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For a language whose existence before the Age of Discovery was virtually unrecorded and unknown to the outside world, Tagalog’s contemporary history tells a surprisingly involved story that illustrates the important political and social implications a nation’s official language can have on its culture. Modern-day Tagalog languages comprise the most widely-spoken language base in the Republic of the Philippines, although some would say that none of the current forms of the language are truly “pure Tagalog.” With at least seven countable dialects, modern Filipino, as it is now called, owes much of its lexicon to English, Chinese, Malay, and Spanish influences, to name a few.
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The Philippines, in fact, spent 300 years under Spanish rule beginning near the turn of the sixteenth century, during which the first written examples of Tagalog were composed by Spanish missionaries. Flashing forward to the modern era, Tagalog has been adopted and readopted by the Republic, which has found itself recently in the throes of a cultural revival. For many, discovering the Tagalog roots of modern Filipino words and music has become more than a hobby, and certainly no joke: for some, it helps them to reconcile both their national histories and family origins in a way that can be difficult for someone living in a region with a largely undocumented cultural history.
Tagalog is a language both old and new; a living language at all stages of evolution; at once revived, revisited, and revised in an era where national identity is of the utmost importance to a nation’s prosperity as a whole. Like reciting lyrics in a song, Tagalog speakers take pleasure in quoting their historical language as much as they enjoy speaking their modern tongue.
Want to learn so speak Tagalog? Explore Languages of the World: Tagalog from Transparent Language. Learn Tagalog quickly, easily, and effectively through total language immersion. Learn more!
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