Talk:Tetum language

Karreta
Karreta is actually not only a Malay (Indonesian) loanword (kereta) but also a Portuguese loanword; carreta, "chariot".

Meursault2004 23:42, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As I understand it, Indonesian uses the term mobil for car, whereas in Bahasa Malaysia (Malay) it is kereta. Although carreta is not often used in Portuguese, this does explain how the word came into use in East Timor.


 * "Kereta" can mean any wheeled vehicle in Malaysian and other dialects of Malay but now normally means "car". In current Indonesian "kereta" has come to be solely used as an abbreviation of "kereta api" or "keretapi" ("fire wagon") = train.  Tetum probably picked it up well before the current Indonesian word became standard.

Noun <--> Adjective

 * To turn a noun into an adjective, the word oan is added:
 * Malae - foreign
 * Malae oan - foreigner

if the text is correct, it should be the other way round Schuetzm 17:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * That's right. The examples were switched. To check, notice some of the other examples, such as:


 * Timoroan la'ós Indonézia-oan.
 * "The Timorese are not Indonesians."'' FilipeS 17:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Malay for "we"
As in Malay, Tetum has two forms of 'we': ami (equivalent to Malay 'kami') which is exclusive (eg: 'just the two of us'), and ita (equivalent to Malay 'kami'), which is inclusive (eg: 'all of us').'' in both cases "equivalent to Malay 'kami'"?! Schuetzm 17:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Agree with Schuetzm, that both the examples sited correspond to the inclusive we. The difference between the Malay kami and kita is whether or not the individuals included can be enumerated ('Just the two of us' vs 'All of us'), but whether or not the 'we' includes the person being spoken to: kita includes the addessee, kami excludes him/her. Enumerability is a feature of plural pronouns in some SE Asian languages, for instance, Tagalog, but not Malay.

If the Tetum ami and ita are derived from Malay, then their meanings are likely to be as above. This does seem more likely than the distinctive feature being enumeration. --Sepenidur 12:02, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. The text makes it sound like ami is dual and ita is plural. If it's really an inclusive/exclusive difference, then ita should mean 'you and I and perhaps others as well' while ami should mean 'other people and I but not you'. --Angr 08:50, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Tetum
We are looking for speakers of Tetum (ideally, native speakers) that may cooperate in the launching of a Tetum version of the Wikipedia. Visit the test page of the Tetum Wikipedia and support this project (click in Tetum). Regards --82.102.25.163 01:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC) Manuel de Sousa

Images and "correct"pronuciation
The images are nice, but the first one says that people in Tetum "wrongly" pronounce meja instead of mesa, etc. So the picture seems to be about "teaching Portuguese" rather than "teaching Tetum". (Obviously, the "correct" pronunciation of "table" in tetum is the way that Tetum speakers pronounce it!) In that case, the pictures should be fixed if possible, otherwise it seems best to remove them. Cheers, Jorge Stolfi 23:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * seconded. The other one is also about common mispronunciations for locals...Rigadoun 22:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The pictures seem indeed to be about the pronunciation of Portuguese (not Tetum). However, they are interesting, for being bilingual. FilipeS 20:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think they are confusing, and they look rather silly out of context. I'll remove them. If someone would wish to reinclude them, please at least add proper context. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Had to add proper contest, myself... 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 22:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I've changed the caption a little, to explain better what's in the picture. I've also deleted the translation, which seems pointless in this article. The interest of the pictures is that they contain a few samples of Tetum. FilipeS 19:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand that point, but in that case, I think it would be sufficient with some written samples, rather than images. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 21:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Contact language?
Tetum isn't really a contact language, is it? That link goes to pidgin, and my understanding was that Tetum was influenced by foreign languages, but not completely changed in grammar in the way one would expect from a pidgin. I don't think the more or less intelligible Tetum-Terik were not this creolized. Lingua franca or koine would be a more appropriate description, wouldn't it?Rigadoun 22:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Dr. Geoffrey Hull, from the Timorese National Institute of Linguistics, calls it a "contact language":


 * "In the fifteenth century, before the arrival of the Portuguese, Tetum 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 on the island." FilipeS 20:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The guys at SIL International (Ethnologue) consider it (Tetum Praca-Dili) to be a creole based on Tetum (Tenrik). Here it's considered a dialect, what's going on?Domsta333 (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend using the term lingua franca to refer to Tetum Prasa, noting that in Timor-Leste people usually refer to Tetum Prasa just simply as "Tetum," which can be confusing given the parallel existence of the less creolized version of Tetum Terik, which is still spoken in many areas in the south of the country, particularly around Viqueque.HartmannSE (talk) 13:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

"Comparatively simple"
I'm removing the following from the article:
 * Grammar in Tetum is comparatively simple.

