Salitang Batangas recognizes that Tagalog, the original language of the migrating Taga-ilogs of ancient Philippine History, has evolved into many versions depending on the locality where it continues to be spoken. It is widely spoken in a region called the Southern Tagalog Region and was the basis for the national language of the country, Filipino.Batangas, one of the Southern Tagalog provinces, is a place where the version of Tagalog appears to be more colorful than those spoken elsewhere. Certain words are unique to the province; i.e., they are not even recognizable in other supposedly Tagalog-speaking places. Or, words as they are known to other provinces may carry a totally different meaning in Batangas.
Within Batangas itself, there are even words that mean one thing in one town and another thing altogether in the next. Sometimes, word usage is even family influenced, such as when it becomes traditional to refer to one's grand parents as “inay” or “itay.”
This site makes no claims whatsoever to being unique. There are, on the Internet, already several sites that have dedicated themselves to the listing of Batangueño words. What this site aims to do differently, however, is to tap the online community of Batangueños to come out and contribute to the project so that the listings that are contained in this site may become as comprehensive as possible.
If you are interested in participating, please read the “How to Participate” page. The link to it is to the right of this page. If you are hesitant to participate yourself, you can do the project a service by simply sharing this page online with your Batangueño contacts.
