Reassessing the status of the Portuguese in East Timor as a non-dominant variety

Last May (22-24), I attended the 11^th Conference on Pluricentric Languages and their Non-Dominant Varieties, with the title Pluricentric Languages and Power: At the Crossroads of Legacies, held at the Iscte - University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal (the main page of the conference can be accessed here). There, I presented my paper called: Reassessing the status of the Portuguese in East Timor as a non-dominant variety, which can be seen in the conference programme here.

According to the conference organizing committee, the papers presented will be published in a book by PCL-Press, probably next year, and I will promote and share here in the future, as soon as I have the material available or further information. 
For now, I share the abstract and keywords of the paper presented:

ABSTRACT

In 2002, the Democratic Republic of East Timor gained its independence. In this same year, the nation chose Portuguese as one of its official languages, together with Tétum Praça, also called Tetum Dili, an Austronesian language that serves as a lingua franca in the country. In addition to Tetum, Portuguese coexists with other local languages of Austronesian and Papuan origins. The present work is based on recent studies about the Portuguese spoken by Timorese people, which is considered an emergent variety (Albuquerque, 2011) or a non-dominant variety in its initial stage (Afonso & Goglia, 2015; Batoréo, 2016) as well as original data collected by the author, and a bibliographical review on non-dominant variety typology (Clyne, 1992; Muhr, 2005, 2012). It is worth mentioning that some linguists do not classify Portuguese spoken in East Timor as a local or national variety, but only as a Portuguese L2/ Foreign Language. The purpose of this work is to discuss and assess whether Portuguese language spoken in East Timor is a non-dominant variety or not based on the theoretical framework of pluricentric languages and non-dominant varieties, particularly their typology, general features, language situation, and status (Muhr, 2012), to display evidence to the existence (or not) and to classify it as a possible Timorese Portuguese variety. The methodology combines an old corpus of data, previously collected through extensive fieldwork and elaborated by the author, with more recent data, acquired employing remote elicitation (e.g., smartphone, social media, e-mail, apps). The preliminary results show that Portuguese in East Timor presents specific innovations (phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic), which may be classified as a non-dominant variety under formation in the early stage; it lacks therefore recognition, positive attitude, and language policy by Timorese speakers and government. The main linguistic innovations of the Portuguese in East Timor are:

•  Phonetic-phonology: variation in specific segments, particularly palatal consonants, the labiodentals /f, v/, and the voiced alveolar /d/; metrical restrictions affecting stress and syllable structure, usually showing fixed stress on penultimate syllable and segment deletion to adapt to this pattern; and innovative intonational contours;

•   Lexical: lexical retentions, Tetum and Indonesian loanwords, and local semantic changes; 

•   Morphosyntactic: use of adverbs as pre-verbal markers marking tense, aspect, and mood information; the presence of é que ‘that is’ constructions; variation of copula; innovations in se ‘3.sg’ constructions; null subjects; and variable agreement. 

As for the non-dominant variety features, it is possible to mention that the status of the pluricentricity of Portuguese is denied by the presence of the dominant variety in the territory (European Portuguese), it awaits official and popular recognition, and it lacks appropriate formal status (Muhr, 2012). Furthermore, Portuguese in East Timor exhibits approximately 20 of the 27 general features of non-dominant varieties listed by Muhr (2012). Finally, I consider that Portuguese in East Timor can be classified as a non-dominant variety in its initial stage that must be further researched, in order to document it, and enhance its awareness and prestige among its speakers to develop as a local or national variety.

Keywords: Portuguese Language; Non-Dominant Variety; East Timor; Pluricentrism.               

  

References:

Afonso, S. & Goglia, F. (2015). Linguistic innovations in the immigration context as initial stages of a partially restructured variety: Evidence from SE constructions in the Portuguese of the East Timorese diaspora in Portugal. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 8(1), 1-33.

Albuquerque, D. (2011) O Português de Timor Leste: contribuição para o estudo de uma variedade emergente. Papia, 21(1), 65-82, 2011.

Batoréo, H. (2016). The contact induced partial restructuring of the non-dominating variety of Portuguese in East Timor. In R. Muhr (Ed.). Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide.  Vol. 2. (pp. 137-152). Wien: Peter Lang Verlag.

Clyne, M. (Ed.). (1992). Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Muhr, R. (2005). Language Attitudes and language conceptions non-dominating varieties of pluricentric languages. In R. Muhr (Ed.). Standardvariationen und Sprachideologien in verschiedenen Sprachkulturen der Welt (pp. 11-20). Wien: Peter Lang Verlag.

Muhr, R. (2012). Linguistic dominance and non-dominance in pluricentric languages: A typology. In R. Muhr (Ed.). Non-dominant Varieties of pluricentric Languages. Getting the Picture (pp. 23-48). Wien: Peter Lang Verlag.