Tagalog

Tagalog is a Central Philippine language of the Austronesian family, native to the plains around Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay in southern Luzon; its name may mean river dweller, from taga-ilog. Possible Old Tagalog words survive in the tenth-century Laguna Copperplate Inscription, and before Spanish rule Tagalogs wrote in baybayin, a syllabic script.

The first complete printed book in the language, the Doctrina Christiana of 1593, appeared in both baybayin and an early Latin orthography. Spanish missionaries printed its first grammar in 1610 and compiled its first dictionary in 1613.

Three centuries of Spanish rule added a large Romance vocabulary while the Latin alphabet displaced baybayin. The early nineteenth century produced the poet Francisco Balagtas, whose epic Florante at Laura became the cornerstone of Tagalog literature.