Tetum language

Tetum
Lia-Tetun
Native to	Timor
Native speakers	850,000  (2009–2011)[1] Tetun Dili widespread in East Timor as L2
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP (Central–Eastern) Timor–Babar Tetumic Tetum
Writing system	Latin (Tetum alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	East Timor
Recognised minority language in	Indonesia (East Nusa Tenggara)
Regulated by	National Institute of Linguistics
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tet
ISO 639-3	Either: tet – Tetun tdt – Tetun Dili

Tetum /ˈtɛtʊm/,^[2] also Tetun, is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is spoken in Belu Regency in Indonesian West Timor, and across the border in East Timor, where it is one of the two official languages. In East Timor a creolized form, Tetun Dili, is widely spoken fluently as a second language; without previous contact, Tetum and Tetun Dili are not mutually intelligible.^[3] Besides the grammatical simplification involved in creolization, Tetun Dili has been greatly influenced by the vocabulary of Portuguese, the other official language of East Timor.

History and dialects

Tetum has four dialects:

• Tetun-Dili, or Tetun-Prasa (literally "city’s Tetum"), is spoken in the capital, Dili, and its surroundings, in the north of the country. Ethnologue reports that it is a Tetun-based creole.
• Tetun-Terik is spoken in the south and southwestern coastal regions.
• Tetun-Belu, or the Belunese dialect, is spoken in a central strip of the island of Timor from the Ombai Strait to the Timor Sea, and is split between East Timor and West Timor, where it is considered a bahasa daerah or "regional language", with no official status in Indonesia, although it is used by the Diocese 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.

Tetun-Belu and Tetun-Terik are not spoken or well understood 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 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 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.^[4]

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 adopted Tetum as its liturgical language, making it a focus for cultural and national identity.^[5] When East Timor gained its independence on 20 May 2002, Tetum and Portuguese were declared as official languages.

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.

Vocabulary

Indigenous

The Tetum name for East Timor is Timór Lorosa'e, which means "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 noun for "word" is liafuan, from lia "voice" and fuan "fruit". Some more words in Tetum:

• aas - "high"
• aat - "bad"
• ai - "tree"
• ai-fuan - "fruit"
• ai-manas - "spicy sauce"
• been - "water"
• belun - "friend"
• boot - "big"
• di'ak - "good"
• hadomi - "love"
• ema - "person, people"
• fatin - "place"
• feto - "woman"
• foho - "mountain"
• fulan - "moon/month"
• funu - "war"
• hamlaha - "hungry"
• han - "eat"
• hahan - "food"
• hemu - "drink"
• hotu - "all"
• ida - "one"
• kalan - "night"
• ki'ik - "little"
• kraik - "low"
• labarik - "child"
• lafaek - "crocodile"
• lais - "fast"
• lalenok - "mirror"
• laran - "inside"
• lia - "language"
• liafuan - "word" (from lian - voice and fuan - fruit)
• lian - "voice", "language"
• loos - "true"
• loron - "day"
• lokraik - "afternoon"
• lulik - "sacred"
• mane - "man"
• maromak - "god"
• moris - "life"
• rain - "country"
• tasi - "sea"
• tinan - "year"
• tebes - "very"
• teen - "dirt"
• toos - "hard"
• uluk - "first"
• ulun - "head"

From Portuguese

Words derived from Portuguese:

• adeus - "goodbye"
• ajuda - "help"
• aprende - "learn", from aprender
• demais - "too much"
• desizaun "decision", from decisão
• edukasaun "education", from educação
• envezde "instead of", from em vez de"
• entaun - "so", "well", from então
• eskola - "school", from escola
• governu - "government", from governo
• igreja - "church"
• istória – "history", from história
• jerasaun - "generation", from geração
• keiju – "cheese", from queijo
• komprende – "understand", from compreender
• menus – "less", from menos
• obrigadu/a – "thanks", from obrigado/a
• paun – "bread", from pão
• povu – "people", from povo
• profesór – "teacher", from professor
• relijiaun – "religion", from religião
• semana – "week"
• serbisu – "work", from serviço
• serveja – "beer", from cerveja
• tenke – "must", from tem que
• xefe – "chief", from chefe

