THE LONG ROAD TOWARDS THE RECOGNITION OF A LOCAL VARIETY – THE ROLE OF SPEAKERS, SCHOLARS, AND GOVERNMENTS ON THE PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE IN EAST TIMOR

In October, I attended the conference called “Local varieties of standardized and nonstandardized languages: documentation and research issues”, which took place in Moscow (Russia), from October 23rd to 25th, organized by The Laboratory for Study and Preservation of Minority Languages, and commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Institute of Linguistics (RAS) and the 130th anniversary of the birth of Glafira Makarievna Vasilyevich, a distinguished researcher of Evenki dialects and culture. 

The event page can be accessed here, as well as the book of abstracts here. At this conference, I presented the work "The Long Road towards the Recognition of a Local Variety – The Role of Speakers, Scholars, and Governments on the Portuguese Language in East Timor", which can be watched in its full recorded session at this
link.

ABSTRACT

The Democratic Republic of East Timor became an independent nation in 2002. In this year, the country elected the Portuguese language as one of the official languages, together with Tetum Praça, also known as Tetum Dili, an Austronesian language that works as a lingua franca. Besides Tetum, Portuguese coexists with other local languages of Austronesian and Papuan origins. Furthermore, the same document states that English and Indonesian are considered working languages. As a former Portuguese colony, the Portuguese language was introduced into Timor at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but it was scarcely used or taught. This scenario changed only after the 1950s, with a slight growth in the number of Timorese learning and speaking, as a result of a policy of colonial social development. However, the Indonesian invasion (1975–1999), which imposed Indonesian language and culture, disrupted this situation in 1975. Due to investments and projects by Portuguese-speaking nations, primarily Portugal and Brazil, as well as non-governmental organisations, Portuguese has been taught as a second language in schools and universities since 2002, following East Timor’s independence. The majority of Timorese speak Tetum or another local language as their first language. One major outcome of these sociohistorical and linguistic events is that certain authors, such as Albuquerque (2024, forthcoming), support the idea that there are two types of Portuguese in the nation, which may be distinguished by their different grammars, one of which is based on European Portuguese and the other on the local variety. The study of the Portuguese spoken by Timorese remains scanty, and its status, controversial. While some authors consider it a non-dominant variety (Batoréo 2016), Albuquerque (2011, 2024) classifies it as an emergent variety in its early stages. However, this classification is very limited because the majority of its linguistic innovations and variations may also be analysed as L2 learning transferences (Afonso & Goglia 2015). This work aims to discuss the role of speakers (with a focus on language attitudes towards their local variety), scholars (and how their research findings and ideologies affect the population and the local variety itself), and governments (especially in the areas of foreign language instruction, language policies, and diplomacy) in the process of recognising and valuing the Portuguese spoken by Timorese as a local variety to further maintain and standardise it. The methodology involves combining more recent data obtained through remote elicitation (e.g., smartphone, social media, e-mail, apps) with an older corpus of data that was previously gathered through extensive fieldwork. Additionally, it makes use of the data that is currently available on earlier publications about East Timor and an online open-access corpus. Our investigation leads us to the conclusion that Timorese Portuguese is a local variety that is still developing. It exhibits a high degree of intra- and interpersonal variation, as well as linguistic innovations that are unique to East Timor and others that are common in other Portuguese-speaking nations. Timorese speakers’ prescriptivist, convergent, and romantic language attitudes (Albuquerque, 2022), academics who downplay the significance of its study or deny its recognition, 85, and national and foreign language policies that force the ideology and status of European languages on the populace are the obstacles to its recognition as a local Portuguese variety, a non-dominant variety. In light of these findings, it is necessary to conduct additional research on the Portuguese language in East Timor in order to document it and raise its status and awareness. In other words, there are a lot of things to be done, or a long road to be traversed to reach the local variety of Portuguese in East Timor. 

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. 

Albuquerque, D. (2022). O português como língua pluricêntrica e as atitudes linguísticas de falantes em Timor-Leste. Caderno Seminal Digital, 42, 326-360. 

Albuquerque, D. (2024). Evidências da formação da variedade do português falado em Timor-Leste: as categorias de tempo, modo e aspecto. In C. F. Pinto, M. Oliveira, C. Namiuti & M. Fagundes (ed.), Temas em Sócio-história e Léxico. Vol. 2. (pp. 113-138). Campinas: Mercado de Letras. 

Albuquerque, D. (forthcoming). The Portuguese language in contact in Timor – history, variation and the formation of an emergent variety. In T. Salzmann, S. Kriegel, R. Ludwig & C. Patzelt (ed.), Linguistic contact and Creoles in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Hamburg: Buske. 

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.