# Chinese loan words in Tagalog



## Qcumber

I know Chinese loan words in Tagalog were not borrowed from Beijing / Mandarin Chinese, but from languages spoken in Fujian, and that the Chinese immigrants in the Philippines call themselves Hokkien.

I never found a good book on this subject. 

I remember reading one by MANUEL, but it had neither phonetic transcriptions, nor Chinese logograms, so was of limited value.

A better one is CHAN-YAP's (1980) because it has good Latin transcriptions and handwritten logograms. 

I have a Pilipino-English-Chinese dictionary by SAN DIEGO (1971), a Filipino Chinese. It has logograms, but the Latin transcriptions are amateurish and without tones.   

1) Has any good book been published since on this subject?

2) Is the average Tagalog speaker aware of the Chinese origin of terms like *kúya* "eldest / elder brother", *áte* "eldest / elder sister", *díko *"second eldest brother", *ditsé *"second eldest sister", *hukbó *"armed forces", *súsì* "key", etc.?


----------



## lapaz

I appreciate your interest in this subject... and I wonder whether you take it as academic and scholarly interest.  
I can't answer you for certain if there's a published book on that particularl subject but I know for sure that there is a study (a dissertation) made on Hokkien loan words on food in Tagalog.  The study was done by a student in Ateneo de Manila University.  I even have the copy of it.  I forgot the author's name.  I have to check.

An average Tagalog speaker may not realize many of the daily Tagalog words are loan words from Chinese (Hokkien or Fokkien specifically).  Many may be more aware of the loan words on food.


----------



## Qcumber

lapaz said:


> I appreciate your interest in this subject... and I wonder whether you take it as academic and scholarly interest. [...]


I am a retired scholar, and decided to work on Tagalog because it has many interesting features with the advantages that it is written in the Latin alphabet and is fairly easy to pronounce.
Thanks a lot for your answer.


----------



## Brendela

Hi Qcumber,
I have 2 Philippino friends who used to teach me to speak Tagalog. Chinese loan words aside, it seems that Philipinos using Tagalog are generally aware of the Spanish loan words due to historical links but unaware of other languages' loan words. As I'm fluent in Indonesian, Malay and Chinese (including all Chinese dialects), I have noticed that there're quite a number of loan words. My friend was surprised when I told her that some words belonged to other language and they had the same meaning & very similar/almost identical pronouciation. 

For your qs on their awareness of Chinese loan words in Tagalog, my sentiment is that they're not aware as it's been widely spoken and heard in Tagalog.


----------



## Qcumber

Brendela said:


> For your qs on their awareness of Chinese loan words in Tagalog, my sentiment is that they're not aware as it's been widely spoken and heard in Tagalog.


Hi.
Yes, Spanish is easily identified by Filipinos, at least when the Tagalog term is not too from its Spanish ancestor. 
From what Lapaz and you say, apart from obvious cooking terms, and a couple of others, Filipinos don't seem to be aware of the Chinese origin of many of their terms.
By the way, is Tag. *hiyâ* "shame" a Chinese term, and if so from what Chinese language?


----------



## Chriszinho85

I was actually surprised when I found out about the number of Chinese words that have been borrowed into Tagalog.  I was surprised too to find out that a number of words have been borrowed from Malay, Arabic, and Sanskrit (via Malay).  I agree that most Filipinos aren’t aware of the foreign origins (except for maybe Spanish and English) of some Tagalog words.


----------



## Brendela

Qcumber said:


> By the way, is Tag. *hiyâ* "shame" a Chinese term, and if so from what Chinese language?


 
Was trying to make sense of your word (act. would be better if u type in Chinese fonts as there're 4 tones in the language). To the best of my knowledge, this is not considered a Chinese or Chinese dialect word. Nonetheless, it is a typical Chinese expression similar to an English man saying "Oh, what a waste!" or "Oh, I should have done this/that instead!"   It does not entirely mean "shame", rather it expresses slight frustration towards self or another person for the undesirable outcome. Generally, Chinese Singaporeans and Taiwanese are more likely to use this expression more than Mainland Chinese (China).


----------



## Brendela

Sorry, I've misinterpreted your questoin. The above word is in Chinese context, the meaning of which seems similar to that of Tagalog. I've heard my Philipino friend use this Tagalog word. However, I don't think it's a loan Chinese word again, but rather, it's more of a regional expression (in Southeast Asia). It seems that Asians of different nationalities (based on my interactions with other nationalities) can almost easily interpret the meaning of this "word" as it is more of an expression combined with specific facial movement to convey the mood.


----------



## Qcumber

Brendela said:


> Sorry, I've misinterpreted ur qs. The above word is in Chinese context, the meaning of which seems similar to that of Tagalog. I've heard my Philipino friend use this Tag. word. However, I don't think it's a loan Chinese word again, but rather, it's more of a regional expression (in SoutheastAsia). it seems that Asians of different nationalities (based on my interactions with other nationalities) can almost easily interpret the meaning of this "word" as it is more of an expression combined with specific facial movement to convey the mood.


Brendela, my opinion is that Tag. hiyâ [hi'ja?] was not borrowed from any Chinese language.


----------



## Brendela

Hi Qcumber,
Yes I do agree with u that the word is not loaned from the Chinese language. My spoken Tagalog is just at elementary level. I'm not an advanced learner like u, having a good grasp of the written language (with all the appropriate stress etc) so I can only offer u some info. based on the languages which I'm familiar with. Btw, other than research into Tagalog, do u speak any European languages? I'm currently learning a few (Spanish, German & French) so I may just need your assistance if u do have a good foundation of these languages. =)


----------



## angel1260245123

I'm a Tagalog speaker and I don't even know that we use some Chinese loan words. We also have some but mostly it's a name of a food. Like, Batsoy, Pancit, Pechay and my favorite one, Tausi!


----------



## Brendela

Oh yes, these sounds familiar to me! They're mostly Hokkien (Chinese dialect) words! I started learning Spanish before Tagalog. It was so interesting when I learnt that much of what I had learnt in Spanish is transferable to Tagalog! Just think of the Spanish numerals  & other words widely used in Tagalog!   

You'll also be surprised that words like "help", "4" etc in Tagalog are actually Malay/Indonesian loan words too! The amazing thing is that, with my Malay/Indonesian/Chinese/Spanish/English background, I'm actually able to catch the gist of native Philipinos' conversations with elementary knowledge of spoken Tagalog. It's really interesting how languages are inter-related in one way or another in our increasingly globalised world.


----------



## angel1260245123

Now I know that Tagalog has so many loan words from different languages like Chinese (Fukien and Cantonese), Malay, Aztec Mexican, some Japanese, and mostly Spanish. 
 I found this topic interesting and I have researched about it, this what I had found.  

--> Go to Wikipedia and then search for Tagalog Loan Words and you'll see all the loan words we use in our language.


----------

