About Tetum

by Pisith Phlong

Number of speakers
Tetun (or Tetum) is one of the two official languages (Portuguese and Tetun) of the Republic of East Timor (or Timor Lorosae). Approximately 750,000 people speak Tetun as a native language or as a second language. (Hull, 2001a, p. ix)

Language group
Tetun belongs to the Western Malayo-Polynesian group of the Austronesian language family and may originate from South-Western Celebes. (Hull, 2003, p. xi; Hull, 2002, p. 1)

History of written language and script
Tetun came from Celebes Island about a thousand years ago to Timor Island which was then home to Papuan language speakers. A few centuries after the arrival of Tetun, the language began to compete with the Papuan language and soon a majority of the people on the island spoke it. Malay influence on the Tetun language began before the arrival of the Portuguese, thus a number of Malay words are found in the Tetun language. (Hull, 2001a, p. ix; Klinken, 2002, p. 2) Portuguese trade and religious missions in the Malay Archipelago in the 16th century brought East Timor under the control of the Portuguese for about 500 years (from the 16th century to 1975). As a result, Tetun was heavily influenced by Portuguese, including pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary.  During that time Tetun became an official language of East Timor. After Independence from the Portuguese, East Timor was controlled by Indonesia for twenty-four years (1975 to 1999); Portuguese was banned from use and the Indonesian language gained more influence on Tetun and other indigenous languages of East Timor. In 2002, East Timor gained its independence from Indonesia and proclaimed Tetun and Portuguese as the co-official languages of the East Timor. (Hull, 2001b, p. 1; Klinken, p. 1)

Language
Tetun is a stress-level language with many words borrowed from Portuguese and Malay-Indonesian. (Klinken, 2002, p. 5) Stress usually appears on the second-to-last syllable of words. The predominant Portuguese influence in the Tetun language started during the 16th century, while Malay influence happened before the Portuguese arrival and during the 1975-1999 Indonesian occupation of East Timor. (Hull, 2002, p. 2) There are two major contrasting dialects of Tetun language, Terik and Dili Tetun (or Tetun Praça); Tetun Terik preserves its original words and grammatical structures while Dili Tetun borrows many words from Portuguese. Dili Tetun is considered to be the official dialect of East Timor and is used for formal writing and media, whereas Tetun Terik is often used for religious writing and functions. (Klinken, 2002, p. 2-3)

Scripts
Influenced by the Portuguese, Tetun employs Roman scripts for its writing.  Its alphabet consists of 32 letters. (Hull, 2001a, p. xv) A standard writing system was developed by the Aather Sebastião Maria Aparício da Silva for a Portuguese-Tetum dictionary in 1887, but this writing system did not produce a systematic spelling rule for Tetun in general. However, the significance of the glottal stop and bisyllabic long vowels in Tetun is still preserved through the employment of double Roman vowels. (Hull, 2004, p. 215) Usually, words borrowed from Portuguese and Indonesian into Tetun change their spelling based on phonemic systems in Tetun though they occasionally preserve their original spelling. (Hull, 2001a, p. xv)

Other Dialects
Besides Tetun and Portuguese which are the co-official languages of the country, fifteen other different languages are recognized on East Timor; eleven belong to the Austronesian group: Habun, Galoli (Balolen), Atauran (Weteress), Kawaimina, Welaun (Bekais), Idalaka, Mambai (Manbae), Kemak (Ema), Tokodede, Baikenu (Dawan) and Makuva and the other four belong to the Papuan group: Bunak (Bai), Makasai (Makasae), Makalero, Fataluku (Fatalukunu). (Hull, 2003, p. xi) The national language, Tetun, is divided into four dialects spoken in different regions of East Timor; 1) Tetun Praça (or Tetun Prasa or Tetun Dili), spoken in different parts of the country; 2) Tetun Terik, spoken in the north-western districts of Viqueque, Luca, Soibada, Alas and Fato Berliu; 3) Tetun Belu (or Balunese), spoken around Balibó and Batugadé in the north-western region and in Suai of the south-western region; 4) Western Tetun, spoken in areas close to the Indonesian Timor border, around the Atambua and Betun. Tetun Terik and Tetun Belu preserve some of the old words of the original Tetun language, while the Tetun Praça is heavily influenced by Portuguese and has lost some of the indigenous words. Aside from these indigenous languages, Indonesian is also spoken to some degree in the western part of East Timor. (Hull, 2003, p. xii)

Comparison to Western languages
Tetun is similar to some western languages in that it employs Roman scripts for its writing and syllable stress is commonly used. (Hull, 2001b, p. 3) Its sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object and adjectives are preceded by nouns in the noun phrase. However, there is no passive voice form and no inflection between nouns and adjectives, pronouns or verbs regarding gender and number. (Klinken, 2002, p. 6, 73)

References

• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume 12. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Frawley, W. J. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 4. (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Hull, G. Standard Tetum-English Dictionary. (2nd ed.). Southwood Press Pty Limited, Sydney, 2001a.
• Hull, G. Tetum: Language Manual for East Timor. Sebatião Aparício da Silva Project: NSW, 2001b.
• Hull, G. Dili Tetum. The Sebatião Aparício da Silva Project: NSW, 2002.
• Hull, G. Mai Kolia Tetun: A Course in Tetum-Praça National Language of East Timor. (4th ed.). Sebatião Aparício da Silva Project: NSW, 2003.
• Hull, G. and Eccles, L. Tetum: Reference Grammar. Kwik Kopy Printing: NSW, 2004.
• Klinken, C. W., Hajek, J. and Nordlinger, R. Tetun Dili: A Grammar of an East Timorese Language. The Australian National University: Canberra, 2002.
• Klinken, C. L. A Grammar of the Fahan Dialect of Tetun: An Austronesian Language of West Timor. The Australian National University: Canberra, 1999.
• SEAsite - SE Asian Languages and Cultures, (by Molnar, A. K.) http://www.seasite.niu.edu/EastTimor/default.htm#TOC (accessed on February 12, 2007).