Good question. I sometimes find myself googling which countries speak “X” language. For example, “Which countries speak Swahili?” (The answer is Kenya and Tanzania and then some, by the way.) or “Which countries speak Dhivehi?” (The answer is Maldives, so don’t leave my article just yet to google the answer.) Sometimes I even Google search bigger languages like “Which countries speak Russian?” or “Which countries speak German?”
The question is now… Which countries speak Tagalog?
The short answer is the Philippines.
Tagalog, also known as Filipino, is one of the national languages of the Philippines. There are two national languages of the Philippines, Tagalog and English. Both these languages are national lingua francas that practically everyone in the Philippines has some knowledge on.
In any city, town or village in the Philippines, you can survive as long as you can communicate in just one of these languages, as any Filipino can speak these two languages, albeit with varying degrees of fluency. And between the two languages, you’re bound to get wider smiles speaking Tagalog rather than English as I point out in my article Why You Should Learn Tagalog.
Well, perhaps in far flung rural areas, you might come across who claims they can’t, or perhaps will be too shy to speak even one word of Tagalog of English, but these would be very rare fringe cases.
By law, Spanish and Arabic should also be promoted voluntary basis (but good luck walking around Manila trying to speak Spanish or Arabic to your taxi driver). And, there are also something like less than two hundred or so dialects (officially 182) in the Philippines, but more on that in the future.
So Tagalog is spoken in the Philippines. But what about Tagalog speaking populations in overseas from Philippines shores?
How about in countries geographically close to the Philippines?
It is assumed that in bordering or nearby countries, you would find that you would find the language of the subject country spoken widely. Of all its neighbors, Indonesia and Malaysia are the two countries that share very long sea borders with the Philippines.
There are a lot of Filipinos in Malaysia, around less than one million. Many of these are Filipino populations in the islands bordering the Philippines. I’ll also point out that Malaysia (and Indonesia for that matter) is in the South of the Philippines. The Tagalog language originated in the northern part of the country. The people of the South of the Philippines may considerably have less fluency in the Tagalog language.
Also, remember that the Philippines is an archipelago. So the historical spread of people and their languages is not fluid as it is where people can just walk or ride a donkey (or a water buffalo) across the border.
Indonesia has considerably less Filipinos than Malaysia. There are of course Filipino populations in the islands bordering the Philippines and pockets of Filipino expatriates in the cities, but there are a lot less Filipinos in Indonesia s compared to Malaysia.
Singapore and Hong Kong are neighboring countries where you will find lots of Filipinos speaking Tagalog to each other. This is due to the large number of Filipinos who have gone to Singapore and Hong Kong for work. Speaking of Filipinos going abroad to work, that takes me to my next topic.
Where is Tagalog is spoken in other parts of the world?
Yes, Tagalog is the native national language is the Philippines where it lives as vibrant and indispensable lingua franca. However, the Philippines has one of the most widely scattered, if not the most widely-scattered, diasporas in the world (perhaps owing to their fluency in English).
There are 11 million Filipinos living and working overseas. This diaspora carries the Tagalog language with it. You’ll find them all over, the United States, Canada, the Middle East and Japan. You can count on the Filipino communities speaking Tagalog when they meet or gather in groups.
You’ll have so many opportunities to exercise your Tagalog, as there are so many Filipinos about. Here is list of the top ten destinations of Filipinos overseas. (I point this out in Why You Should Learn Tagalog, as well.)
So now you know in which countries Tagalog is spoken. It’s spoken in the Philippines, with some pockets of populations in nearby countries, and in its globe-embracing diaspora scattered around the world.
