Tagalog

About Tagalog

Tagalog is spoken by about 24 million people as a first language, mainly in Manila and the surrounding provinces of Luzon in the Philippines, and by about 45 million more as a second language. Its standard form, Filipino, is the national language of the Philippines and an official language together with English.

Tagalog shows respect with two small words. Add po to a sentence when you speak to an older person or a stranger, as in salamat po (thank you), and answer yes with opo instead of the everyday oo. Spelling follows pronunciation closely. The word ng is read "nang", and mga, which marks a plural, is read "ma-NGA". English words mix freely into everyday speech, a style called Taglish.

FamilyAustronesian, Philippine
Native speakersabout 24 million (2019)
Second-language speakersabout 45 million (2013)
Where spokenPhilippines
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codestl (ISO 639-1), tgl (ISO 639-3)

Speaker numbers: Ethnologue (2019 and 2013), via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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