Tetum Language
Tetum (also Tetun) is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is spoken in Belu Regency in Indonesian 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. 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.
Read more about Tetum Language: History and Dialects, Basic Phrases, Orthography and Phonology, Name
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“We have tried so hard to adulterate our hearts, and have so greatly abused the microscope to study the hideous excrescences and shameful warts which cover them and which we take pleasure in magnifying, that it is impossible for us to speak the language of other men.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)