From Malay

As a result of Bazaar Malay being a regional lingua franca, many words are derived from Malay, including:

• atus "hundred", from ratus
• barak "much", from banyak
• bele "can", from boleh
• besi "iron", from besi
• dalan "way" or "road", from jalan
• fatu(k) "stone", from batu
• fulan "moon" or "month" from bulan
• malae "foreigner", from melayu "Malay"
• manas "hot", from panas
• rihun "thousand", from ribu
• sala "wrong", from salah
• tulun "help", from tolong
• uma "house", from rumah

In addition, as a legacy of Indonesian rule, other words of Malay origin have entered Tetum, through Indonesian.

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 (just like "eight" in Javanese: wolu), especially for numbers over one thousand.

Combinations

Tetum has many hybrid words, which are combinations of indigenous and Portuguese words. These often include an indigenous Tetum verb, with a Portuguese suffix -dór (similar to '-er'). For example:

• han ("to eat") handór – glutton.
• hemu ("to drink") hemudór – heavy drinker.
• hateten ("to say") hatetendór – chatterbox, talkative person.
• sisi ("to nag, pester") sisidór – nag, pest.

Basic phrases

• Bondia – "Good morning" (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/Obrigada – "Thank you", said by a male/female (from Portuguese Obrigado/Obrigada).
• Ita bele ko'alia Tetun? – "Do you speak Tetum?"
• Loos – "Right"
• Lae – "No."
• Ha'u' [la] komprende – "I [do not] understand" (from Portuguese compreender).

Grammar

Morphology

Personal Pronouns

Person	Number
		Singular	Plural
1	Ha'u-(nia)
1INC		Ita-(nia)
1EXCL		Ami-(nia)
2	Ó-(nia)	Imi-(nia)
2(polite)	Ita-(nia)
3	Nia(ninia)	Sira-(nia)

^[6]

Examples:

(1)	Hau rona	asu	hatenu
	1S	hear	dog	barking
	"I hear the dog barking"

(2)	"Nia	sosa",	sigaru
	3s	buys	cigarettes
	"'He/She buys cigarettes'"
(3)	Ita	rona	rádiu ?
	1PL	hearing	radio
	"Are we hearing a radio?"

(4)	Sia	moris	hotu ka?
	3P	alive	all	?
	"Are they all alive?"

A common occurrence is to use titles such as Senhora for a woman or names rather than pronouns when addressing people.

Example:

(1)	Senhora	mai	hori	bain-hira?
	Mrs	come	PAST	when
	"When did you arrive?"

^[7]

The tetun first person singular pronoun Ó is used generously with children or if the speaker intends to address someone of high social status.^[8]

Example:

(1)	Nina,	Ó	iha	nebee?
	Nina	2s.FAM	LOC	where
	"Nina, where are you?"

Nouns and pronouns

Plural

The plural is not normally marked on nouns, but the word sira "they" can express it when necessary.

fetu "woman/women" → fetu sira "women"

However, the plural ending -(e)s of nouns of Portuguese origin is retained.

Estadus Unidus – United States (from Estados Unidos)

Nasoens Unidas – United Nations (from Nações Unidas)

Definiteness

Tetum has an indefinite article ida ("one"), used after nouns:

labarik ida – a child

There is no definite article, but the demonstratives ida-ne'e ("this one") and ida-ne'ebá ("that one") may be used to express definiteness:

labarik ida-ne'e – this child, the child

labarik ida-ne'ebá – that child, the child

In the plural, sira-ne'e ("these") or sira-ne'ebá ("those") are used:

labarik sira-ne'e – these children, the children

labarik sira-ne'ebá – those children, the children

Possessive and genitive

The particle nia forms the possessive, and can be used in a similar way to the Saxon genitive in English, e.g.:

