Tetun language

Tetun ( ; ; ) is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste and it is also spoken in Belu Regency and Malaka Regency, which form the eastern part of Indonesian West Timor adjoining Timor-Leste.

There are two main forms of Tetun as a language:

Tetun Terik, which is a more indigenous form of Tetun marked by different word choice, less foreign influence and other characteristics such as verb conjugation
Tetun Prasa ('market Tetun', from the Portuguese word meaning 'town square') or Tetun Dili (given its widespread usage in the capital Dili). This is the form of Tetun (heavily influenced by Portuguese) that developed in Dili during colonial rule as local Tetun speakers came into contact with Portuguese missionaries, traders and colonial rulers. In Timor-Leste, Tetun Dili is widely spoken fluently as a second language.

Ethnologue classifies Tetun Terik as a dialect of Tetun. mainly because of the large number of Portuguese origin words used in Tetun Dili. Besides some grammatical simplification, Tetun Dili has been greatly influenced by the vocabulary and to a small extent by the grammar of Portuguese, the other official language of Timor-Leste.

History and dialects

thumb|Languages of [[Timor Island. Tetun is in yellow.]]

According to linguist Geoffrey Hull, Tetun has four dialects:

Tetun-Dili, or Tetun-Prasa (literally 'city Tetun'), is spoken in the capital, Dili, and its surroundings, in the north of the country. Because of its simpler grammar than other varieties of Tetun, extensive Portuguese loanwords, and supposed creole-like features, Ethnologue and some researchers classify it as a Tetun-based creole. This position, however, is also disputed in that while Tetun-Dili may exhibit simpler grammar, this does not mean that Tetun-Dili is a creole. According to Ethnologue, there were 50,000 native Tetun-Dili speakers in Timor-Leste in 2004 and L2 users.

Following the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, Indonesia invaded East Timor, declaring it "the Republic's 27th Province". The use of Portuguese was banned, and Indonesian was declared the sole official language, but the Roman Catholic Church adopted Tetun as its liturgical language, making it a focus for cultural and national identity. After the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) took over governance in 1999, Tetun (Dili) was proclaimed the country's official language, even though according to Encarta Winkler Prins it was only spoken by about 8% of the native population at the time, while the elite (consisting of 20 to 30 families) spoke Portuguese and most adolescents had been educated in Indonesian. When Timor-Leste gained its independence in 2002, Tetun and Portuguese were declared as official languages. The 2010 census found that Tetun Prasa had 385,269 native speakers on a total population of 1,053,971, meaning that the share of native Tetun Prasa/Dili speakers had increased to 36.6% during the 2000s.

In addition to regional varieties of Tetun in Timor-Leste, there are variations in vocabulary and pronunciation, partly due to Portuguese and Indonesian influence. The Tetun spoken by East Timorese migrants living in Portugal and Australia are more Portuguese-influenced, as many of those speakers were not educated in Indonesian.

Vocabulary

Indigenous

The Tetun name for Timor-Leste is , which means 'Timor of the rising sun', or, less poetically, 'East Timor'; comes from 'sun' and 'to rise, to go up'. The noun for 'word' is , from 'voice' and 'fruit'. Some more words in Tetun:

thumb|right|[[Portuguese language|Portuguese (left) and Tetun (right). From a Portuguese course for Tetun speakers. The text says: "Our generation sometimes has difficulty distinguishing between 'j' and 'z'"]]

– 'high'
– 'bad'
– 'tree'
– 'fruit'
– 'spice'
– 'water'
– 'friend'
– 'big'
– 'good'
– 'love'
– 'person, people'
– 'place'
– 'woman'
– 'mountain'
– 'moon/month'
– 'war'
– 'hungry'
– 'eat'
– 'food'
– 'drink'
– 'all'
– 'one'
– 'night'
– 'little'
– 'low'
– 'child'
– 'crocodile'
– 'fast'
– 'mirror'
– 'inside'
– 'language'
– 'word' (from 'voice' and 'fruit')
– 'voice', 'language'
– 'true', 'tebes' also acts as a synonym.
– 'day'
– 'afternoon'
– 'scared'
– 'man'
– 'god'
– 'life'
– 'country'
– 'sea'
– 'year'
– 'very'
– 'dirt', 'sediment'
– 'hard'
– 'first'
– 'head'

