, nativename=Tetun
, states=
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
, speakers=, mostly in Indonesia
, date=2010–2011
, ref=e18
, speakers2=50,000 L2-speakers in Indonesia and East Timor
, familycolor=Austronesian
, fam2=
Malayo-Polynesian
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...
, fam3=
Central–Eastern
, fam4=
Timor–Babar
, fam5=Tetumic
, dia1=Belunese (''Tetun Belu'')
, dia2=Terik (''Tetun Terik'')
, nation=
, minority= (
East Nusa Tenggara
East Nusa Tenggara ( id, Nusa Tenggara Timur – NTT; pt, Sonda Oriental) is the southernmost province of Indonesia. It comprises the eastern portion of the Lesser Sunda Islands, facing the Indian Ocean in the south and the Flores Sea in the nor ...
)
, iso2=tet
, iso3=tet
, glotto=tetu1245
, glottorefname=Tetum
, map=Tetum Terik.png
, mapcaption=Distribution in East Timor of ''Tetum Belu'' (west) and ''Tetum Terik'' (southeast). The majority of Tetun speakers, who live in West Timor, are not shown.
, nativename=''Tetun Dili, Tetun Prasa''
, states=
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
, speakers=
, date=2009
, ref=
, speakers2 =
L2: in East Timor
, familycolor=Austronesian
, fam2=
Malayo-Polynesian
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeas ...
, fam3=
Central–Eastern
, fam4=
Timoric
, fam5=
Oceanic
Oceanic may refer to:
*Of or relating to the ocean
*Of or relating to Oceania
**Oceanic climate
**Oceanic languages
**Oceanic person or people, also called "Pacific Islander(s)"
Places
* Oceanic, British Columbia, a settlement on Smith Island, ...
, fam6=Tetumic
, dia1=Belunese (''Tetun Belu'')
, dia2=Terik (''Tetun Terik'')
, script=
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
(
Tetum alphabet)
, nation=
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
, agency=National Institute of Linguistics
, iso3=tdt
, glotto2=tetu1246
, glottorefname2=Tetun Dili
, map=Tetum Prasa.png
, mapcaption=Distribution of Tetum Prasa mother-tongue speakers in East Timor
, notice=IPA
Tetum ( ; id, Bahasa Tetun; pt, Tétum ) is an
Austronesian language spoken on the island of
Timor. It is spoken in
Belu Regency
Belu Regency is a regency in East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. Established on 20 December 1958, Belu Regency has its seat (capital) in the large town of Atambua.
In December 2012 a separate Regency - Malaka Regency - was created from t ...
in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
n
West Timor, and across the border in
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
, where it is one of the two
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
s.
There are two main forms of Tetum as a language:
* Tetum Terik, which is a more indigenous form of Tetum marked by different word choice, less foreign influence and other characteristics such as verb conjugation
* Tetum/n Prasa ('market Tetum', from the Portuguese word meaning 'town square') or Tetum/n Dili (given its widespread usage in the capital Dili). This is the form of Tetum (heavily influenced by Portuguese) that developed in Dili during colonial rule as local Tetum speakers came into contact with Portuguese missionaries, traders and colonial rulers. In East Timor ''Tetun Dili'' is widely spoken fluently as a second language.
Without previous contact, ''Tetum Terik'' and ''Tetun Dili'' are 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
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, the other official language of East Timor.
Nomenclature
The English form ''Tetum'' is derived from Portuguese, rather than from modern Tetum. Consequently, some people regard ''Tetun'' as more appropriate. Although this coincides with the favoured Indonesian form, and the variant with ''m'' has a longer history in English, ''Tetun'' has also been used by some Portuguese-educated Timorese, such as
José Ramos-Horta
José Manuel Ramos-Horta (; born 26 December 1949) is an East Timorese politician currently serving as president of East Timor since May 2022. He previously served as president from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Minister of For ...
and
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo SDB, commonly known as Carlos Belo or Ximenes Belo (born 3 February 1948) is an East Timorese prelate of the Catholic Church. He became a bishop in 1988 and served as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of ...
