Tetun Dili

TDT

national

Alternate Names: Dili Tetum, Tetum, Tetum Dili, Tetum Praça, Tetum Prasa, Tetun

Dialects: None known. Heavy Portuguese , and Mambae , influence; some Indonesian , or Malay influence.

Genealogy:

Creole
Tetun based

Demographics: 385,000 (2009).

Language Use: Increasing in use in urban areas. All domains. All ages. North and South Tetun speakers have significant difficulty understanding it in many speech domains, and vice versa. Some L1 speakers of Tetun Dili consider themselves bilingual in Tetun [tet] due to contact, but when pressed, admit there are domains in which communication is completely blocked.

Language Development: Dictionary. Grammar. NT.

Typology: Compared to Tetun ,: many more Portuguese , loanwords; does not inflect V-initial verb roots for person or number; uses more periphrastic constructions than morphological constructions (e.g., causatives); differences in possessive constructions and negatives.

Spoken In: East Timor

Writing System: Latin

Nation of Origin: East Timor

Other Comments: Cultural rituals and themes in Tetun , are not as deeply rooted in Tetun Dili. Christian.