I am someone who used to be able to speak this language fluently in childhood but lost the ability to when I had to use English upon moving in the UK, but there is something that’s captured my attention from time to time.
When I look at or hear a piece of text written in Malay, Indonesian or some other Malay language, I do not easily understand it as well as, say, a Philippine language (but I don’t understand Ilokano, where my father is from). However, comparing a Philippine language to a non-Philippine language, one can see more commonalities between the languages of the Philippines than between other Malay languages. I think I remember trying to read and understand some Malay that that happened to be on the label of some packaging when I was very young. I was never taught it, and I simply don’t understand it.
The most striking difference to me is lexical, where the Spanish influence of Philippine languages are far stronger. Additionally, an influence on the orthography seems to play a role, where a silent “h” often seems to appear at the end of words in non-Philippine Malay languages more often – I believe Arabic may have played a part in this, where this distinction may be in part, grammatical.
Aside from differing cultural influences in the past, I’m not entirely sure as to how speakers of Philippine languages would be less easily able to understand speakers of other Malay languages and vice versa. I do not know the extent of influence of outsiders towards the languages but also think some internal influences may have played a part too. What do any more of the informed linguists here think?
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A major reason would probably be geography. If you look at the South East Asian map, the Philippines, an archipelago, is much more isolated and distant compared to other Malay countries. While on the other hand, other Malay countries are clustered together, thus making it easier for trade.
Along with trade (as always) comes the exchange of cultures and languages. It’s easier to trade with people if you know their language and can communicate. Interaction with other languages can lead to the borrowing or exchanging of words, phrases etc.
The Philippines is separated from mainland Asia by the South China Sea, making trade less frequent and to an extension, cultural and linguistic interactions
Because it’s older. Tagalog and malay both come from the austronesian family but tagalog sepearted earlier from malay. Alao you’re correct in that spanish and English have stronfer influence on tagalog due to centuries of colonization.
Because it’s older. Tagalog and malay both come from the austronesian family but tagalog sepearted earlier from malay. Alao you’re correct in that spanish and English have stronfer influence on tagalog due to centuries of colonization.
Don’t really have an answer, but whenever I hear Tagalog, I swear I should be understanding what they’re saying, but cant quite grasp any words. They sound so similar, and share quite a few words, but I definitely don’t understand Tagalog.
Also, the “silent H” at the end of Malay words a lot of times will change the way the word is pronounced. Like dada and dadah. Maybe a small difference depending on where you’re from. But the H at the end of a word will change how it’s pronounced for the most part.
Saw this link about Austronesian language breakdown before. Thought it might able to shed some light on how separated each of the descended dialects are apart :
Out of topic but I believe it’s called Filipino. Tagalog is different from Filipino (the national language); Filipino comprises of Tagalog and other languages.
Source: Am Filipino and got this drilled in my head by my Filipino lit and Ph history professors.
> The most striking difference to me is lexical…
That is only a relatively surface-level difference. There are other more fundamental differences. Structurally, Philippine languages have remained more conservative.
1) Different arrangement of the parts of a sentence – more like VSO.
2) Tagalog and other Philippine languages have retained the [Symmetrical Voice/Austronesian alignment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetrical_voice) which seems to be an inheritance from the Proto-Austronesian ancestor.
EDIT:
As to the why, I agree that the Philippine languages have been more isolated and less exposed to outside influences. I’m not only talking about historic influences like external trade and cultural influences from India, China and the Middle East. Other lesser known factors like encounters with Austroasiatic-speaking peoples in Western Indonesia may have also contributed. These currently exist only in the interior of the Malay peninsula but there is evidence that they were more widespread in the past, possibly existing in Borneo, Java and Sumatra. There have been interactions with mainland Southeast Asia (e.g. Champa).
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