.
Similar disagreements over nomenclature have emerged regarding the names of other languages, such as
Swahili/Kiswahili and
Punjabi/Panjabi.
History and dialects
According to linguist Geoffrey Hull, Tetum has four dialects:
*''Tetun-Dili'', or ''Tetun-Prasa'' (literally 'city Tetum'), 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 Tetun-Dili speakers in East Timor in 2004.
*''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
Ombai Strait ( id, Selat Ombai, pt, Estreito de Ombai, tet, Estreitu Ombai) is an international strait in Southeast Asia. It separates the Alor Archipelago from the islands of Wetar, Atauro, and Timor in the Lesser Sunda Islands. The strai ...
to the
Timor Sea
The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia.
The sea contains a number of reefs ...
, and is split between
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
and
West Timor, where it is considered a or 'regional language', with no official status in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, although it is used by the
Diocese
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...
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
Manatuto is a city in Manatuto Municipality, East Timor.
Manatuto Vila has 3,692 inhabitants (Census 2015) and is capital of the subdistrict and district Manatuto. It is on the north coast of Timor, (about as the crow flies) east of Dili, ...
.
''Tetun-Belu'' and ''Tetun-Terik'' are not spoken outside their home territories. ''Tetun-Prasa'' is the form of Tetum that is spoken throughout East Timor. Although Portuguese was the official language of
Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies.
The first Europeans to arrive in the ...
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, Tetum had spread through central and eastern Timor as a
contact language
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for the ...
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 (
Oecussi) to Dili that they began to promote Tetum 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.
When
Indonesia occupied East Timor between 1975 and 1999, 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
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
adopted Tetum 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 September 1999, Tetun (Dili) was proclaimed the country's official language, even though according to ''
Encarta
''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later article ...
Winkler Prins
The ''Winkler Prins'' is a Dutch-language encyclopedia, founded by the Dutch poet and clergyman Anthony Winkler Prins (1817–1908) and published by Elsevier. It has run through nine printed editions; the first, issued in 16 volumes from 1870 ...
'' 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 East Timor gained its independence on 20 May 2002, Tetum and Portuguese were declared as official languages. The 2010 census found that Tetum Prasa had 385,269 native speakers on a total population of 1,053,971, meaning that the share of native Tetum Prasa/Dili speakers had increased to 36.6% during the 2000s.
In addition to regional varieties of Tetum in East Timor, there are variations in vocabulary and pronunciation, partly due to Portuguese and Indonesian influence. The Tetum spoken by East Timorese migrants in
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
and
Australia is more Portuguese-influenced, as many of those speakers were not educated in Indonesian.
Vocabulary
Indigenous
The Tetum name for East Timor 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 Tetum:
* – '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'
* – 'day'
* – 'afternoon'
* – 'sacred'
* – 'man'
* – 'god'
* – 'life'
* – 'country'
* – 'sea'
* – 'year'
* – 'very'
* – 'dirt'
* – 'hard'
* – 'first'
* – 'head'
From Portuguese
Words derived from Portuguese:
* – 'goodbye'
* – 'help'
* – 'learn', from
* – 'too much'
* – 'decision', from
* – 'education', from
* 'instead of', from
* – 'so', 'well', from
* – 'school', from
* – 'government', from
* – 'church'
* – 'history', from
* – 'generation', from
* – 'cheese', from
* – 'understand', from
* – 'less', from
* – 'thanks', from
* – 'bread', from
* – 'people', from
* – 'teacher', from
* – 'religion', from
* – 'week'
* – 'work', from
* – 'beer', from
* – 'must', from
* – 'chief', from
* – 'idea'
* – 'music', from
* – 'experience', from
* – 'technology', from
* – 'force', from
* – 'electricity', from
* – 'terrorism', from
* – 'embassy'
* – 'organization', from
* – 'architecture', from
* – 'coffee', from
* – 'equipment', from
* – 'president', from
* – 'pillowcases', from
* – 'airplane', from
* – 'company', from
* – 'television', from
* – 'engineering', from
* – 'corruption', from
* – 'police', from
* – 'physics', from
* – 'profession', from
* – 'impossible', from
* – 'guitarist', from
* – 'passport', from
* – 'message', from
* – 'Christmas', from
From Malay
As a result of
Bazaar Malay
In addition to its classical and literary form, Malay had various regional dialects established after the rise of the Srivijaya empire in Sumatra, Indonesia. Also, Malay spread through interethnic contact and trade across the Malay Archi ...
