In Baybayin, certain characters can represent either a single sound like a vowel or a consonant, or an entire syllable, not unlike Chinese characters. The language was written in an ancient, alpha-syllabic script called Baybayin - a script that shared many traits with the Kawi script in Java and some of India’s oldest writing systems. However, Tagalog looked very different on paper in the old days.
The people, and the language they spoke, were called Tagalog based on the local word taga-ilog, literally meaning ‘river dwellers’. They were part of the Kingdom of Maynila before the Spanish conquest began in the early 16th century. Tagalog was an old language, mainly used in central or southern Luzon, and spoken by an ethnic group that was known to settle near rivers, like the Pasig River. Unlike the famous chicken or the egg dilemma, it’s easy to point out which of the two languages came first. Since it is National Language Month, let’s take a closer look at these two languages. To answer why Tagalog and Filipino are different would mean talking a little bit of our history. There’s barely any difference in grammar or syntax between the two, and yet, Article XIV, Section 6 of our current Constitution officially labels Filipino, not the former, as our national language.
Ask any Pinoy what their national language is, and they would be forgiven if they happen to answer Tagalog, instead of Filipino.
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