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. However, without previous contact, Tetun Dili is not immediately mutually intelligible, 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
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.Hull 2004 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. Tetun-Terik is spoken in the south and southwestern coastal regions. According to Ethnologue, there were 50,000 Tetun-Terik speakers in East Timor in 1995. Tetun-Belu, or the Belunese dialect, is spoken in a central strip of the island of Timor from the Ombai Strait to the Timor Sea, and is split between Timor-Leste and West Timor, where it is considered a or 'regional language', with no official status in Indonesia, although it is used by the Diocese of Atambua in Roman Catholic rites. The Nana'ek dialect is spoken in the village of Metinaro, on the coastal road between Dili and Manatuto.
Tetun-Belu and Tetun-Terik are not spoken outside their home territories. Tetun-Prasa is the form of Tetun that is spoken throughout Timor-Leste. Although Portuguese was the official language of Portuguese Timor until 1975, Tetun-Prasa has always been the predominant lingua franca in the eastern part of the island.
In the fifteenth century, before the arrival of the Portuguese, Tetun had spread through central and eastern Timor as a contact language under the aegis of the Belunese-speaking Kingdom of Wehali, at that time the most powerful kingdom in the island. The Portuguese (present in Timor from c. 1556) made most of their settlements in the west, where Dawan was spoken, and it was not until 1769, when the capital was moved from Lifau (Oecusse) to Dili that they began to promote Tetun as an inter-regional language in their colony. Timor was one of the few Portuguese colonies where a local language, and not a form of Portuguese, became the lingua franca: this is because Portuguese rule was indirect rather than direct, the Europeans governing through local kings who embraced Catholicism and became vassals of the King of Portugal.
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."Tetum and Other Languages of East Timor", from Dr. Geoffrey Hull's Preface to Mai Kolia Tetun: A Course in Tetum-Praca (The Lingua Franca of East Timor) 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.Encarta-encyclopedie Winkler Prins (1993–2002) s.v. "Oost-Timor. §1.5 Onafhankelijkheid". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. 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, more directly, '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:
– '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
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 Singular Plural 1st person exclusive inclusive 2nd person familiar polite 3rd person
A common occurrence is to use titles such as for a woman or names rather than pronouns when addressing people.
The second person singular pronoun is used generally with children, friends or family, while with strangers or people of higher social status, or is used.
Nouns and pronouns
Plural
The plural is not normally marked on nouns, but the word 'they' can express it when necessary.
'woman/women' → 'women'
However, the plural ending -s of nouns of Portuguese origin is sometimes retained.
– United States (from ) – United Nations (from )
Definiteness
Tetun has an optional indefinite article ('one'), used after nouns:
– a child
There is no definite article, but the demonstratives ('this one') and ('that one') may be used to express definiteness:
– this child, the child – that child, the child
In the plural, ('these') or ('those') are used:
– these children, the children – those children, the children
Possessive/genitive
The particle forms the alienable possessive, and can be used in a similar way to 's in English, e.g.:
– 'João's house' – 'Cristina's book'
When the possessor is postposed, representing inalienable possession, becomes :
– the people of Timor-Leste
Inclusive and exclusive we
Like other Austronesian languages, Tetun has two forms of we, (equivalent to Malay ) which is exclusive, e.g. "I and they", and (equivalent to Malay ), which is inclusive, e.g. "you, I, and they".
– 'our [family's] car' – 'our country'
Nominalization
Nouns derived from verbs or adjectives are usually formed with affixes, for example the suffix -na'in, similar to "-er" in English.
'write' → 'writer'
The suffix -na'in can also be used with nouns, in the sense of 'owner'.
'house' → 'householder' In more traditional forms of Tetun, the circumfix ma(k)- -k is used instead of -na'in. For example, the nouns 'sinner' or 'wrongdoer' can be derived from the word as either , or . Only the prefix ma(k)- is used when the root word ends with a consonant; for example, the noun 'cook' or 'chef' can be derived from the word as as well as .
The suffix -teen (from the word for 'dirt' or 'excrement') can be used with adjectives to form derogatory terms:
'false' → 'liar'
Adjectives
Derivation from nouns
To turn a noun into a nominalised adjective, the word ('person, child, associated object') is added to it.
'foreigner' → 'foreign'
Thus, 'Timorese person' is , as opposed to the country of Timor, .
To form adjectives and actor nouns from verbs, the suffix -dór (derived from Portuguese) can be added:
'tell' → 'talkative'
Gender
Tetun does not have separate masculine and feminine gender, hence (similar to // in Malay) can mean either 'he', 'she' or 'it'.