Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🗣️ A Philippine language 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 A Filipino person 👥 A Filipino group 🗣️ A Philippine language
Tagalog

Tagalog

6.7
A language of the Philippines spoken mainly in and around Manila
  • noun
  • /təˈɡɑːlɒɡ/
: tagalo
  • If you want to communicate with locals in Manila, learning Tagalog is essential.
  • Tagalog and Vietnamese
  • Tagalog and Korean
  • Tagalog and Russian

So I, you know, I went and did a couple different schools, went to Tagalog.

Examples

  • Outreach is key to ensure all will have a voice, which is why we had both Spanish and Tagalog translators at our first meeting.

    Blog text (1)

  • Other languages spoken by one or more respondents included German, Korean, Persian, Polish, Russian, Tagalog (Philippines), and Turkish.

    Academic text (2010)

  • But I want to support your Tagalog learning.

    Freakier Friday (2025)

  • On his own, he is now learning a few Tagalog words.

    Blog text (21)

  • Yay, I'm going to teach you some Tagalog today.

  • When I was first studying Tagalog, we had a contest to see who could repeat the most syllables.

  • Interviews were conducted in English, Chinese, Tagalog, Hindi, Korean, and Vietnamese.

    Academic text (2006)

  • Tessie spoke in the musical tones of her Tagalog-inflected English.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • They chatted in Spanish, French, Creole, Russian, Tagalog, Hawaiian, and for my benefit, English.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • If the English language Wikipedia were translated into the major Southeast Asian languages of Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malay, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese, it would, as one content source, represent more web pages than all the rest of the online content in these languages combined.

    Blog text (30)

Synonyms

Filipino
vsTagalog
1 4.2

The official language of the Philippines based mainly on Tagalog and other local languages

is a regional language that was the main basis not the final national form
Filipino language
vsTagalog
1 3.0

The official national language of the Philippines based on Tagalog and using words from other local languages

is a regional language serving as the original source rather than the national mixture
Philippine language
vsTagalog
6.5

The official way of speaking in the Philippines based on Tagalog and including words from other local languages

is a regional speech form that provided the core not the combined national version

Surface Forms

Tagalog singular
Tagalogs plural

Etymology

The word Tagalog comes from taga- 'from' and ilog 'river', a name for people who lived by rivers near Manila. That's why Tagalog refers to the language spoken in and around Manila.