How it works
The Tagalog alphabet in three forms: the 28 letters of the modern Filipino alphabet, each with its name, the 20 letters of the Abakada that came before it, and Baybayin, the script in use before Latin letters replaced it.
Read the full guide
Twenty letters, then twenty-eight
The Abakada, set out in a grammar of 1939, has 20 letters, with K after B and NG after N. It names each consonant with an a after it: ba, ka, da. The Filipino alphabet, adopted in 1987, has 28: the 26 basic Latin letters plus Ñ and NG, named much as in English: A is ey, B is bi.
How Baybayin marks a vowel
A Baybayin consonant is read with the vowel a: ᜊ is ba. A mark above, the kudlit, makes it bi or be; a mark below, bu or bo. A cross, added in 1620, takes the vowel away and leaves b. The script has 17 letters, 3 of them vowels.
- Baybayin wrote d and r with one letter, ᜇ; the separate ᜍ is a modern addition.
- A device with no font for Baybayin shows empty boxes in that group.
- NG is one letter of the alphabet written with two characters.
Questions and answers
What alphabet does Tagalog use?
The Latin alphabet. Tagalog is the base of Filipino, the national language, and is written with the 28 letters of the Filipino alphabet.
How many letters are in the Tagalog alphabet?
28 in the modern Filipino alphabet, 20 in the Abakada that came before it, and 17 in Baybayin.
What are the 20 letters of the Abakada?
A, B, K, D, E, G, H, I, L, M, N, NG, O, P, R, S, T, U, W and Y: five vowels and fifteen consonants, NG among them.
Is Baybayin the same as Alibata?
Yes, it is the same script. Alibata is a name sometimes given to it in error, and most modern scholars reject the word as incorrect.