SIMPLE PHRASES

Hello ( Xin chào) Goodbye ( Tạm biệt)

the 16th to the 19th centuries. But dominating this colourful language is Spanish, with about 40 percent of informal conversation made up of Spanish words.

In the 16th century, Tagalog was written in abugida, which comprised symbols of three vowels and 14 consonants. It was similar to the Old Kawi Javanese script. Although it was popular for some time, it slowly lost ground to the Latin alphabet, which was taught by the Spanish during their rule.