Tetum
Tetum (also written as Tetun) is the national language of East Timor. It is basically Austronesian with many words derived from Portuguese, as well as Malay or Indonesian.
Tetum arose as a contact language in the 16th century after colonization by Portugal. The main dialect, that of the capital Dili, is called Tetun-Prasa, while the more traditional form spoken in the countryside is called Tetun-Terik.
Although Portuguese was the official language of what was then Portuguese Timor, Tetun-Prasa served as the main lingua franca, borrowing heavily from Portuguese. When Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, declaring to be the Republic's '27th Province', the use of Portuguese was banned. However, the Catholic Church, instead of adopting Bahasa Indonesia as its liturgical language, instead adopted Tetum, thereby making it a focus for cultural and national identity.
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2 Grammar 3 Basic phrases 4 See also 5 External links |
The Tetum name for East Timor is Timor Lorosa'e or 'land of the rising sun'.
Grammar in Tetum is comparatively simple, there being no genders or verb conjugations. There is no definite article, so fetu can mean 'woman' or 'the woman'. There is no verb 'to be' as such, although maka (which roughly translates as 'who is' or 'what is') can be used with an adjective:
The past tense is not usually used except for emphasis, when the word ona ('already') is added at the end of the sentence.
Vocabulary
Some words in Tetum:
Words derived from Portuguese in Tetum include:
Words related to Malay in Tetum include:
It is also common for Tetum speakers to use Malay words for numbers, hence duapuluh for 'twenty' instead of ruanulu. The word for 'foreign', malae, is derived from the word melayu (literally 'Malay'). Grammar
Similarly, the plural is not normally used for nouns, although the word sira ('they') can be used for emphasis.
In the case of words of Portuguese origin, the distinct plural (ending with the letter 's' is used;
To turn a noun into an adjective, the word oan is added:
Similarly, 'Timorese' is Timor oan, as opposed to the country of Timor, Rai Timor.
As in Malay, Tetum has two forms of 'we': ami (equivalent to Malay 'kami') which is exclusive (eg: 'just the two of us'), and ita (equivalent to Malay 'kami'), which is inclusive (eg: 'all of us'). Basic phrases
See also
External links