Abakada alphabet

"Tagalog alphabet" redirects here. For other uses, see Tagalog alphabet (disambiguation).

The Abakada alphabet is an indigenized Latin alphabet of the Tagalog language of the Philippines. The alphabet, which contains 20 letters, was created by Lope K. Santos in 1940. The alphabet was officially adopted by the Institute of National Language (Filipino: Surián ng Wikang Pambansâ) for Filipino. See Filipino alphabet.

Order/collation of the Abakada alphabet

Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)

A

B

K

D

E

G

H

I

L

M

N

NG

O

P

R

S

T

U

W

Y

Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters)

a

b

k

d

e

g

h

i

l

m

n

ng

o

p

r

s

t

u

w

y

History

Main article: Tagalog language § Writing system

During the Pre-Hispanic Era, Old Tagalog was written using the Kawi or the Baybayin script. For three centuries Tagalog was written following, to some extent, the Spanish phonetic and orthographic rules.

Dr. José Rizal, initially suggested to indigenize the alphabet of the Philippine languages by replacing the letters C and Q with K. Based on Rizal's indigenization proposal, the Abakada became the alphabet for the Tagalog language.

At present, all languages of the Philippines but Spanish and Chabacano may be written using the Modern Filipino alphabet, which includes all the letters of the Abakada alphabet. These two exception shall follow the ancient rules for all the Filipino languages.

See also

• Filipino alphabet
• Filipino orthography
• Baybayin
• Kawi script
• Philippine Braille