Language Contact and Loanwords in Tagalog

Tagalog, a language spoken in the Philippines, showcases the complexities of language contact and loanwords. Despite having a native numeral system, Tagalog borrows time expressions from Spanish and uses English for years. This borrowing of entire numeral systems and segments of the vocabulary is a phenomenon that interests conlangers. Social situations, multilingual societies, technological advancements, and religious influences can all contribute to the borrowing of function words, technical terms, and liturgical terms. The borrowing of terms can also occur indirectly, such as Chinese borrowing Western scientific terms from Japanese. Considering the domains of vocabulary that might be borrowed wholesale, as well as the varying receptiveness of languages to loanwords, can enhance the development of conlangs.