The Human Body: External and Internal Body Parts in Filipino

Precy enjoys helping others learn to speak and appreciate the Filipino and Ilocano language. She also writes about Filipino culture.

As I ponder on what to write next, of all the articles I've written sharing the Filipino language from verbs, affixes to adjectives and more, it suddenly dawned on me that there's one topic I haven't thought of yet of writing: the body parts. They're an area I haven't tackled yet that need to be covered, since there isn't much about them online. Although it's probably one of the easiest areas to start with in learning Filipino that a language learner, both kids and adults alike, will want to start with when learning the language.

If you already know some of the body parts, that's great. But I want to share more, so let's cover both the external and internal body parts in Filipino/Tagalog in this article. Learn more vocabulary words using the tables below as we go through the body parts.

Some of the body parts above are pluralized. Two examples from the table are mga kamay, hands and mga pisngi for cheeks. In Filipino, mga is added before nouns to indicate the plural form.

Let's continue on the table below with more external body parts, from the waist down.

The Fingers and Toes in Filipino

Let's do the fingers and toes with the photo below from thumb to the little finger. Not only that the names of the fingers also apply to the toes, the word daliri which means finger is also the word used when referring to the toes.

To specify that it is the toes and not the fingers, sa paa is added for clarification. Paa means foot/feet. Hinlalaki sa paa for example means the big toe. To be more specific whether it is the left or the right big toe, the Filipino word for left, kaliwa and kanan for right is placed after the sa. Hinlalaki sa kanang paa means the big toe on the right foot. Hinliliit sa kaliwang paa means the little toe on the left foot.

Internal Body Parts

Let's now start with internal body parts from the head down. There are many internal body parts with no Filipino/Tagalog counterparts, reason why often Filipino healthcare professionals such as doctors for example use English words while speaking mostly in Filipino.

The Filipino/Tagalog word for the skull is bungo, while utak means brain which you can also find on the next table below after we tackle next the parts of the mouth. I wouldn't be discussing some in more details such as the parts of the skull tackling the cranial bones for instance since those are the perfect example of the internal body parts that don't have Filipino words.

Parts of the Mouth

Let's continue with more internal body parts on the table below. Some of them are pluralized which I already mentioned earlier, by placing mga before the body part.

Malaking bituka is the large intestines and maliit na bituka is when referring to the small intestines. With the lungs, kanang baga is when referring to the right lung. Kaliwang baga for the left lung.

The Bodily Excretions

The excretory organs are responsible for removing the wastes out of the body through excretion. Luckily, there are Filipino words for these. From urine, sweat, to boogers, ear wax and more bodily excretions, you can find these all on the table below.

Excretions of the Body

Popo is another word which means poop. Wewe for urine. These words are nonstandard, often used and heard from young kids.

This is most likely an almost complete list of body parts, but like I said earlier, there are a lot of body parts with no Filipino words.