gigil
GEE-gil
The urge to squeeze something unbearably cute
Psychologists call it cute aggression and only started studying it in 2015.
Tagalog had the word first.
The archive
Tagalog
The verb points at the important thing
An Austronesian language whose verbs mark which part of the sentence is in focus, a system Indo-European has no equivalent for.
FamilyAustronesian › Tagalog
ScriptLatin
Speakers83M 28M native · 55M second
Weeks to a working level44 Counted from English. It is the Foreign Service Institute's figure for someone starting from English and from nothing.
The first hundred words cover57.4% and the first thousand 84.2%
- Instead of active and passive, it has a focus system: the verb form tells you whether the doer, the thing done to, the location or the instrument is the centre of the sentence.
- Affixes go inside words, not just on the ends. Sulat to write becomes sumulat by inserting -um- into the middle.
- Centuries of Spanish rule left thousands of loanwords, including the numbers, which are used alongside the native ones.
- Filipino, the national language, is standardised Tagalog with the door left open to the country's other tongues.
- The Philippines has around 180 languages, and Tagalog was the one nearest the capital.
The trick is the focus system: the verb decides which part of the sentence is the star. English loanwords everywhere soften the landing; the grammar rearranges your head. A hundred million people famous for karaoke and warmth: speak Tagalog and the Philippines stops being a destination and becomes a family.
Words with no translation
kilig
KEE-lig
The stomach flutter of a romantic moment.
The Filipino word for the butterflies: the giddy, shivery rush when your crush texts back or the lead couple finally kisses. Untranslatable because English never admitted how physical the feeling is.
tampo
TAM-po
Going quiet and distant so the person who hurt you notices
Not sulking, because sulking is childish and tampo is expected.
It is a recognised move with a recognised answer: the other person is supposed to coax you out of it, and doing that well is part of the relationship.
Next to its neighbours
Where Tagalog parts company with the languages closest to it, and what each one would cost you from here.
Where to practise it
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Tagalog with.
The Tagalog Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Stories in Tagalog
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.