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Tagalog Alphabet & Pronunciation

The Filipino alphabet, vowels, consonants, and key sounds
diptonggo: ay, aw, iw
diphthongs ay, aw, iw
ay, ow, iw
Tagalog diphthongs that affect syllable count and stress
bata vs. bata
child vs. robe (stress/glottal minimal pair)
BAH-tah vs. bah-TAH
Stress placement is phonemic in Tagalog; changes meaning
Abakada vs. modern Filipino alphabet
old 20-letter vs. 28-letter alphabet
ah-bah-kah-dah
Modern alphabet adds c, f, j, q, v, x, z for loanwords
epenthesis in compounds
vowel clusters in compound words
pah-ah-rah-lan
Vowel clusters handled without glide insertion unlike English
foreign phonemes: f, v, z
sounds in borrowed words
eff, vee, zee
Native speakers vary in retaining vs. replacing these sounds
ng cluster word-initially
ng sound at start of word
ngah
Rare in world languages; occurs naturally in Tagalog: ngayon, ngunit
glottal stop in everyday speech
final glottal often dropped in casual speech
varies
Formal speech preserves glottal; colloquial often drops it
stress shift with suffixes
adding -an or -in can shift primary stress
varies
Stress moves rightward when suffixes are added to verb roots
Tagalog syllable structure
CV preferred open syllables
varies
CVCV preferred; Tagalog avoids heavy consonant clusters
nasal assimilation with mang-
mang- prefix causes consonant changes
mahng-
Mang plus bili becomes mamili; mang plus tahi becomes nanahi