Austronesian ethnic group indigenous to southern Luzon
The Tagalog people are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the Philippines, particularly the Metro Manila and Calabarzon regions and Marinduque province of southern Luzon, and comprise the majority in the provinces of Bulacan, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, and Zambales in Central Luzon and the island of Mindoro.
Etymology.
The most popular etymology for the endonym "Tagalog" is the term "tagá-ilog", which means "people from [along] the river" (the prefix "tagá-" meaning "coming from" or "native of"). However, the Filipino historian Trinidad Pardo de Tavera in "Etimología de los Nombres de Razas de Filipinas" (1901) concludes that this origin is linguistically unlikely, because the "i-" in "ilog" should have been retained if it were the case.
De Tavera and other authors instead propose an origin from "tagá-álog", which means "people from the lowlands", from the archaic meaning of the noun "álog", meaning "low lands which fill with water when it rains". This would make the most sense considering that the name was used to distinguish the people of the lowlands of the Manila region, which was formerly primarily swamps and marshlands, from the people living in higher elevations.
Other authors, like the American anthropologist H. Otley Beyer, propose that "tagá-álog" meant "people of the ford/river crossing", from the modern meaning of the verb "alog", which means "to wade". But this has been rejected by de Tavera as unlikely.
Historical usage.
Before the colonial period, the term "Tagalog" was originally used to differentiate lowland dwellers from mountain dwellers between Nagcarlan and Lamon Bay, the "taga-bukit" ("highland dweller") or "taga-bundok" ("mountain dweller", also archaically "tingues", meaning "mountain", cf. Tinguian); as well as the dwellers of the banks of Laguna de Bay, the "taga-doongan" (people of the pier/shore where boats dock"). Despite the naming distinctions, all of these groups speak the same language. Further exceptions include the present-day Batangas Tagalogs, who referred to themselves as people of Kumintang– a distinction formally maintained throughout the colonial period.
Allegiance to a bayan differentiated between its natives called "tawo" and foreigners, who either also spoke Tagalog or other languages – the latter called "samot" or "samok".
Beginning in the Spanish colonial period, documented foreign spellings of the term ranged from "Tagalos" to "Tagalor".
History.
Prehistory and origin theories.
The Tagalog people are said to have descended from seafaring Austronesians who migrated southwards to the Philippines from the island of Taiwan.
Specific origin narratives of the Tagalog people contend among several theories:
Linguist R. David Zorc reconstructed the origins and prehistory of the Tagalog people based on linguistic evidence. According to Zorc, the prehistory of the Tagalogs began slightly more than one thousand years ago, when the Tagalog language first emerged as a separate speech variety. Tagalog is classified as a Central Philippine language, and is therefore closely related to the Bikol, Bisayan and Mansakan languages. Zorc theorizes that the Tagalog people originated in the general area of the Eastern Visayas or northeastern Mindanao, probably specifically around southern Leyte. Zorc notes that the Hiligaynon people also reportedly originated in Leyte, and the Tagalog and Hiligaynon languages seem to have a special affiliation with each other. The Tagalog people emigrated from their homeland and arrived in southern Luzon around 1200 to 1000 years ago (800-1000 AD).
Subsequently, the Tagalogs made contact with the Kapampangans, Sambal people and the Hatang Kayi, of which contact with the Kapampangans was most intensive. After this, the original settlers moved northward: Kapampangans moved to modern Tondo, Navotas, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Pampanga, south Tarlac, and east Bataan, and Sambals to the modern province of Zambales, in turn, displacing the Aetas. Kapampangans settled Aurora alongside Aetas and Bugkalots.
Barangay period.
Tagalog and other Philippine histories in general are highly speculative before the 10th century, primarily due to lack of written sources. Most information on precolonial Tagalog culture is documented by observational writings by early Spanish explorers in the mid-16th century, alongside few precedents from indirect Portuguese accounts and archaeological finds.
