Tagalog Language - History

History

The word Tagalog derived from tagailog, from tagá- meaning "native of" and ílog meaning "river". Thus, it means "river dweller". Very little is known about the history of the language. However, according to linguists such as Dr. David Zorc and Dr. Robert Blust, the Tagalogs originated, along with their Central Philippine cousins, from Northeastern Mindanao or Eastern Visayas. The first written record of Tagalog is in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, written in 900, using fragments of the language along with Sanskrit, Malay, and Javanese. Meanwhile, the first known book to be written in Tagalog is the Doctrina Cristiana (Christian Doctrine) of 1593. It was written in Spanish and two transcriptions of Tagalog; one in the Baybayin script and the other in Latin script. Throughout the 333 years of Spanish occupation, there were grammars and dictionaries written by Spanish clergymen such as Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala by Pedro de San Buenaventura (Pila, Laguna, 1613), Vocabulario de la lengua tagala (1835) and Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos (1850). Poet Francisco Baltazar (1788–1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer. His most notable work is the early 19th-century Florante at Laura.

Read more about this topic:  Tagalog Language

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “You that would judge me do not judge alone
    This book or that, come to this hallowed place
    Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
    Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
    Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
    And say my glory was I had such friends.”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    “The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
    —Terri Apter (20th century)