Tetum language
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{{Infobox Language |name=Tetum |nativename=Tetun, Lia-Tetun |familycolor=Austronesian |states=East Timor, Indonesia |region=Southeast Asia |speakers=800,000 |fam2=Malayo-Polynesian (MP) |fam3=Nuclear MP |fam4=Central-Eastern MP |fam5=Central MP |fam6=Timor-Flores |fam7=Nuclear Timor |fam8=East Timor |nation=East Timor |agency=National Institute of Linguistics |iso2=tet|iso3=tet}} Tetum (also written as Tetun) is an Austronesian language, the basis of the national language of East Timor, Tetun Prasa. This is a creole with many words from Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language, as well as Malay or Indonesian.
Tetun Prasa arose as a contact language in the 16th century after colonization by Portugal. The main dialect, that of the capital Dili, is called either Tetun Dili, or Tetun Prasa (literally 'town Tetum'), while the non-creole language spoken in the countryside is called Tetun-Terik. A dialect of Tetum known as Tetun-Belu is also spoken in Indonesian West Timor, but has no official status or recognition.
Although Portuguese was the official language of what was then Portuguese Timor, Tetun-Prasa served as the main lingua franca. When Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor, declaring it 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, adopted Tetum, thereby making it a focus for cultural and national identity.
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Vocabulary
The Tetum name for East Timor is Timor Lorosa'e or "land of the rising sun"; lorosa'e comes from loro ("sun"). The Tetum word for "word" is liafuan, from lia ("voice") and fuan ("fruit").
Austronesian
Some words in Tetum:
- barak - "much"
- boot - "big"
- ki'ik - "little"
- mane - "man"
- fetu - "woman"
- foho - "mountain"
- tasi - "sea"
- rain - "country"
Portuguese
Image:Kursu portuges 5.jpg Words derived from Portuguese:
- aprende - "learn" (from aprender)
- demais - "too much"
- entaun - "so", "well" (from então)
- eskola - "school" (from escola)
- igreja - "church"
- istória - "history" (from história)
- paun - "bread" (from pão)
- povu - "people" (from povo)
- relijiaun - "religion" (from religião)
- serveja - "beer" (from cerveja)
- tenke - "must" (from tem que)
- ajuda - "help"
As in Indonesian, the sound Template:IPA of Portuguese words, originally written s or z, often changed to Template:IPA in Tetum, written j: for example meja ("table") from mesa, and kemeja ("shirt") from camisa. The Portuguese letters b and v were often exchanged, as in serbisu ("work") from the Portuguese serviço.
Malay/Indonesian
Words derived from Malay include:
- barak - "much" (from banyak)
- bele - "can" (from boleh)
- uma - "house" (from rumah)
- dalan - "street" (from jalan)
- karreta - "car" (from kereta)
- lima - "five" (from limah)
- oan - "person" (from orang)
- tulun - "help" (from tolong)
- malae - "foreign" (from melayu = "Malay")
Numerals
- ida - "one"
- rua - "two"
- tolu - "three"
- haat - "four"
- lima - "five"
- neen - "six"
- hitu - "seven"
- ualu - "eight"
- sia - "nine"
- sanulu - "ten"
- ruanulu - "twenty"
However, Tetum speakers often use Malay/Indonesian words instead, such as duapuluh ("twenty") instead of ruanulu; especially for numbers over one thousand.
Grammar
Grammar in Tetum is comparatively simple, there being no genders or verb conjugations. There is no definite article, so fetu can be transtaled as "woman" or "the woman", depending on the context. There is no verb "to be" as such, although the word la'ós (which translates as "not to be") is used to express the negative:
- Timoroan la'ós Indonézia-oan
- "The Timorese are not Indonesians."
- Lia-indonézia la'ós sira-nia lian.
- "Indonesian is not their language."
Similarly, maka (which roughly translates as "who is" or "what is") can be used with an adjective for emphasis:
- Xanana Gusmão maka ita-nia Prezidente.
- "It's Xanana Gusmão who is our President".
- João sé maka gosta serveja.
- "John is the one who likes beer."
The interrogative is formed by using the word ka ("or") or ka lae ("or not").
- O bulak ka? - "Are you crazy?"