The maritime-oriented barangays of pre-Hispanic Tagalogs were shared with other coastal peoples throughout the Philippine archipelago. The roughly three-tiered Tagalog social structure of "maginoo" (royalty), "timawa"/"maharlika" (freemen usually of lower nobility), and "alipin" (bondsmen, slaves, debt peons) have almost identical cognates in Visayan, Sulu, and Mindanawon societies. Most barangays were networked almost exclusively by sea traffic, while smaller scale inland trade was typified as lowlander-highlander affairs. Barangays, like other Philippine settlements elsewhere, practiced seasonal sea raiding for vengeance, slaves, and valuables alongside headhunting, except for the relatively larger suprabarangay "bayan" of the Pasig River delta that served as a hub for slave trading. Such specialization also applied to other large towns like Cebu, Butuan, Jolo, and Cotabato.
Tagalog barangays, especially around Manila Bay, were typically larger than most Philippine polities due to a largely flat geography of their environment hosting extensive irrigated rice agriculture (then a prestigious commodity) and particularly close trade relations with Brunei, Malacca, China ("sangley"), Champa, Siam, and Japan, from direct proximity to the South China Sea tradewinds. Such characteristics gave early Spanish impressions of Tagalogs as "more traders than warriors," although raids were practiced. Neighboring Kapampangan barangays also shared these characteristics.
10th–13th centuries.
Although at the periphery of the larger Maritime Silk Road like much of Borneo, Sulawesi and eastern Indonesia, notable influences from Hinduism and Buddhism were brought to southwest Luzon and other parts of the Philippine archipelago by largely intermediate Bornean, Malay, Cham, and Javanese traders by this time period, likely much earlier. The earliest document in Tagalog and general Philippine history is the Laguna copperplate inscription (LCI), bearing several place names speculated to be analogous to several towns and barangays in predominantly Tagalog areas ranging from present-day Bulacan to coastal Mindoro.
The text is primarily in Old Malay and shows several cultural and societal insights into the Tagalogs during time period. The earliest recognized Tagalog polity is Tondo, mentioned as Tundun, while several other place names are theorized to be present-day Pila or Paila, Bulacan (Pailah), Pulilan (Puliran), and Binuangan. Sanskrit, Malay, and Tagalog honorifics, names, accounting, and timekeeping were used. Chiefs were referred as either "pamagat" or "tuhan", while "dayang" was likely female royalty. All of the aforementioned polities seemed to have close relations elsewhere with the polities of Dewata and Mdang, theorized to be the present-day area of Butuan in Mindanao and the Mataram Kingdom in Java.
Additionally, several records from Song China and Brunei mention a particular polity called Ma-i, the earliest in 971. Several places within Tagalog-speaking areas contend for its location: Bulalacao (formerly "Mait"), Bay, and Malolos. Ma-i had close trade relations with the Song, directly importing manufactured wares, iron, and jewelry and retailing to "other islands," evident of earlier possible Tagalog predominance of reselling Chinese goods throughout the rest of the Philippine islands before its explicit role by Maynila in the 16th century.
15th–16th centuries: Brunei and Malacca affairs.
The growth of Malacca as the largest Southeast Asian entrepôt in the Maritime Silk Road led to a gradual spread of its cultural influence eastward throughout insular Southeast Asia. Malay became the regional lingua franca of trade and many polities enculturated Islamic Malay customs and governance to varying degrees, including Tagalogs and other coastal Philippine peoples. According to Bruneian folklore, at around 1500 Sultan Bolkiah launched a successful northward expedition to break Tondo's monopoly as a regional entrepot of the Chinese trade and established Maynila across the Pasig delta, ruled by his heirs as a satellite. Subsequently, Bruneian influence spread elsewhere around Manila Bay, present-day Batangas, and coastal Mindoro through closer trade and political relations, with a growing Tagalog-Kapampangan diaspora based in Brunei and beyond in Malacca in various professions as traders, sailors, shipbuilders, mercenaries, governors, and slaves.
The Pasig delta bayan of Tondo-Maynila was the largest entrepot within the Philippine archipelago primarily from retailing Chinese and Japanese manufactured goods and wares throughout Luzon, the Visayan islands (where Bisaya would mistakenly call Tagalog and Bornean traders alike as "Sina"), Palawan, Sulu, and Maguindanao. Tagalog and Kapampangan traders also worked elsewhere as far as Timor and Canton. Bruneian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, Khmer, Cham, and traders from the rest of the Philippine archipelago alike all conducted business in Maynila, and to a lesser extent along the Batangas and Mindoro coasts. However, in a broader scope of Southeast Asian trade the bayan served a niche regional market comparable to smaller trade towns in Borneo, Sulawesi, and Maluku.