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 Tetum, through
Indonesian.
Numerals
* 'one'
* 'two'
* 'three'
* 'four'
* 'five'
* 'six'
* 'seven'
* 'eight'
* 'nine'
* 'ten'
* 'twenty'
However, Tetum speakers often use
Malay/Indonesian or
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
numbers instead, such as or 'eight' instead of , especially for numbers over one thousand.
Combinations
Tetum has many hybrid words, which are
combinations
In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are th ...
of indigenous and Portuguese words. These often include an indigenous Tetum 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 Tetum?'
* – 'Right'
* – 'No.'
* [] – 'I [do not] understand' (from Portuguese ).
Grammar
Morphology
Personal pronouns
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
=
Tetum 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 inalienable 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 alienable possession, becomes :
: – the people of East Timor
= Inclusive and exclusive ''we''
=
Like other Austronesian languages, Tetum 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
amily'scar'
: – '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 Tetum, 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
=
Tetum does not have separate masculine and feminine gender, hence (similar to // in Malay) can mean either 'he', 'she' or 'it'.
Different forms for the genders only occur in Portuguese-derived adjectives, hence ('thank you') is used by men, and by women. The masculine and feminine forms of other adjectives derived from Portuguese are sometimes used with Portuguese loanwords, particularly by Portuguese-educated speakers of Tetum.
: – 'democratic government' (from , masculine)
: – 'democratic nation' (from , feminine)
In some instances, the different gender forms have distinct translations into English:
: – 'handsome'
: – 'pretty'
In indigenous Tetum words, the suffixes ('male') and ('female') are sometimes used to differentiate between the genders:
: 'son' → 'daughter'
= Comparatives and superlatives
=
Superlatives can be formed from adjectives by
reduplication:
: 'much, many' → 'very much, many'
: 'big, great' → 'huge, enormous'
: 'good' → 'very good'
: 'last' → 'the very last, final'
: 'clean, clear' → 'spotless, immaculate'
When making comparisons, the word ('more') is used after the adjective, optionally followed by ('than' from Portuguese ):
: — Maria is older than Ana.
To describe something as the most or least, the word ('all') is added:
: — Maria is the oldest.
Adverbs
Adverbs can be formed from adjectives or nouns by reduplication:
: 'good' → 'well'
: 'new, recent' → 'newly, recently'
: 'night' → 'nightly'
: 'quick' → 'quickly'
: 'day' → 'daily'
Prepositions and circumpositions
The most commonly used
prepositions in Tetum are the verbs ('have', 'possess', 'specific locative') and ('go', 'to', 'for'). Most prepostional concepts of English are expressed by nominal phrases formed by using , the object and the position (expressed by a noun),optionally with the possessive .
: — '
inside the house'
: — '
on top of the mountain'
: — '
on the table'
: — '
under the chair'
: — '
outside the country'
: — '
between the people'
Verbs
= Copula and negation
=
There is no
verb ''to be'' as such, but the word , which translates as 'not to be', is used for negation:
: — 'The Timorese are not Indonesians.'
The word , which roughly translates as 'who is' or 'what is', can be used with an adjective for emphasis:
: — 'It's John who likes beer.'
= Interrogation
=
The
interrogative is formed by using the words ('or') or ('or not').
: — 'Are you crazy?'
: — 'Do you like me?'
