What is the difference between the language Tagalog and Pilipino?

Question

I see that in sites about the Philippines, they use Pilipino, but my family and everyone from the Philippines speaks Tagalog. Is Pilipino reffering to all the languages and dialects of the Philippines?

Answer 1

Tagalog is a dialect spoken in the Philippine Tagalog regions-( central to southern parts of the island of Luzon) but is widely used as a lingua franca throughout the country. It is language within the Austronesian language family which assimilated some words from the following languages: Spanish, Min Nan Chinese, English, Malay, Sanskrit , Arabic , and Northern Philippine languages such as Kapampangan spoken on the island of Luzon.

Pilipino/Filipino is the standardized form of Tagalog and considered as Philippine national language. Filipino actually got no much difference from Tagalog based on the fact that large percentage of the words used derived from Tagalog so as we can say that they are very similar indeed. Filipino language incorporates some words derived from the rest of Philippine dialects, and that is the factor that differentiates it from Tagalog. However in actual usage, Filipino language (I can say) exist only in formal settings as in books, official document written in Filipino,and in official claims.

But honestly speaking, Filipino language in common usage doesn't have a unique characteristics to differentiate it from Tagalog. Its inclusion of other dialects to Tagalog doesn't have an impact for it to be recognized in separate entity. You see, Philippines got many dialects and anyone can talk in a way with mixed up words out of different dialects. But if someone talks Tagalog you can immediately identify it is Tagalog and most likely the talker is from Philippines,anyone can say. Ifever someone talks Filipino, one still identifies it as Tagalog and will hardly say it as Filipino, for an obvious reason that its difference is not easily recognizable.

Well, as my conclusion: both appears to be almost the same. Filipino actually exist just in official sense but practically not. Quite confusing, isn't it?

Answer 2

Tagalog is a dialect of some of the provinces in the Philippines. It was made into the official national language of the country.

PILIPINO could refer to a native of the country, the Philippines or another word for Filipino language.

FILIPINO is either the English word of Pilipino or another term for the official language of Philippines. It could also refer to you, who is a Filipino.

That's the reason why some Ilocanos or Visayans, among others, are upset about the name of of the Philippine language. Tagalog was chosen to be the national language instead of their dialect like Bisaya, Ilokano, etc.

So, if somebody ask you what the name is of your language, you answer them FILIPINO. You speak Filipino, which is technically , Tagalog dialect.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Tagalog is a major language. It was also the official language. But other people (hey, we have more than 120 languages and dialects here) protested. So it was made into Filipino (not Pilipino). Why F? because if we used Pilipino, it will have a bias towards the Tagalog language. Now, there are other languages with letters that are not found in the Tagalog alphabet (f, j, etc). So to remove the bias towards Tagalog, the magic formula for the official Filipino language is... Filipino!

Answer 4

Nimo directly made a good definition and hit it right. Tagalog is a dialect... most widely used in the National Capital Region, the Luzon area...

see this conception that it is a language can also be true. however, Tagalog is a dialect where it really evolve from certain spanish, chinese and malay language.

Pilipino became a language due to the Marcos era. with several dialects being used, there must be a national language to promote the Filipino identity. thus, the Pilipino language. most words were intermixed with several dialects, even some slangs were induced and it became then a language..

Answer 5

When those sites say "Pilipino" I think that yes, they are referring to all the different dialects of the Philipino language. Not everyone from the Philippines speaks Tagalog. Tagalog is the most widely used dialect in the Philippines. Some others that are also commonly used are Visayan, and ilocano.

Answer 6

TAGALOG and PILIPINO are two official languages of Philippines.

TAGALOG is one of the major languages spoken in the Philippines, mostly by people from the Tagalog regions in the main island of Luzon. It is the lingua franca in Metro Manila, the national capital region of the country. It also serves as a base for Filipino, one of the two official languages of the Philippines (along with English). Read this interesting essay on the metamorphosis of Filipino as national language.
The TAGALOG language has very strong affinity with Malay languages (Bahasa Indonesia/Malay). However, due to more than 300 years of Spanish colonial rule over the Philippines, the language has incorporated a significant number of Spanish words and expressions. The language also includes words and phrases that are rooted in English

FILIPINO-- the term used in both the 1973 and 1987 Philippine constitutions to designate as the "national language" of the Philippines, whether de jure or de facto, it matters not -- has come full-circle to prick the national consciousness and lay its vexing burden at the feet of our national planners, as well as of the academe. For indeed, the past six decades (since 1935) has seen "Pilipino" (or "Filipino," its more acceptable twin ) tossed in the waves of controversies between the pros and and the antis as each camp fires off volleys of linguistic cognoscente or even garbage, as the case may be, while the vast majority watched with glee or boredom.