João nia uma – João's house

Cristina nia livru – Cristina's book

The genitive is formed with nian, so that:

povu Timór Lorosa'e nian – the people of East Timor

Inclusive and exclusive "we"

Like other Austronesian languages, Tetum has two forms of "we", ami (equivalent to Indonesian and Malay kami) which is exclusive, e.g. "I and they", and ita (equivalent to Indonesian and Malay kita), which is inclusive, e.g. "you, I, and they".

ami-nia karreta – our [family's] car

ita-nia rain – 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.

hakerek "write" → hakerek-na'in "writer"

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 sala as either maksalak, or sala-na'in. 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 te'in as makte'in as well as te'in-na'in.

The suffix -teen (from the word for "dirt" or "excrement") can be used with adjectives to form derogatory terms:

bosok "false" → bosok-teen "liar"

Adjectives

Derivation from nouns

To turn a noun into an adjective, the particle oan is added to it.

malae "foreigner" → malae-oan "foreign"

Thus, "Timorese" is Timor-oan, as opposed to the country of Timor, rai-Timor.

To form adjectives from verbs, the suffix -dór (derived from Portuguese) can be added:

hateten "tell" → hatetendór "talkative"

Gender

Tetum does not have separate masculine and feminine forms of the third person singular, hence nia (similar to dia in Indonesian and Malay) can mean either "he", "she" or "it".

Different forms for the genders only occur in Portuguese-derived adjectives, hence obrigadu ("thank you") is used by males, and obrigada by females. The masculine and feminine forms of other adjectives derived from Portuguese are sometimes used with Portuguese loanwords, particularly by Portuguese-educated speakers of Tetum.

governu demokrátiku – democratic government (from governo democrático, masculine)

nasaun demokrátika – democratic nation (from nação democrática, feminine)

In some instances, the different gender forms have distinct translations into English:

bonitu – handsome

bonita – pretty

In indigenous Tetum words, the suffixes -mane ("male") and -feto ("female") are sometimes used to differentiate between the genders:

oan-mane "son" → oan-feto "daughter"

Comparatives and superlatives

Superlatives can be formed from adjectives by reduplication:

barak "much", "many" → babarak "very much", "many"

boot "big", "great" → boboot "huge", "enormous"

di'ak "good" → didi'ak "very good"

ikus "last" → ikuikus "the very last", "final"

moos "clean", "clear" → momoos "spotless", "immaculate"

When making comparisons, the word liu ("more") is used after the adjective, followed by duké ("than" from Portuguese do que):

Maria tuan liu duké Ana — Maria is older than Ana.

To describe something as the most or least, the word hotu ("all") is added:

Maria tuan liu hotu — Maria is the oldest.

Adverbs

Adverbs can be formed from adjectives or nouns by reduplication:

di'ak "good" → didi'ak "well"

foun "new", "recent" → foufoun "newly", "recently"

kalan "night" → kalakalan "nightly"

lais "quick" → lailais "quickly"

loron "day" → loroloron "daily"

Prepositions and circumpositions

The most commonly used prepositions in Tetum are iha ("in") and ba ("to" or "for") while circumpositions are widely used. These are formed by using iha, the object and the position.

iha uma laran — inside the house

iha foho tutun — on top of the mountain

iha meza leten — on the table

iha kadeira okos — under the chair

iha rai li'ur — outside the country

iha ema leet — between the people

Verbs

Copula and negation

There is no verb "to be" as such, but the word la'ós, which translates as "not to be", is used for negation:

Timor-oan sira la'ós Indonézia-oan. — The Timorese are not Indonesians.

The word maka, which roughly translates as "who is" or "what is", can be used with an adjective for emphasis:

João maka gosta serveja. — It's John who likes beer.

Interrogation

The interrogative is formed by using the words ka ("or") or ka lae ("or not").

O bulak ka? — Are you crazy?

O gosta ha'u ka lae? — Don't you like me?

