Tagalog voice overs: what you need to know

Tagalog is an Austronesian language, primarily spoken in The Philippines. It’s an ethnic language of the Tagalog people — one of the biggest ethnolinguistic groups of the Philippines.

Tagalog is more known by its standardized form — Filipino. Filipino is one of the two official languages of The Philippines and the lingua franca of Filipinos worldwide

It’s estimated that about 23 million people are native Tagalog speakers. Impressively, 45 million people speak Tagalog as a second language. It’s a widely spoken language outside of The Philippines. In fact, it’s the fourth most spoken language in the United States! Prominent Tagalog-speaking communities are found in Canada, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.

Language History

Linguists consider that Tagalog developed from the Proto-Philippine language — an ancient ancestor language of all Philippine languages. As an independent language, Tagalog emerged around the 10th century. The first written texts also appeared around this time.

Tagalog spread and usage was greatly affected by the Spanish colonial rule of The Philippines, which spanned for almost four centuries. During this time, the Spanish language dominated all aspects of official life, and Tagalog was pushed to the margins.

In the early 20th century, Tagalog was chosen to be the basis of the national language of The Philippines. The region had two official languages at the time — Spanish and English. The government sought to implement a national language, based on one of the native languages of The Philippines.

In 1983, Filipino — the standardized version of Tagalog — became the official language of The Philippines.

Close Relations

Tagalog is closely related to other Philippine languages, for example, Kapampangan,  Pangasinan, Ilocano, and Cebuano. The languages are not considered to be mutually intelligible, but they do share similar grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and word patterns.

Since Tagalog belongs to the Austronesian language group, it does have some similarities to other languages of this group. Most noticeably, Tagalog is similar to Malay, Māori, Hawaiian, and Malagasy.

In terms of vocabulary, the majority of Tagalog words are natively Austronesian. However, Tagalog extensively borrows from foreign languages. There are many loanwords of English, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Sanskrit origin.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Being a rather widespread language, Tagalog has many dialects and regional varieties. Tagalog dialects are categorized into four regional groups: Northern, Central, Southern, and Marinduque.

Tagalog has one standardized form — Filipino — that serves as one of the official languages of the country and is used in all official matters, education, and media. The standardized Tagalog is based on the Manila dialect — a language variety spoken in the capital Manila.

When it comes to spoken Tagalog, English and Spanish speakers don’t have that many difficulties learning or comprehending the language. Tagalog doesn’t have sounds that would appear foreign to English speakers.

Nevertheless, when recording a Tagalog voice over, keep in mind that the language boasts a variety of regional accents. For example, in the capital Manila, the speakers tend to pronounce the sound i more strongly, as well as switch between o and u vowels. So when you’re working on the recording, make sure you know your target audience as the regional accents are so unique!

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