= Derivation from nouns and adjectives
=
Transitive verbs are formed by adding the prefix ''ha-'' or ''hak-'' to a noun or adjective:
: 'liquid' → 'to liquify, to melt'
: 'mad' → 'to drive mad'
: 'union' → 'to unite'
: 'shade' → 'to shade, to cover'
: 'hot' → 'to heat up'
Intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
s are formed by adding the prefix ''na-'' or ''nak-'' to a noun or adjective:
: — '(to be) liquified, melted'
: — '(to be) driven mad'
: — '(to be) united'
: — '(to be) shaded, covered'
: — '(to become) heated up'
= Conjugations and
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
s (in Tetun-Terik) =
In , verbs inflect when they begin with a vowel or consonant h. In this case
mutation of the first consonant occurs. For example, the verb ('to see') in would be
conjugated as follows:
: — 'I see'
: — 'you (sing.) see'
: — 'he/she/it sees'
: — 'we see'
: — 'you (pl.) see'
: — 'they see'
Tenses
Past
Whenever possible, the past tense is simply inferred from the context, for example:
: – 'Yesterday I ate rice.'
However, it can be expressed by placing the adverb ('already') at the end of a sentence.
: – 'I've (already) eaten rice.'
When is used with ('not') this means 'no more' or 'no longer', rather than 'have not':
: – 'I don't eat rice anymore.'
In order to convey that an action has not occurred, the word ('not yet') is used:
: – 'I haven't eaten rice (yet).'
When relating an action that occurred in the past, the word ('finally' or 'well and truly') is used with the verb.
: – 'I ate rice.'
Future
The
future tense is formed by placing the word ('will') before a verb:
: – 'I ''will'' give them food.'
The negative is formed by adding ('not') between and the verb:
: – 'I ''will not'' give them food.'
Aspects
Perfect
The perfect
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
can be formed by using .
: – 'I have eaten rice / I ate rice.'
When negated, indicates that an action ceased to occur:
: – 'I didn't eat rice anymore.'
In order to convey that a past action had not or never occurred, the word ('not yet' or 'never') is used:
: – 'I didn't eat rice / I hadn't eaten rice.'
Progressive
The
progressive aspect
The continuous and progressive aspects ( abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
In the grammars of many ...
can be obtained by placing the word ('stay') after a verb:
: – 'They're (still) working.'
Imperative
The
imperative mood is formed using the word ('go') at the end of a sentence, hence:
: – 'Read the letter!'
The word ('just' or 'a bit') may also be used when making a request rather than a command:
: – 'Just read the letter.'
When forbidding an action ('cannot') or ('do not') are used:
: – 'Don't smoke here!'
: – 'Don't kill them!'
Orthography and phonology
The influence of Portuguese and to a lesser extent Malay/Indonesian on the phonology of Tetun has been extensive.
In the Tetum language, , and tend to have relatively fixed sounds. However and vary according to the environment they are placed in, for instance the sound is slightly higher if the proceeding syllable is or .
All consonants appearing in parenthesis are used only in loanwords.
Stops: All stops in Tetum are un-aspirated, meaning an expulsion of breath is absent. In contrast, English stops, namely 'p' 't' and 'k' are generally aspirated.
Fricatives:
is an unstable voiced labio-dental fricative and tends to alternate with or is replaced by ; e.g. – meaning 'grandparent.'
As Tetum did not have any official recognition or support under either Portuguese or Indonesian rule, it is only recently that a standardised orthography has been established by the
National Institute of Linguistics (INL). The standard orthography devised by the institute was declared official by Government Decree 1/2004 of 14 April 2004.
However, there are still widespread variations in spelling, one example being the word or 'when', which has also been written as , , , . The use of or is a reflection of the pronunciation in some rural dialects of ''Tetun-Terik''.
The current orthography originates from the spelling reforms undertaken by
Fretilin
The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor ( pt, Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente, abbreviated as Fretilin) is a centre-left political party in East Timor. They presently hold 23 of 65 seats in the National Parliam ...
in 1974, when it launched literacy campaigns across East Timor, and also from the system used by the Catholic Church when it adopted Tetum as its liturgical language during the Indonesian occupation. These involved the
transcription of many Portuguese words that were formerly written in their original spelling, for example, → 'education', and → 'colonialism'.