Derivation from nouns and adjectives

Transitive verbs are formed by adding the prefix ha- or hak- to a noun or adjective:

been "liquid" → habeen "to liquify", "to melt"

bulak "mad" → habulak "to drive mad"

klibur "union" → haklibur "to unite"

mahon "shade" → hamahon "to shade", "to cover"

manas "hot" → hamanas "to heat up"

Intransitive verbs are formed by adding the prefix na- or nak- to a noun or adjective:

nabeen — (to be) liquified, melted

nabulak — (to be) driven mad

naklibur — (to be) united

namahon — (to be) shaded, covered

namanas — (to become) heated up

Conjugations and inflections (in Tetun-Terik)

In Tetun-Terik, verbs inflect when they begin with a vowel or consonant h. In this case mutation of the first consonant occurs. For example, the verb haree (to see) in Tetun-Terik would be conjugated as follows:

ha'u karee — I see

ó maree — you (sing.) see

nia naree — he/she/it sees

ami haree — we see

imi haree — you (pl.) see

sira raree — they see

Tenses

Past

Whenever possible, the past tense is simply inferred from the context, for example:

Horisehik ha'u han etu – Yesterday I ate rice.

However, it can be expressed by placing the adverb ona ("already") at the end of a sentence.

Ha'u han etu ona – I've (already) eaten rice.

When ona is used with la ("not") this means "no more" or "no longer", rather than "have not":

Ha'u la han etu ona – I don't eat rice anymore.

In order to convey that an action has not occurred, the word seidauk ("not yet") is used:

Ha'u seidauk han etu – I haven't eaten rice (yet).

When relating an action that occurred in the past, the word tiha ("finally" or "well and truly") is used with the verb.

Ha'u han tiha etu – I ate rice.

Future

The future tense is formed by placing the word sei ("will") before a verb:

Ha'u sei fó hahán ba sira – I will give them food.

The negative is formed by adding la ("not") between sei and the verb:

Ha'u sei la fó hahán ba sira – I will not give them food.

Aspects

Perfect

The perfect aspect can be formed by using tiha ona.

Ha'u han etu tiha ona – I have eaten rice / I ate rice.

When negated, tiha ona indicates that an action ceased to occur:

Ha'u la han etu tiha ona – I didn't eat rice anymore.

In order to convey that a past action had not or never occurred, the word ladauk ("not yet" or "never") is used:

Ha'u ladauk han etu – I didn't eat rice / I hadn't eaten rice.

Progressive

The progressive aspect can be obtained by placing the word hela ("stay") after a verb:

Sira serbisu hela. – They're (still) working.

Imperative

The imperative mood is formed using the word ba ("go") at the end of a sentence, hence:

Lee surat ba! – Read the letter!

The word lai ("just" or "a bit") may also be used when making a request rather than a command:

Lee surat lai – Just read the letter.

When forbidding an action labele ("cannot") or keta ("do not") are used:

Labele fuma iha ne'e! – Don't smoke here!

Keta oho sira! – 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.

Vowels of Tetum

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		ä

In the tetun language, /a/ /i/ and /u/ tend to have relatively fixed sounds. However /e/ and /o/ vary according to the environment they are placed in, for instance the sound is slightly higher if the proceeding syllable is /u/ or /i/.^[9]

Consonants of Tetum

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m				n				ɲ
Stop	p	b			t	d					k	ɡ
Fricative			f	v	s	z	ʃ	ʒ					h
Lateral					l				ʎ
Trill					r
Flap					ɾ
Approximant									j		w

Stops: All stops in tetun are un-aspirated, meaning an expulsion of breath is absent. In contrast, English stops namely ‘p’ ‘t’ and ‘k’ are generally aspirated.

Fricatives: /v/ is an unstable voiced labio-dental fricative and tends to alternate with or is replaced by /b/; e.g. [a’vo:] – [a’bo:] meaning grandparent.^[10]

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, one example being the word bainhira or "when", which has also been written as bain-hira, wainhira, waihira, uaihira. The use of "w" or "u" is a reflection of the pronunciation in some rural dialects of Tetun-Terik.

