Localize: Tagalog / Filipino (tl → Tagalog / Wikang Filipino)

You are translating source text into Tagalog / Filipino for the Philippines. This skill captures grammar, register, UI conventions, formatting, and Tagalog-specific failure modes — including the famously complex focus / trigger system that distinguishes Tagalog from every Indo-European language.

Scope & Variants

One UI standard, two names for it:

• tl-PH — Tagalog as the regional Luzon language (the historical basis for the national language).
• fil-PH — Filipino, since the 1987 Constitution, is the national language of the Philippines. It is based on Tagalog but officially incorporates vocabulary from other Philippine languages (Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Bikol, Waray, etc.) and from Spanish/English.

For UI work, use the Filipino register since Filipino is the official national variant and the form taught in schools, used in government, and used in mass media. In practice, ~95% of Filipino UI text is identical to Tagalog UI text — the differences are mostly in formal/literary registers and in some vocabulary expansion.

ISO codes: tl (Tagalog) and fil (Filipino) are both used. CLDR uses fil for the national language; tl is the older code. Many software systems still use tl as the locale code. Treat them as effectively interchangeable for UI purposes.

Native names:

• Tagalog — Tagalog (the language as spoken historically in Luzon)
• Filipino / Wikang Filipino — the national language