Old Tagalog (;

Baybayin Baybayin (,), also sometimes erroneously referred to as alibata, is a Suyat, Philippine script widely used primarily in Luzon during the 16th and 17th centuries and prior to write Tagalog language, Tagalog and to a lesser extent Visayan lang ...

: pre-virama: , post-virama rus kudlit ; post-virama amudpod ᜎᜓᜋᜅ᜕ ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜕), also known as Old Filipino, is the earliest form of the

Tagalog language Tagalog ( ,According to the ''OED'' anMerriam-Webster Online Dictionary ; ''Baybayin'': ) is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by the ethnic Tagalog people, who make up a quarter of the population of the Philippines, and as ...

during the Classical period. It is the primary language of pre-colonial Tondo,

Namayan Namayan (Baybayin: Pre-Kudlit: or (''Sapa''), Post-Kudlit: ), also called SapaLocsin, Leandro V. and Cecilia Y. Locsin. 1967. ''Oriental Ceramics Discovered in the Philippines.'' Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. and sometimes Lamayan, ...

and

Maynila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on the island of Luzon, it is ...

. The language originated from the

Proto-Philippine language The Proto-Philippine language is a reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Philippine languages, a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages which includes all languages within the Philippines (except for the Sama–Bajaw languages) ...

and evolved to Classical Tagalog, which was the basis for Modern Tagalog. Old Tagalog uses the Tagalog script or

, one of the scripts indigenous to the Philippines.

Etymology

The word ''Tagalog'' is derived from the

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

or (''taga-ilog'', "river dweller"), composed of (''tagá-'', "native of" or "from") and or (''ilog'', "river"). Very little is known about the ancient history of the language;

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...

such as David Zorc and

Robert Blust Robert A. Blust (; zh, c=白樂思, p=Bái Lèsī; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the Uni ...

speculate that the Tagalogs and other Central Philippine ethno-linguistic groups had originated in Northeastern

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...

or the

Eastern Visayas Eastern Visayas (; ; ; ) is an administrative region in the Philippines, designated as Region VIII. It consists of three main islands: Samar, Leyte, and Biliran. The region has six provinces: Biliran, Leyte, Northern Samar, Samar, Easte ...

History

Old Tagalog is one of the

Central Philippine languages The Central Philippine languages are the most geographically widespread demonstrated group of languages in the Philippines, being spoken in southern Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and Sulu Province, Sulu. They are also the most populous, including T ...

, which evolved from the

, which comes from the Austronesian peoples who settled in the Philippines around 2200 BC. The early history of the Tagalog language remains relatively obscure, and a number of theories exist as to the exact origins of the Tagalog peoples and their language. Scholars such as

suggest that the Tagalogs originated in northeastern Mindanao or the eastern Visayas. Possible words of Old Tagalog origin are attested in the

Laguna Copperplate Inscription The Laguna Copperplate Inscription is an official acquittance ( debt relief) certificate inscribed onto a copper plate in the Shaka year 822 ( Gregorian A.D. 900). It is the earliest-known, extant, calendar-dated document found within the Phil ...

from the 10th century, which is largely written in

Old Malay Malay language, Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian languages, Austronesian language family. Over a period of two Millennium, millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development th ...

. The first known complete book to be written in Tagalog is the (Christian Doctrine), printed in 1593. The book also used Baybayin script. The question has been raised about the origin of some words in the various languages of the Philippines and their possible connection to ancient Buddhist and Hindu culture in the region, as the language is influenced by

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

, Malay,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

and Chinese.

Writing system

Old Tagalog was written in

, a writing system formerly used in the Philippines which belongs to the

Brahmic family The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used b ...

of scripts.

Phonology

References

External links