Spanish colonial period.
1565–1815: Galleon era.
On May 19, 1571, Miguel López de Legazpi gave the title "city" to the colony of Manila. The title was certified on June 19, 1572. Under Spain, Manila became the colonial entrepot in the Far East. The Philippines was a Spanish colony administered under the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the governor-general of the Philippines who ruled from Manila was sub-ordinate to the viceroy in Mexico City. Throughout the 333 years of Spanish rule, various grammars and dictionaries were written by Spanish clergymen, including "Vocabulario de la lengua tagala" by Pedro de San Buenaventura (Pila, Laguna, 1613), Pablo Clain's "Vocabulario de la lengua tagala" (beginning of the 18th century), "Vocabulario de la lengua tagala" (1835), and "Arte de la lengua tagala y manual tagalog para la administración de los Santos Sacramentos" (1850) in addition to early studies of the language. The first substantial dictionary of Tagalog language was written by the Czech Jesuit missionary Pablo Clain in the beginning of the 18th century. Further compilation of his substantial work was prepared by P. Juan de Noceda and P. Pedro de Sanlucar and published as "Vocabulario de la lengua tagala" in Manila in 1754 and then repeatedly re-edited, with the last edition being in 2013 in Manila. The indigenous poet Francisco Baltazar (1788–1862) is regarded as the foremost Tagalog writer, his most notable work being the early 19th-century epic "Florante at Laura".
Prior to Spanish arrival and Catholic seeding, the ancient Tagalog people used to cover the following: present-day Calabarzon region except the Polillo Islands, northern Quezon, Alabat island, the Bondoc Peninsula, and easternmost Quezon; Marinduque; Metro Manila, except Tondo and Navotas; Bulacan except for its eastern part; southwest Nueva Ecija, as much of Nueva Ecija used to be a vast rainforest where numerous nomadic ethnic groups stayed and left; and west Bataan and south Zambales, as the Tagalogs already migrated and settled there before Spanish rule. Tagalogs were minority of the residents in west Bulacan, Navotas, &amp; Tondo before Spanish arrival. When the polities of Tondo and Maynila fell due to the Spanish, the Tagalog-majority areas grew through Tagalog migrations in portions of Central Luzon and north Mimaropa as a Tagalog migration policy was implemented by Spain. When the province of Bataan was established on January 11, 1757 out of territories belonging to Pampanga and the "corregimiento" of Mariveles, Tagalogs migrated to east Bataan, where Kapampangans assimilated to the Tagalogs. Kapampangans were displaced to the towns near Pampanga by that time, along with the Aetas. This happened again when British occupation of Manila happened in 1762, when many Tagalog refugees from Manila and north areas of Cavite escaped to Bulacan and to neighboring Nueva Ecija, where the original Kapampangan settlers welcomed them; Bulacan and Nueva Ecija were natively Kapampangan when Spaniards arrived; majority of Kapampangans sold their lands to the newly arrived Tagalog settlers and others intermarried with and assimilated to the Tagalog, which made Bulacan and Nueva Ecija dominantly Tagalog, many of the Tagalog settlers arrived in Nueva Ecija directly from Bulacan; also, the sparsely populated valley of the Zambales region was later settled by migrants, largely from the Tagalog and Ilocos regions, leading to the assimilation of Sambals to the Tagalog and Ilocano settlers and to the modern decline in the Sambal identity and language. The same situation happened in modern north Quezon and modern Aurora, where it was repopulated by settlers from Tagalog and Ilocos regions, with other settlers from Cordillera and Isabela, and married with some Aeta and Bugkalots, this led to the assimilation of Kapampangans to the Tagalog settlers. This was continued by the Americans when they defeated Spain in a war, extending the Tagalog diaspora to the islands of Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao, with most notable Tagalog settlement in the latter being New Bataan, Davao del Oro, which was named after Tagalog migrants' place of origin. Subsequent postwar eras also saw Tagalog migrations to those islands in vast numbers due to various economic opportunities, especially agriculture (Tagalogs already settled Mindoro during Spanish territorial rule). Tagalog migrations