Tetum
Lia-Tetun
Spoken in	Indonesia, East Timor
Native speakers	500,000  (2004)[1] Tetun Dili widespread in East Timor as L2
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Nuclear MP Central–Eastern MP Timor–Babar Nuclear Timor ? East Timor ? Tetumic Tetum
Writing system	Latin (Tetum alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	East Timor
Regulated by	National Institute of Linguistics
Language codes
ISO 639-2	tet
ISO 639-3	tet â€“ Tetun
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Tetum (also Tetun) is an Austronesian language of Belu Regency in 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 unintelligible.^[1] 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[link]

Languages on Timor Island

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.^[2]

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.^[3] 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[link]

Indigenous[link]

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:

Portuguese (left) and Tetum (right). From a Portuguese course for Tetum speakers. The Portuguese text says: "Our generation sometimes has difficulty distinguishing between 'j' and 'z'"

• aas - "high"
• aat - "bad"
• been - "water"
• belun - "friend"
• boot - "big"
• di'ak - "good"
• domin - "love"
• ema - "person, people"
• fatin - "place"
• feto - "woman"
• foho - "mountain"
• fuan - "fruit"
• funu - "war"
• han - "food"
• hemu - "drink"
• hotu - "all"
• ida - "one"
• 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"
• lulik - "sacred"
• mane - "man"
• maromak - "god"
• moris - "life"
• rain - "country"
• tasi - "sea"
• tebes - "very"
• teen - "dirt"
• toos - "hard"
• uluk - "first"
• ulun - "head"

From Portuguese[link]

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 Indonesian[link]

Tetum (left) and Portuguese (right). From a Portuguese course for Tetum speakers. The Portuguese text says: "Some people pronounce erroneously '*meja', '*uja' and '*abuja' instead of 'mesa', 'usa' and 'abusa'."

Words derived from Indonesian include:

• atus "hundred", from ratus
• barak "much", from banyak
• bele "can", from boleh
• besi "iron", from besi
• 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

Numerals[link]

• 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.

Combinations[link]

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[link]

• 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 – "Yes."
• Lae – "No."
• Ha'u' [la] komprende – "I [do not] understand" (from Portuguese compreender).

Grammar[link]

Morphology[link]

Nouns and pronouns[link]

Plural[link]

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[link]

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[link]

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"[link]

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[link]

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[link]

Derivation from nouns[link]

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[link]

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[link]

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[link]

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[link]

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[link]

Copula and negation[link]

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[link]

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[link]

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

[edit] 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[link]

Past[link]

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[link]

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[link]

Perfect[link]

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[link]

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

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

Imperative[link]

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[link]

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[link]

The English spelling "Tetum" is derived from Portuguese, rather than from modern Tetum orthography. Consequently, some people regard "Tetun" as more appropriate.^[4] 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[link]

Tetum language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

References[link]

• 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[link]

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 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
• Ethnologue report for Tetum
• 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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