From Portuguese

Words derived from Portuguese:

– 'goodbye'
– 'help'
– 'learn', from
– 'architecture', from
– 'rainbow', from
– 'airplane', from
– 'too much'
– 'decision', from
– 'sorry', from
– 'doctor'
– 'education', from
– 'equipment', from
– 'electricity', from
– 'embassy'
– 'emergency', from
– 'engineering', from
– 'so', 'well', from
'instead of', from
– 'school', from
– 'experience', from
– 'family', from
– 'physics', from
– 'force', from
– 'pillowcases', from
– 'guitarist', from
– 'government', from
– 'idea'
– 'church'
– 'impossible', from
– 'history', from
– 'generation', from
– 'coffee', from
– 'coffin', from
– 'cheese', from
– 'company', from
– 'understand', from
– 'consultation', from
– 'corruption', from
– 'when', from
– 'message', from
– 'less', from
– 'miracle'
– 'world', from
– 'music', from
– 'Christmas', from
– 'thanks', from
– 'organization', from
– 'past', from
– 'passport', from
– 'bread', from
– 'question'
– 'police', from
– 'people', from
– 'president', from
– 'teacher', from
– 'profession', from
– 'religion', from
– 'week'
– 'work', from
– 'beer', from
– 'technology', from
– 'television', from
– 'must', from
– 'tendency', from
– 'terrorism', from
– 'chief', from

From Malay

thumb|right|Tetun (left) and Portuguese (right). From a Portuguese course for Tetun speakers. The text says: "Some people incorrectly pronounce '*meja', '*uja' and '*abuja' instead of '[[wikt:mesa#Portuguese|mesa', 'usa' and 'abusa'."]]

As a result of Bazaar Malay being a regional lingua franca and of Indonesian being a working language, many words are derived from Malay, including:

'hundred', from
'much', from
'can', from
'iron', from
'rain', from
'way' or 'road', from
'stone', from
'moon' or 'month' from
'foreigner', from 'Malay'
'hot', from
'thousand', from
'wrong', from
'help', from
'kitchen', from
'house', from

In addition, as a legacy of Indonesian rule, other words of Malay origin have entered Tetun, through Indonesian.

Numerals

'one'
'two'
'three'
'four'
'five'
'six'
'seven'
'eight'
'nine'
'ten'
'twenty'

However, Tetun speakers often use Malay/Indonesian or Portuguese numbers instead, such as or 'eight' instead of , especially for numbers over one thousand.

Combinations

Tetun has many hybrid words, which are combinations of indigenous and Portuguese words. These often include an indigenous Tetun verb, with a Portuguese suffix -dór (similar to '-er'). For example:

('to eat') – glutton
('to drink') – heavy drinker
('to say') – chatterbox, talkative person
('to nag, pester') – nag, pest

Basic phrases

– 'Good morning' (from Portuguese ).
– 'How are you?' (literally 'Are you well or not?')
– 'I'm fine.'
– 'Thank you', said by a male/female (from Portuguese ).
– 'Do you speak Tetun?'
– 'Right'
– 'No.'
[] – 'I [do not] understand' (from Portuguese ).

Grammar

Morphology

Personal pronouns

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" |

! Singular

! Plural

! rowspan="2" | 1st person

! exclusive

| rowspan="2" |

! inclusive

! rowspan="2" | 2nd person

! familiar

! polite

! colspan="2" | 3rd person

A common occurrence is to use titles such as for a woman or names rather than pronouns when addressing people.