Tagalog phonology

Template:Short description Template:WikiIPA Template:IPA notice This article deals with current phonology and phonetics and with historical developments of the phonology of the Tagalog language, including variants.

Tagalog has allophones, so it is important here to distinguish phonemes (written in slashes / /) and corresponding allophones (written in brackets [ ]).

Consonants

Phoneme	Spelling	Distribution and quality of allophones
Stops
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr pulá ('red')	Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr bugháw ('blue')	Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr tao ('human')	When followed by , may be pronounced , particularly by speakers in urban areas. Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr diláw ('yellow')	When followed by , may be pronounced , particularly by speakers in urban areas. Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr kamáy ('hand')	Post-velar or otherwise relatively far back in the vocal tract for at least some speakers, even when adjacent to front vowels.Template:Rp Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp Intervocalic tends to become , as in bakit ('why') or takot ('fear').Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr gulay ('vegetable')	Post-velar or otherwise relatively far back in the vocal tract for at least some speakers, even when adjacent to front vowels.Template:Rp Unreleased or nasally released phrase-finally.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr mag-uwî ('to return home'). Normally unwritten at the end of a word (galà, 'roaming') or between vowels (Taal, a town in Batangas)	A glottal stop occurring at the end of a word is often elided when it is in the middle of a sentence, especially by speakers of the Manila Dialect. The preceding vowel then undergoes compensatory lengthening: > "isn't it?".Template:Rp It is preserved in some dialects of Tagalog. In the Palatuldikan (diacritical system), it is denoted by the pakupyâ or circumflex accent when the final syllable is stressed (e.g. dugô 'blood'), and by the paiwà (grave accent) if unstressed (susì 'key').
Fricatives
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr sangá ('branch')	When followed by , it is often pronounced , particularly by speakers in urban areas.
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr siyam ('nine') Template:Angbr sya (a form of siya, second person pronoun) ⟨sh⟩ shabú ('methamphetamine')	May be pronounced , especially by speakers in rural areas.
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr hawak ('being held')	Sometimes elided in rapid speech.
Affricates
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr tiyan ('stomach') Template:Angbr pangungutyâ ('ridicule') Template:Angbr tsokolate ('chocolate');	May be pronounced (or if spelled Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr), especially by speakers in rural areas.Template:Rp
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr Diyos ('god') Template:Angbr dyaryo ('newspaper') ⟨j⟩ jaket ('jacket')	May be pronounced [dj], especially by speakers in rural areas.
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr pizza; Template:Angbr tatsulok ('triangle')	May be pronounced , especially by rural speakers and in some urban areas.
Nasals
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr matá ('eye')
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr nais ('desire')	In names borrowed from Spanish, it may assimilate to before labial consonants (e.g. in San Miguel, in San Pedro, and in Infanta) and to before velar ones (e.g. and ) and, rarely, glottal .
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr ngitî ('smile')	Assimilates to before and (pampasiglâ, 'invigorator') and to before (pandiwà, 'verb'); some people pronounce as a geminate consonant , as in Angono.
Laterals
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr larawan ('picture')	Depending on the dialect, it may be dental/denti-alveolar or alveolar (light L) within or at the end of a word. It may also be velarized (dark L) if influenced by English phonology.
Rhotics
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr saráp ('deliciousness'); kuryente ('electricity')	Traditionally an allophone of , the phoneme may be now pronounced in free variation between the standard alveolar flapped , a rolled , an approximant and Template:Citation needed span

Vowels and semivowels

Phoneme	Spelling	Allophones
Vowels
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr asoge ('mercury')	is raised slightly to in unstressed positions and also occasionally in stressed positions (e.g. Ináng Bayan , 'motherland'). The diphthong and the sequence have a tendency to become or (e.g. tenga from taínga, 'ear'; kelan from kailan, 'when'). The diphthong and the sequence occasionally have a tendency to become or (e.g. isolì from isaulì, 'to return').
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr in any position (espíritu, 'spirit'; tsinelas, 'slippers') and often Template:Angbr in final syllables (e.g., hindî) and with exceptions like mulî (adverbial form of 'again') and English loanwords.	can be pronounced or diphthongized to .
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr ibon ('bird')	Unstressed is usually pronounced (e.g. sigalót, 'discord'). In final syllables, can be pronounced , as and were formerly an allophone of . before s-consonant clusters has a tendency to be dropped, as in isports ('sports') and istasyon ('station').
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr oyayi ('lullaby')	can be pronounced or diphthongized to . were also former allophones. Morphs into before and (e.g. Bagumbayan, literally 'new town’, a place now part of Rizal Park; kumpisál, 'Confession').
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr utang ('debt')	Unstressed is usually pronounced .
Semivowels and/or Semiconsonants
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr yugtô ('chapter')
Template:IPAslink	Template:Angbr wakás ('end')

Stress and final glottal stop

Stress is a distinctive feature in Tagalog. Primary stress occurs on either the final or the penultimate syllable of a word. Vowel lengthening accompanies primary or secondary stress except when stress occurs at the end of a word.

Tagalog words are often distinguished from one another by the position of the stress and/or the presence of a final glottal stop. In formal or academic settings, stress placement and the glottal stop are indicated by a diacritic (tuldík) above the final vowel. The penultimate primary stress position (malumay) is the default stress type and so is left unwritten except in dictionaries. The name of each stress type has its corresponding diacritic in the final vowel.

Phonetic comparison of Tagalog homographs based on stress and final glottal stop

Common spelling	Unstressed ultimate syllable no diacritic	Stressed ultimate syllable acute accent (´)	Unstressed ultimate syllable with glottal stop grave accent (`)	Stressed ultimate syllable with glottal stop circumflex accent (ˆ)
baba	baba ('father')	babá ('piggy back')	babà ('chin')	babâ ('descend [imperative]')
baka	baka ('cow')	baká ('possible')
bata	bata ('bathrobe')	batá ('perseverance')	batà ('child')
bayaran	bayaran ('pay [imperative]')	bayarán ('for hire')
kaya	kaya ('can')			kayâ ('so')
labi			/ labì ('lips')	/ labî ('remains')
pito	pito ('whistle')	pitó ('seven')
sala	sala ('fault')	salá ('interweaving [of bamboo slats]')	salà ('filtering; sifting')	salâ ('broken [of bones]')

See also

• Tagalog orthography
• Help:IPA/Tagalog