Numbers in Tagalog: native isa to sampu, the Spanish set and ordinals

How the native numbers in Tagalog are built

The native system is regular once two prefixes and one suffix are known. Eleven to nineteen take labing-, which assimilates to the following consonant: labing-isa, labindalawa, labintatlo, labinlima, labinsiyam. The tens take -pu, ten, joined with the linker: dalawampu is twenty, tatlumpu thirty, apatnapu forty, siyamnapu ninety.

One, isa, becomes the prefix sang- or san- before a power of ten. Ten is sampu, a hundred sandaan, a thousand sanlibo, each literally one-ten, one-hundred, one-thousand. Isang libo, one thousand, is the form with the full word isa. Wikipedia gives sang-angaw for a million beside sangmilyon, which joins the prefix to the Spanish word.

Larger numbers string the parts together with at, and, shortened to 't after a vowel: dalawampu't isa is twenty-one, and Wiktionary's number list writes sandaan at isa for 101.

The linker -ng and na between number and noun

Numbers in Tagalog are joined to the noun they count by the linker. After a vowel the linker is -ng, attached to the number: isang bata, one child; dalawang daan, two hundred, literally two hundreds. After n it shrinks to -g, and after other consonants it is the separate word na: apat na libro, four books, and apatnaraan for four hundred, where na has fused into the word.

The same linker builds the tens and hundreds of the native system, and that makes the spelling look irregular at first: dalawang plus pu gives dalawampu, with ng becoming m before p; tatlong plus pu gives tatlumpu. Wiktionary's number list generates every form from these rules.

Learners who drop the linker produce sentences that sound broken. Isa bata is wrong; isang bata is right.

Uno, dos, tres: the Spanish numbers in Tagalog

Tagalog keeps a full second set of numbers from Spanish, and Wikipedia's Tagalog article lists both side by side: uno, dos, tres, kuwatro, singko, seis, siyete, otso, nuwebe, diyes, and further beynte, siyen, mil and milyon. The spelling is Tagalog, so cuatro becomes kuwatro and cinco singko.

Wikipedia notes that the Spanish-derived numbers appear in time expressions, where Tagalog also has native forms built with ika-: ikapito ng gabi is seven in the evening. Wiktionary's Tagalog number list gives a native and a Spanish-derived form for every number it covers, from wala and sero for zero upwards.

For large numbers the two systems meet: Wikipedia lists sangmilyon, the native prefix sang- on the Spanish milyon, beside the native sang-angaw and the Spanish milyon.

Una, ikalawa, ikatlo: the ordinals

Ordinal numbers in Tagalog put ika- in front of the native number: ikalawa, second; ikatlo, third; ikaapat, fourth; ikasampu, tenth. Two and three use shortened stems, ikalawa and ikatlo, and first is usually una, from Spanish, with ikaisa as the regular native form. Wiktionary also records the pang- forms pangalawa and pangatlo.

Written with figures, the prefix is hyphenated: ika-25 for 25th, as in ika-25 ng Disyembre. Before a noun the ordinal takes the linker like any other number: ang ikalawang araw, the second day.

Tagalog numbers among the Austronesian languages

The native numbers in Tagalog belong to a family that stretches from Madagascar to Hawaii, and the site's numbers 1 to 10 table shows the resemblance at a glance. Five is lima in Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilokano, Indonesian and Malay. Eight is walo in Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Ilokano, and nine siyam in Tagalog and Hiligaynon. Two is dalawa in Tagalog and duha in Cebuano and Hiligaynon, dua in Ilokano, Indonesian and Malay.

The Spanish-derived set has relatives too. Chamorro, in the Marianas, counts unu, dos, tres, kuåtro, sinko, close to the Tagalog uno, dos, tres, kuwatro, singko.