Tetum | |
---|---|
Portuguese: Tétum | |
Tetun | |
Native to | Indonesia East Timor |
Native speakers | 500,000, mostly in Indonesia (2010–2011)[1] |
Dialects |
|
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | tet |
ISO 639-3 | tet |
Glottolog | tetu1245 |
![]() Distribution in East Timor of Tetum Belu (west) and Tetum Terik (southeast). The majority of Tetun speakers, who live in West Timor, are not shown. |
Tetun Dili | |
---|---|
Tetun Prasa Portuguese: Tétum Praça | |
Tetun Dili, Tetun Prasa | |
Native to | East Timor |
Native speakers | 390,000 (2009)[1] L2: 570,000 in East Timor[2] |
Austronesian
| |
Dialects |
|
Latin (Tetum alphabet) | |
Official status | |
Official language in | East Timor |
Regulated by | National Institute of Linguistics |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | tdt |
Glottolog | tetu1246 |
![]() Distribution of Tetum Prasa mother-tongue speakers in East Timor | |
Tetum (Tetun [ˈt̪et̪un̪]; Indonesian: Bahasa Tetun; Portuguese: Tétum [ˈtɛtũ])[3] is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste and it is also spoken in Belu Regency and in Indonesian West Timor.
There are two main forms of Tetum as a language:
Ethnologue classifies Tetun Terik as a dialect of Tetun.[1] However, without previous contact, Tetun Dili is not immediately mutually intelligible,[4] mainly because of the large number of Portuguese origin words used in Tetun Dili.[citation needed] Besides some grammatical simplification, Tetun Dili has been greatly influenced by the vocabulary and to a small extent by the grammar of Portuguese, the other official language of East Timor.