The modern Filipino alphabet (), otherwise known as the Filipino alphabet (), is the alphabet of the

Filipino language Filipino ( ; , ) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with Philippine English, English. It is only a ''de facto'' and not a ''de jure'' standard langu ...

, the official national language and one of the two

official An official is someone who holds an office (function or Mandate (politics), mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual Office, working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (eithe ...

languages of the Philippines There are some 130 to 195 languages spoken in the Philippines, depending on the method of classification. Almost all are Malayo-Polynesian languages native to the archipelago. A number of Spanish-influenced creole language, creole varieties ge ...

. The modern Filipino alphabet is made up of 28 letters, which includes the entire 26-letter set of the

ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...

, the Spanish '' Ñ'', and the '' Ng''. The Ng digraph came from the Pilipino Abakada alphabet of the Fourth Republic. Today, the modern Filipino alphabet may also be used to write all autochthonous

and

Chavacano Chavacano or Chabacano () is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of spea ...

, a Spanish-derived creole. In 2013, the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino released the ''Ortograpiyang Pambansa'' ("National Orthography"), a new set of guidelines that resolved phonemic representation problems previously encountered when writing some

Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...

and dialects.

Alphabet

The letters C/c, F/f, J/j, Ñ/ñ, Q/q, V/v, X/x, and Z/z are not used in most native Filipino words, but they are used in a few to some native and non-native Filipino words that are and that already have been long adopted, loaned, borrowed, used, inherited and/or incorporated, added or included from the other languages of and from the Philippines, including Chavacano and other languages that have or where occurs a wider set of occurring sounds and pronunciations compared to the more limited occurring sounds and pronunciations in the Tagalog language and some of the other major local and regional languages and lingua francas or common languages, and also from foreign languages in the Philippines and beyond, that have influenced or continues to influence the languages of and from the Philippines and how Filipinos speak and pronounce the Filipino language and the other languages, which are all already long part and already have been long part of the Filipino national and official language since 1987, most especially in the varieties, variants or dialects on the other places or areas of the Philippines outside of the predominantly and only Tagalog-speaking and the predominantly or only Tagalog-based or predominantly Tagalog only-based Filipino-speaking places or areas.

Letters

The 28 letters of the Alpabeto are called ''títik'' or ''létra'', and each represents a spoken sound. These are classed either as ''patínig'' or ''bokáblo'' (vowels) and ''katínig'' or ''konsonánte'' (consonants). The letters' names are pronounced and collated in the same way as English, except for Ñ .

Consonants

The Abakada developed in the early 20th century had fewer consonants. By the middle of the century, letters (baybayin) were added and later on reduced due to its ideology which is English that is approximately radical to English alphabet with the release of the Ortograpiyang Pambansa in 2014. It was a major change to add these letters and thus modernise the writing system and to preserve sounds that are found in native Philippine languages. The digraphs and manuscripts were chosen to be placed in other ''wordings'' for privileges and adaptations. Examples of the added letters:

Vowels

Most languages in the Philippines share vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/. After centuries of Spanish colonisation and the standardisation of Filipino as the national ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

'', the vowels /e/ and /o/ became more common.

References

External links