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Tetum (also written as Tetun) is an Austronesian language, and one of its forms, Tetum- Praca, is one of the national languages of East Timor. This is a post-creole speech continuum - with many borrowed words from Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language. Malay or Indonesian, is also widely spoken. Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ...
Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ...
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ...
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages and comprise at least 351 million speakers. ...
The Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages are a branch of the Austronesian family that are thought to have dispersed from a possible homeland in Sulawesi. ...
The family of Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian languages. ...
The Central Malayo-Polynesian (CMP) languages are a proposed branch of Austronesian languages. ...
ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ...
ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ...
ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ...
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ...
Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ...
Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...
This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific ( with a few members spoken on continental Asia). ...
A phase that happens to native languages in a peripheral, especially colonial society that emerge from the previous dominance of a high language imposed by the center. ...
The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who reside in the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra, the Riau islands, and parts of the coast of Borneo. ...
Tetum 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 Tetum Dili, or Tetum Prasa (literally 'town Tetum'), while the non-creole language spoken in the countryside is called Tetum-Terik. In the areas of Indonesian West Timor adjacent to the border with East Timor a variant known as Tetun-Belu, with much less Portuguese influence, is spoken. Tetum-Belu is a 'regional language' or bahasa daerah with no official status in Indonesia. A Pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues. ...
Dili, also spelled DÃli, Dilli or Dilly, is the capital of East Timor. ...
Map of Timor (island only) West Timor is a political region that comprises the western half of Timor island with the exception of Oecussi-Ambeno district (which is politically part of East Timor) and forms a part of the Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, (NTT or East Nusa Tenggara). ...
Although Portuguese was the official language of what was then Portuguese Timor, Tetum-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. Portuguese Timor is the former name (1596 - 1975) of East Timor when it was under Portuguese control. ...
The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ...
Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia and a remarkable language in several ways. ...
Vocabulary
The Tetum name for East Timor is Timor Lorosa'e - "Timor of the rising sun", or, less poetically, "East Timor"; lorosa'e comes from loro ("sun") and "sa'e" ("to rise, to go up"). 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 Words derived from Portuguese: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1269x946, 161 KB) Summary Photo & editing both by pt:João Paulo T. Esperança. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1269x946, 161 KB) Summary Photo & editing both by pt:João Paulo T. Esperança. ...
- 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 [z] of Portuguese words, originally written s or z, often changed to [ʒ] 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 lima)
- 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 or Portuguese numbers instead, such as delapan or oito ("eight") instead of ualu; especially for numbers over one thousand.
Grammar Grammar in Tetum is comparatively simple. There are 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)
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1360x1020, 209 KB) Summary Photo & editing both by pt:João Paulo T. Esperança. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1360x1020, 209 KB) Summary Photo & editing both by pt:João Paulo T. Esperança. ...
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. Categories: East Timor | Politics stubs ...
1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1974 calendar). ...
Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another. ...
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. Galician (Galician: galego) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia. ...
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. Catalan in Europe Catalan IPA: (català ) is a Romance language, the official language of Andorra and co-official in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Valencia (under the name Valencian) and Catalonia. ...
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. Konkani (DevanÄgarÄ«/Marathi कोंकणी ) is an Indo-Aryan language, although it includes a wealth of words derived from various Dravidian languages. ...
For other uses, see Goa (disambiguation). ...
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 Filipe Ximenes Belo, in Portuguese as well as English. José Manuel Ramos Horta (born December 26, 1949) has been Foreign Minister of East Timor since independence in 2002, having previously been a spokesman for the East Timorese resistance in exile during the years of Indonesian occupation between 1975 and 1999. ...
Bishop Carlos Belo (left) Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo SDB (born February 3, 1948) is a Roman Catholic bishop who received, together with José Ramos Horta, the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor. The fifth child of Domingos...
Similar disagreements over nomenclature have emerged in other indigenous languages, such as (Swahili/Kiswahili) and (Punjabi/Panjabi). Nomenclature is a system of naming and categorizing objects in a given category. ...
This article is about the language. ...
Kiswahili is an alternative name for the Swahili language, derived from the expression lugha ya Kiswahili, which is what speakers of Swahili call their language. ...
Punjabi (also Panjabi; in GurmukhÄ«, PanjÄbÄ« in ShÄhmukhÄ«) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ...
Punjabi (sometimes spelled Panjabi) is the language of the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. ...
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 The lingua franca and national language of East Timor is Tetum, which is a Malayo-Polynesian language influenced by Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language. ...
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