Comparatively simple, compared to what? The fact of the matter is that the current version of the article does not tell us much about the grammar of Tetum. No wonder it seems simple. And in case this is the argument on which the remark was based:
 * There are no genders or verb conjugations. There is no definite article, so fetu can be translated as "woman" or "the woman", depending on the context. There is no verb "to be" as such, etc.

The same sort of thing could be said of languages like Chinese or Japanese, but I think everybody would think twice before describing either of them as "comparatively simple". FilipeS 19:25, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I've heard Chinese grammar being described as "simple". Otherwise, I don't completely understand what "There is no verb "to be" " would refer to. (Copula? Existential verb? Verb conjugation?) Both Chinese and Japanese have verbs corresponding to "to be", anyway... 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * On the other hand. I could give Russian as an example. It does lack a definite/indefinite article, and the verb "to be" is generally omitted in present tense. However, the example isn't that good, since "it/there is" is often used with the derived meaning "(somebody) has" and "be" is found in most other tenses, such as past, future and infinitive. However, that doesn't make Russian "comparatively simple". It's fusional case- and gender-based nature is actually rather hard. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 10:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Future of the Tetum?
Why not a section about the future of the Tetum and his development? The tetum is in risk again the influence of the portuguese ex-colonialist.

That might be a good idea. While Tetum does appear to be going through a cultural resurgence, it might be important to identify which Tetum we are talking about -- Tetum Terik or Tetum Prasa, or write about both. From my assessment, Tetum Terik appears to be more at threat, given its shrinking usage and the dominance of Tetum Prasa as a national language and lingua franca. If we are talking about the lasting impact of Portuguese on Tetum, particularly Tetum Prasa, it would also be worthwhile to talk about the influence of Bahasa Indonesia on the language both in historic and current terms as well. One interesting feature in modern Tetum is the fact that in most daily interactions most Tetum speakers use numbers in Indonesian (and to a lesser extent in Portuguese) instead of using the indigenous forms. HartmannSE (talk) 12:55, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

União Nacional dos Escuteiros de Timor Leste
Can someone who speaks Tetum render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Tetum, for that article? Thanks! Chris 14:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Pretty versus handsome
I'm removing the following from the article:

In some instances, the different gender forms of Portuguese loanwords have distinct meanings, for example:


 * bonitu - handsome
 * bonita - pretty

I feel that this is too English-centric. Whether "handsome" and "pretty" are "distinct notions", or the masculine and the feminine of the "same notion" is a matter of opinion, and clearly conditioned by one's language. In Portuguese, I would say that the two words mean essentially the same; they're just inflections of a common lexeme. FilipeS 01:50, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Ona: aspectual marker?
The marker -ona is mentioned as one way to express the past tense, but later it appears again as a marker of the perfect aspect. Since it's well known that many languages use the perfect aspect to imply a past tense, I'm wondering whether sentences like Ha'u la han etu tiha ona wouldn't be best described as being in the perfect aspect, rather than the past tense. FilipeS (talk) 14:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Mutations and conjugations (in Tetun-Terik)
Is what is described in this section not the same as an actual conjugation, where the verbs inflect through prefixes? FilipeS (talk) 20:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Tetum versus Tetun Prasa / Tetun Dili
Is there a reason that this page has both Tetum and Tetun Prasa / Tetun Dili on it? It references ethnologue stating that they are different languages, and they have different ISO codes. Wouldn't it be better to split them into separate articles, maybe leaving one that either disambiguates or gives general information that applies to both? If "Tetum/Tetun" is a term that can not just apply to each, but can apply to both together (e.g., if they are often referred to as one language), then that would argue for the latter—but I still thing the page should be split into two. —Firespeaker (talk) 15:37, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Tetum(Tetun) refers to both an ethnic group and language in Timor-Leste. In real terms 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 and Tetum/n Prasa (Market Tetum from the word Praca in Portuguese meaning square as in town square) or Tetum/n Dili (given its widespread usage in the capital Dili), the Tetum-based creole (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. Nowadays, the term Tetum is as you mentioned used to collectively refer to both, unless someone wants to emphasize the more indigenous form "Tetum Terik." In other words, Tetum is usually synonymous with Tetum Prasa/Dili and is as you noted the lingua franca, both widely spoken across the country and used by the government, mass media and business. As you mention I would argue for one entry article and then split into two as per the ISO codes. HartmannSE (talk) 12:47, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

I just made an edit based on this discussion, to clarify the difference between the two in the leading section of page. Fede.Campana (talk) 06:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

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