Filipino and Tagalog: Are they the same? What's the difference?

"Natanggal ang sapatos ko."

Is that sentence in Tagalog? Or is it Filipino?

Each year that we celebrate the National Language month, a new set of students are encouraged to become Francisco Balagtas and oratorical pieces are recited. It's a celebration of the Filipino language — meant to include all the 180 languages in the Philippines — but it seems like people who speak Tagalog have an upper hand.

A person who grew up speaking Waray has to acquire an entirely new lexicon. If you speak Tagalog, you're pretty much set. This raises the question: How is Filipino different from Tagalog? Are they actually the same?

Kris Tetay and the GMA News and Public Affairs team consulted with Roy Rene Cagalingan, spokesperson for the Commission on the Filipino Language, to better understand the issue.

Cagalingan admitted that the two share the same roots. "Pinagbatayan ng pagkakaroon natin ng wikang pambansa na Filipino ang tawag ngayon 'yong Tagalog."

However, he argued that Filipino is broader than Tagalog. As an example, he cited "Lungsod" and "Katarungan," two words that are actually of Cebuano origin.

In a separate interview, GMA News asked the same question to Jem Javier, Assistant Professor from the Department of Linguistics in the University of the Philippines - Diliman.

According to Javier, a number of linguists are still waiting for the difference between Tagalog and Filipino to be more clear. This could happen after two or three generations... but as of now, the distinction between the two is still debatable.

Gets pa rin

From a linguistic perspective, Javier said that a simple way to answer the question is with another question: "Nagkakaintindihan ba 'yong nagpapakilalang Tagalog 'yong sinasalita at 'yong isang nagpapakilalang Filipino 'yong sinasalita?"

This is called the mutual intelligibility test. If the answer is yes — the speakers can understand each other with little to no difficulty — then they are speaking a variant or a dialect of the same language.

"Dahil [sa mutual intelligibility ng Tagalog at Filipino], maraming nagsasabi na ang Filipino is actually a dialect of Tagalog in Manila, spoken in Manila,"  Javier explained.

"Ngayon, kung sususugan mo pa ang sinabi ni (Noam) Chomsky na 'a language is a dialect that has an army and a navy'...understandable, kaya pala naging National Language 'yong dialect ng Tagalog (i.e. Filipino) sa Maynila."

However, there are other perspectives in distinguishing a dialect from a language like in the case of the Indonesia and Malaysia.

"Noon, wala pang Bahasa Indonesia at Bahasa Malaysia. Lahat, Melayu — Bahasa Melayu — at ito 'yong Lingua Franca ng mainland Southeast Asia noong panahon na mayroon pang Kingdom of Malaya," Javier said.

"Ngayon, noong lumaya sila sa pananakop ng mga taga-Kanluran, ang Malaysia, mayroon silang kinuhang dialect ng Melayu — ng Malay language — sa South of Kuala Lumpur at 'yon ang inangat nila upang maging National Language. Tinawag nilang Bahasa Malaysia.

"Sa Indonesia, kinuha nila 'yong dialect mula sa East Java at 'yong dialect na ito ang inangat nila upang maging National Language," he continued.

Speakers of what is now known as Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia can understand each other, but if you ask them, they will say that they are speaking different languages.

The reason is political, Javier said. "Iba 'yong perspective."

Bringing the conversation back to the Philippine setting, Javier said that one can claim that Filipino exists as a concept for a number of reasons that disregards the mutual intelligibility test.

"Sasabihin natin, mayroon [dahil] may Constitution. Nakasulat. Puwede rin nating sabihing mayroong Filipino kasi ito 'yong Lingua Franca ng Pilipinas at hindi na ito Tagalog lang," he explained.

Now, if you were asked to translate something in Tagalog, how different would your answer be if you were to translate the same sentence in Filipino?

You can take this quiz with Kris Tetay and learn more about Filipino words.

— LA, GMA News