With a strong constitutional mandate to evolve, further develop, and enrich Filipino "on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages" (Art. XIV, Sec.6, 1986 Constitution), our language planners were supposedly equipped to deal with the legal and administrative details of the problem, after the sad episodes appurtenant to its admittedly emotional sideshows in the 1971 Constitutional Convention (Santos, 1976) and the polemical articles of Vicente Sotto, et. al. (Rubrico, 1996), among others.

Answer 7

Filipino or Pilipino as recorded by many websites and even books, is the formal term for the languages spoken by people. To take them as one, we would say Pilipino or Filipino and on top would be Tagalog being the more recognized language in the Philippines...

Answer 8

The official language of the Philippines is Filipino. But, Filipino/Filipina could also refer to the noun referring to the citizens of the Philippines (in English). Pilipino is a noun referring to the citizens of the Philippines in the Filipino language. (Pilipina for women).

Tagalog is a dialect in the Philippines, one of many: Cebuano, Ilokano, Bisaya, etc.

The Filipino language is mostly composed of Tagalog words that is why the two are often confused for the other. But the entirety of the Filipino language encompasses a lot of words, including foreign words and slang, not just Tagalog.

You'll be surprised to know that not all Filipinos know how to speak Tagalog and/or Filipino because they speak a different dialect.

Answer 9

Tagalog is a dialect Pilipino is the the national language in Tagalog but Filipino in English it can also refers to the citizens of the country both for english and tagalog

Answer 10

The basis for the Philippine national language is Tagalog, which had primarily been spoken only in Manila and the surrounding provinces when the Commonwealth constitution was drawn up in the early 1930s. That constitution provided for a national language, but did not specifically designate it as Tagalog because of objections raised by representatives from other parts of the country where Tagalog was not spoken. It merely stated that a national language acceptable to the entire populace (and ideally incorporating elements from the diverse languages spoken throughout the islands) would be a future goal. Tagalog, of course, by virtue of being the lingua franca of those who lived in or near the government capital, was the predominant candidate.

By the time work on a new constitution began in the early 1970s, more than half the Philippine citizenry was communicating in Tagalog on a regular basis. (Forty years earlier, it was barely 25 percent.) Spurred on by President Marcos and his dream of a "New Society," nationalist academics focused their efforts on developing a national language -- Pilipino, by that time understood to be Tagalog de facto. Neologisms were introduced to enrich the vocabulary and replace words that were of foreign origin. A much-remembered example is "salumpuwit" (literally, "that to support the buttocks") for "chair" to replace the widely adopted, Spanish-derived "silya." Such efforts to nativize the Philippine national language were for naught, however, since words of English and Spanish origin had become an integral part of the language used in the everday and intellectual discourse of Filipinos.

This reality was finally reflected in the constitution composed during the Aquino presidency in the latter half of the 1980s. The national language was labeled Filipino to acknowledge and embrace the existence of and preference for many English- and Spanish-derived words. "Western" letters such as f, j, c, x and z -- sounds of which were not indigenous to the islands before the arrival of the Spaniards and the Americans -- were included in the official Filipino alphabet.

The aforementioned evolution of the Philippine national language is taught as part of the school curriculum in the Philippines, such that when you ask a Filipino what the national language of the country is, the response is, "Filipino." In the same way that there are English (composition, literature...) classes in American elementary, secondary and tertiary schools to teach the national language of the United States, there are Filipino classes (not Tagalog classes; Filipino literature classes, not Tagalog literature classes) in Philippine schools.

So what is the difference between Filipino and Tagalog? Strictly speaking, Filipino is Tagalog Plus -- it is supposed to be more inclusive of languages other than Tagalog. For instance, it is quite all right to say "diksyunaryo" (from the Spanish diccionario) in Filipino, whereas a Tagalog purist (or someone stuck in the "Pilipino" era) might insist on a native Tagalog word like "talatinigan." A further consideration is that it is somehow more considerate to refer to Filipino, not Tagalog, as the Philippine national language, if only to recognize Filipinos who do not regard Tagalog as their first language, but who do deign to speak Filipino, which the powers-that-be in Manila have made the national language of their country.

In practical terms, most people, especially Filipinos overseas who have come to realize that foreigners favor "Tagalog" to refer to the Philippine national language and "Filipino" as an adjective, don't strictly differentiate among the words Filipino, Pilipino and Tagalog, and have learned to adapt to how Americans or Canadians perceive the meaning of each word. That is why when you go to a bookstore in North America, for example, you are more likely to find a "Tagalog (or Pilipino) dictionary" than a "Filipino dictionary."