East Timor's two official languages are Portuguese and Tetum, which belongs to the Austronesian family of languages spoken throughout Southeast Asia.[46] The predominant form of Tetum, known as Tetun-Dili, grew out of the dialect favored by the colonizers at Dili, and thus has considerable Portuguese influence, but other dialects of Tetum are also widely used in the country, including Tetun-Terik which is spoken along the southwestern coast. Indonesian and English are defined as working languages under the Constitution in
Another fifteen indigenous languages are spoken: Bekais, Bunak, Dawan, Fataluku, Galoli, Habun, Idalaka, Kawaimina, Kemak, Lovaia, Makalero, Makasai, Mambai, Tokodede, and Wetarese.
Under Indonesian rule, the use of Portuguese was banned, but it was
used by the clandestine resistance, especially in communicating with
the outside world.[citation needed] The language, along with Tetum, gained importance as a symbol of
resistance and freedom and was adopted as one of the two official
languages for this reason, and as a link to nations in other parts of
the world. It is now being taught and promoted widely with the help of Brazil, Portugal, and the Latin Union,
although its prominence in official and public spheres has been met
with some hostility from younger Indonesian-educated Timorese.
According to the 2006 UN Development Report (using data from official census), under 5%[47] of the Timorese population is proficient in Portuguese. However, the
validity of this report has been questioned by members of the Timorese
National Institute of Linguistics,[48] which maintains that Portuguese is spoken by up to 25% of Timorese,
with the number of speakers more than doubling in the last five years.[citation needed] Along with other local languages, Tetum remains the most common means of communication between ordinary Timorese, while Indonesian is still widely used in the media and school from high school to university. A large proportion of words in Tetum are derived from Portuguese, but it also shares many Malay-derived words with Indonesian. Many Indonesian words are still in common use in Tetum and other Timorese languages,particularly numbers.
East Timor is a member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, and a member of the Latin Union. It is the only independent state in Asia with Portuguese as an official language, although this is also one of the official languages of China's Special Administrative Region of Macau.
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