol Zamboanga that switch often and effortlessly between Chavacano, Cebuano, Tagalog and English. http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/tvpatrol/zamboanga 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| koba Heptaglot Senior Member AustriaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5664 days ago 118 posts - 201 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, French | Message 24 of 56 16 March 2011 at 5:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have to admit that I had once a high interest in the language, and I personally find the language very beautiful and exotic and I decided to learn it about 4 years ago. Since I had a few friends who were from the Phillippines I thought it would be worth giving it a shot.
However, as I came to know more and more about the language and saw that the Tagalog from the books was very different from the spoken Tagalog in the Philippines and the one used in the internet (the many English borrowings, etc), that all started demotivating me and I soon stopped learning it. It's a pity that they destroy such a beautiful language by adding such a huge amount of foreign words, not just from English, but also Spanish, which in Tagalog definitely doesn't sound natural. But well, it's all heritage of being colonized, they'd have to change history in order to change that. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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