Tagalog

GENDER IN LANGUAGE PROJECT

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TAGALOG

SPEAKERS: 83,357,970

Tagalog is a language of the Philippines. The Tagalog language is the basis of Pilipino, which is largely recognized to be a standardized form of Tagalog. Pilipino and English share co-official language status in the region. Throughout history, Tagalog has been highly influenced by other languages like Malay, Sanskrit, Arabic, Spanish, and English as a result of trade and colonization.

Natively, Tagalog has masculine-feminine gender distinctions in some kinship terms (e.g. ama 'father', ina 'mother'). While the language did not have a system of morphological gender prior to Spanish colonialism, hundreds of Spanish loanwords were borrowed into Tagalog, many of which retained inflectional Spanish gender morphology, constituting a subset of the lexicon with morphological gender. Some of these items, including pilipino/pilipina, are especially prominent in the language and have been neutralized by speakers using the -x morpheme (pilipinx).

GENDER-INCLUSIVE PROPOSALS

MASCULINE

pilipino, filipino

'Filipino'

pinoy

'Filipino'

FEMININE

pilipina, filipina

'Filipina'

pinay

'Filipina'

NEUTRAL/INCLUSIVE

pilipinx, filipinx

'Filipinx'

pinxy

'Filipinx'

These two masculine-feminine pairs of Tagalog words have been neutralized using the -x morpheme by various speakers. As in Spanish, where the -x is similarly a gender-inclusive morpheme, it has been attested as the cluster [ks], producing the variable pronunciations [fi.li.'pi.nɛks]/[pi.li.'pi.nɛks] and ['pi.nksi]. Use of the -x morpheme is most prominently proposed and explained by the organization Filipinxs in Education Reaffirming Community Empowerment (FIERCE). In 2020, filipinx and pinxy were added to the English-language resource Dictionary.com.

GRAMMAR OF GENDER IN TAGALOG

by CARMELA BLAZADO & BEN PAPADOPOULOS

This resource displays all sites of masculine-feminine gender distinction in the Tagalog grammar. It does not display parts of the Tagalog grammar that do not have gendered distinctions. The first two sections feature examples of native Tagalog words with masculine-feminine gender distinctions. The last two sections feature examples of Spanish loanwords in Tagalog that have masculine-feminine gender distinctions. Expanded versions of these lists may be seen in the linked resource Spanish Loanwords in Tagalog.

NATIVE LEXICAL

GENDER NOUNS

These nouns are native to Tagalog and devoid of Spanish influence. Tagalog has many gender-specific terms of personal reference, and gender-neutral alternatives exist to varying degrees.

MASCULINE

lalaki

'male'

ama, tatay

'father'

ninong

'godfather'

kuya

'older brother'

bana

'husband'

bayaw

'brother-in-law'

FEMININE

babae

'female'

ina, nanay

'mother'

ninang

'godmother'

ate

'older sister'

maybahay

'wife'

hipag

'sister-in-law'

NEUTRAL/INCLUSIVE

tao

'human, person'

magulang

'parent'

—

'godparent'

kapatid

'sibling'

asawa

'spouse'

—

'sibling-in-law'

In addition to these native nouns, Tagalog features a host of other gender-neutral terms of personal reference, including sanggol 'baby', anak/bata 'child', pinsan 'cousin', ninuno 'ancestor', and kaibigan 'friend'.

NATIVE HONORIFICS

These are polite forms of personal address in Tagalog. Like English, Tagalog distinguishes marital status only for women.

MASCULINE

ginoo

'mister (Mr.)'

—

FEMININE

Gng.

ginang

'missus (Mrs.)'

Bb.

binibini

'Miss'

NEUTRAL/INCLUSIVE

—

SPANISH LOANWORDS WITH MORPHOLOGICAL GENDER

The Phillipines were subject to Spanish colonialism for more than three centuries. As a result, many Spanish loanwords with canonical -o/-a morphological gender were borrowed into Tagalog. Many of these noun and adjectives comprise the most basic and frequent parts of Tagalog vocabulary in the present day.

MASCULINE

direktór

'director'

iho

'son'

pilipino, filipino

'Filipino'

aktór

'actor'

duke

'duke'

FEMININE

direktóra

'director'

iha

'daughter'

pilipina, filipina

'Filipina'

aktrís

'actress'

dukesa

'dutchess'

IN TAGALOG WITH

LEXICAL GENDER

Relatedly, some Spanish loanwords included lexical gender items, which are distinguished at the root, in addition to also possibly being distinguished morphologically.

MASCULINE

kabalyero

'gentleman'

padrastro, padrasto

'stepfather'

papá

'dad'

FEMININE

dama

'lady'

madrasta

'stepmother'

mamá

'mom'

CITE THIS PAGE

APA 7

Blazado, C. & Papadopoulos, B. (2025). Tagalog. Gender in Language Project. www.genderinlanguage.com/tagalog

REFERENCES

Aspillera, P. S. (2007). Basic Tagalog for foreigners and non-Tagalogs. Tuttle Publishing.

Baklanova, E. (2016). On marginal gender in Tagalog: A case study. In Y. Narodov Mira (Ed.), Proceedings on the XII International Conference: Languages of the Far East, South East Asia and Western Africa (pp. 25-33).

Baklanova, E. (2017). Types of borrowings in Tagalog/Filipino. Kritika Kultura, 28, 35-54.

Constantino, P. C. (2000). Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino: Do they differ?. Defenders of Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago. http://dila.ph/FilipinoisnotTagalog.pdf

Dictionary.com. (2020). Dictionary.com releases its biggest update ever. Dictionary.com. http://www.dictionary.com/e/new-words-dictionary-2020/

Filipinxs in Education Reaffirming Community Empowerment [FIERCE]. (2018). Why we say 'filipinx'. Filipinxs in Education Reaffirming Community Empowerment. http://kpfierce.weebly.com/blog/why-we-say-filipinx

Oficina de Educación Iberoamericana. (1972). Hispanismos en el tagalo. Madrid: Imnasa.

Stolz, T. (2012). Survival in a niche: On gender-copy in Chamorro (and sundry languages). In M. Vanhove, T. Stolz, & A. Urdze (Eds.), Morphologies in Contact (pp. 93-140). Akademie Verlag.

Zamar, S. (2022). Filipino: An essential grammar. Routledge.