About this product

Abakada is the name of the alphabet that was used for the Tagalog-based national language of the Philippines from 1939 to 1976. It was created by Lope K. Santos, a scholar and writer, who based it on the Latin alphabet. Abakada has 20 letters, five vowels and 15 consonants, that represent the sounds of the Tagalog language. The letters are:

A B K D E G H I L M N Ng O P R S T U W Y

The name Abakada comes from the first four letters of the alphabet (A-Ba-Ka-Da). Each consonant is pronounced with an -a suffix when reciting the alphabet (e.g., ba, ka, da, etc.). Abakada was replaced by an expanded alphabet in 1976, which added 11 more letters to accommodate the sounds of other Philippine languages. The current Filipino alphabet, adopted in 1987, has 28 letters and is based on the modern Latin alphabet1