- O gosta ha'u ka lae? - "Don't you like me?"
The plural is not normally used for nouns, although the word sira ("they") can be used for emphasis.
- fetu - "woman"
- fetu sira - "women"
In the case of words of Portuguese origin, the distinct plural (ending with the letter s) is used;
- Estadus Unidus - "United States" (from Estados Unidos)
- Nasoens Unidas - "United Nations" (from Nações Unidas)
To turn an adjective into a noun, the word oan is added:
- malae - "foreign"
- malae-oan - "foreigner"
Similarly, "Timorese" is Timor-oan, as opposed to the country of Timor, Rai-Timor.
The past tense is not usually used except for emphasis, when the word ona ("already") is added at the end of the sentence.
- Ha'u han. - "I eat."
- Ha'u han etu. - "I eat / ate rice."
- Ha'u han etu ona. - "I ate / have eaten rice."
Like Malay, Tetum has two forms of "we": ami (equivalent to Malay "kami") which is exclusive (eg: "just you and me"), and ita (equivalent to Malay "kita"), which is inclusive (eg: "you, me, and them").
- ami-nia karreta - "our [family's] car."
- ita-nia rain - "our country."
The word "nia" is used as the possessive.
The genitive is formed by using "nian", hence:
- povu Timór Lorosa'e nian - "the people of East Timor"
Basic phrases
- Bondia - "Good day." (from Portuguese bom dia)
- Di'ak ka lae? - "How are you?" (literally are you well or not?)
- Ha'u di'ak - "I'm fine."
- Obrigadu - "Thank you." (from Portuguese obrigado)
- Ita bele ko'alia Tetun? - "Can you speak Tetum?"
- Loos - "Yes."
- Lae - "No."
- Ha'u' [la] komprende - "I [do not] understand." (from Portuguese compreender)
Orthography
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). However, there are still widespread variations in spelling.
The current orthography originates from the spelling reforms unertaken by Fretilin in 1974, when it launched literacy campaigns across East Timor during that year, and also from the system used by the Catholic Church when it adopted Tetum as the liturgical language during the Indonesian occupation. These involved the transliteration of many Portuguese words that were formerly written in the original spelling, for example, educação ("education") → edukasaun, and colonialismo ("colonialism") → kolonializmu.
More recent reforms by the INL include the replacement of the digraphs nh and lh (borowed from Portuguese and pronounced [ɳ] "ny" and [ʎ] "ly") by ñ and ll, respectively (as in Spanish and Galician). Thus, Portuguese senhor ("mister") became señór in Tetum, and trabalhador ("worker", "hard-working") became traballadór.
Some linguists favoured ny (used by Catalan) and ly for these sounds, but these spellings were rejected as being similar to the Indonesian system. The letter ñ was also used in Filipino, but this was recently replaced by ny.
In fact, the Tetum pronunciations of these letter combinations are closer to [yl] and [yn], hence señor is prounced as [sey'nor] in Tetum, and trabalhador as [trabayla'dor].
The sound [ʃ], written ch or x in Portuguese, is written x in Tetum (as in Galician and in the Konkani language of Goa), as in xá ("tea"), from Portuguese chá.
The sounds of j and z are often confused, so that the Portuguese-derived word exemplu or "example" may be pronounced in Tetum as [eʒemplu], and, conversely, Janeiru or "January" as [zaneiru].
Name of the language
The spelling of the name of the language as Tetum is a reflection of Portuguese pronunciation, in which 'm' is pronounced as a nasal sound, rather than that in the language itself. Consequently, some people regard Tetun as more appropriate. Although favoured by Indonesian speakers, Tetun has also been used by Portuguese speakers such as José Ramos Horta and Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, in Portuguese as well as English.
Similar disagreements over nomenclature have emerged in other indigenous languages, such as (Swahili/Kiswahili) and (Punjabi/Panjabi).
Dialects
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 and Australia is more Portuguese-influenced, as many of those speakers were not educated in Indonesian.
See also
External links
- Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project for the Protection and Promotion of East Timorese Languages
- National Institute of Linguistics, National University of East Timor
- Grammar
- Suara Timor Lorosae Daily newspaper in Tetum and Indonesian
- Ethnologue report for Tetumbg:Тетун
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