The current orthography originates from the spelling reforms undertaken by Fretilin 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, educação → edukasaun "education", and colonialismo → kolonializmu "colonialism".

More recent reforms by the INL include the replacement of the digraphs "nh" and "lh" (borrowed from Portuguese, where they stand for the phonemes /ɲ/ and /ʎ/) by "ñ" and "ll", respectively (as in Spanish), to avoid confusion with the consonant clusters /nh/ and /lh/, which also occur in Tetum. Thus, senhor "sir" became señór, and trabalhador "worker" became traballadór. Some linguists favoured using "ny" (as in Catalan and Filipino) and "ly" for these sounds, but the latter spellings were rejected for being similar to the Indonesian system. However, most speakers actually pronounce ñ and ll as [i̯n] and [i̯l], respectively, with a semivowel [i̯] which forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel (but reduced to [n], [l] after /i/), not as the palatal consonants of Portuguese and Spanish. Thus, señór, traballadór are pronounced [sei̯ˈnoɾ], [tɾabai̯laˈdoɾ], and liña, kartilla are pronounced [ˈlina], [kaɾˈtila]. As a result, some writers use "in" and "il" instead, for example Juinu and Juilu for June and July (Junho and Julho 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 boot → bot "large" and ki'ik → kiik "small".

The sound [z], which is not indigenous to Tetum but appears in many loanwords from Portuguese and Malay, often changed to [s] in old Tetum and to [ʒ] (written "j") in the speech of young speakers: for example, meja "table" from Portuguese mesa, and kamija "shirt" from Portuguese camisa. In the sociolect of Tetum that is still used by the generation educated during the Indonesian occupation, [z] and [ʒ] may occur in free variation. For instance, the Portuguese-derived word ezemplu "example" is pronounced [eˈʒemplu] by some speakers, and conversely Janeiru "January" is pronounced [zanˈeiru]. The sound [v], also not native to the language, often shifted to [b], as in serbisu "work" from Portuguese serviço (also note that a modern INL convention promotes the use of serbisu for "work" and servisu for "service").

Name

The English spelling "Tetum" is derived from Portuguese, rather than from modern Tetum orthography. Consequently, some people regard "Tetun" as more appropriate.^[11] Although this coincides with the favoured Indonesian spelling, and the spelling with "m" has a longer history in English, "Tetun" has also been used by some Portuguese-educated Timorese, such as José Ramos-Horta and Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.

Similar disagreements over nomenclature have emerged regarding the names of other languages, such as Swahili/Kiswahili and Punjabi/Panjabi.

See also

Tetum edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Languages of East Timor
• The Lord's Prayer in Tetum at Wikisource

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 ISBN 978-1-86508-599-9
• Official Web Gateway to the Government of Timor-Leste - Religion & Language
• The standard orthography of the Tetum language (PDF)
• Colonization, Decolonization and Integration: Language Policies in East Timor, Indonesia, by Nancy Melissa Lutz
• Current Language Issues in East Timor (Dr. Geoffrey Hull)

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Tetum

• Peace Corps East Timor Tetun Language Manual (2003)
• Intensive Tetun language courses at Dili Institute of Technology
• Pictures from a Portuguese language course, using Tetum, published in the East Timorese newspaper Lia Foun in Díli (from Wikimedia Commons)
• Tetun website with sound files
• Teach yourself Tetum... an interview with some information on the history of Tetum
• Wordfinder (Tetun/English minidictionary) and other publications available from Dili
• Tetun dictionary
• Tetum illustrated dictionary
• Dili Institute of Technology

Institute of Technology website

• A Traveller's Dictionary in Tetun-English and English-Tetun includes some information on grammar, based on the Tetun-Terik dialect
• Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project for the Protection and Promotion of East Timorese Languages
• Suara Timor Lorosae Daily newspaper in Tetum and Indonesian
• Jornal Nacional Semanário Tetum page
• Tetum dictionaries
• Tetun 1, Tetun 2 Tetun writing courses for East Timorese university students, by Catharina Williams-van Klinken, Dili Institute of Technology

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