Reforms suggested by the International Committee for the Development of East Timorese Languages (IACDETL) in 1996 included the replacement of the
digraphs and
(borrowed from Portuguese, where they stand for the phonemes and ) by and , respectively (as in certain
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
orthographies), to avoid confusion with the
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s and , which also occur in Tetum. Thus, 'sir' became , and 'worker' became . Later, as adopted by IACDETL and approved by the INL in 2002, and were replaced by
and
(as in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
). Thus, 'sir' became , and 'worker' became . Some linguists favoured using
(as in
Catalan and
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
) and
for these sounds, but the latter spellings were rejected for being similar to the Indonesian system, and most speakers actually pronounce ''ñ'' and ''ll'' as and , respectively, with a
semivowel
In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
which forms a
diphthong with the preceding vowel (but reduced to , after ), not as the
palatal consonant
Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.
Characteris ...
s of Portuguese and Spanish. Thus, , are pronounced , , and , are pronounced , . As a result, some writers use and instead, for example and for June and July ( and in Portuguese).
As well as variations in the transliteration of Portuguese loanwords, there are also variations in the spelling of indigenous words. These include the use of double vowels and the
apostrophe for the
glottal stop, for example → 'large' and → 'small'.
The sound , which is not indigenous to Tetum but appears in many loanwords from Portuguese and Malay, often changed to in old Tetum and to (written ) in the speech of young speakers: for example, 'table' from Portuguese , and 'shirt' from Portuguese . In the sociolect of Tetum that is still used by the generation educated during the Indonesian occupation, and may occur in
free variation. For instance, the Portuguese-derived word 'example' is pronounced by some speakers, and conversely 'January' is pronounced . The sound , also not native to the language, often shifted to , as in 'work' from Portuguese (also note that a modern INL convention promotes the use of for 'work' and for 'service').
See also
*
Languages of East Timor
*
The Lord's Prayer in Tetum at
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...
References
National Institute of Linguistics, National University of East Timor (Archived)includes several bilingual Tetum dictionaries, and articles about Tetum
*Hull, Geoffrey, ''Standard Tetum-English Dictionary'' 2nd Ed, Allen & Unwin Publishers
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070927042437/http://www.asianlang.mq.edu.au/INL/orthhist.pdf The standard orthography of the Tetum language(PDF)
Matadalan Ortografiku ba Lia-Tetun- Tetum Spelling Guide
Damien LEIRIS - Personal approach of the Tetum language(PDF)
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080119191225/http://www.asianlang.mq.edu.au/INL/speech1.html Current Language Issues in East Timor (Dr. Geoffrey Hull)*
*
*
External links
*Peace Corps East Timor Tetun Language Manual
2011, 2nd edition2015, 3rd edition*
Pictures from a Portuguese language course, using Tetum, published in the East Timorese newspaper
Lia Foun in Díli (from
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
)
Tetunwebsite with sound files
an interview with some information on the history of Tetum
and other publications available from Dili
Damien LEIRIS - Personal approach of the Tetum language(PDF)
Tetun dictionaryTetum illustrated dictionaryDili Institute of TechnologyInstitute of Technology website
includes some information on grammar, based on the ''Tetun-Terik'' dialect
*
ttp://www.suara-timor-lorosae.com/ ''Suara Timor Lorosae'' Daily newspaper in Tetum and Indonesianbr>
''Jornal Nacional Semanário'' Tetum pageTetun writing courses for East Timorese university students, by Catharina Williams-van Klinken, Dili Institute of Technology
Talk Tetum in TimorVisitEastTimor.com Travel Guide help you to talk in East Timor
*
Robert Blust's
field notes on Tetun are archived with
Kaipuleohone
*
{{Languages of Indonesia
Languages of East Timor
Languages of Indonesia
Timor–Babar languages
Subject–verb–object languages