Why Tetun Prasa is not a creole - Zuzana Greksáková University of Coimbra, Portugal

Why Tetun Prasa is
      not a creole
Zuzana Greksáková
University of Coimbra, Portugal
zuzana.greksakova@student.fl.uc.pt

Tetun in Timor-Leste
                                 Tetun

          Tetun Prasa                            Tetun Terik

Tetun Língua‐                              Tetun            Tetun
                    Tetun Dili
   Franca                                Foho/Terik        Belo/Lós

What is a creole language?
• Thomason & Kaufman (1988 [1991]), Holm (2004) and
  McWhorter (2005)
• a language often derived from a pidgin which became a mother
  tongue of a certain community and is usually spoken in all aspects
  of life
• arose in a specific sociolinguistic context where more than two
  languages were in contact.
• superstrate language versus substrate languages.
• vernacular languages that developed mostly throughout the 17th
  and the 18th century in former European colonies as a result of a
  language contact between communities that lacked a common
  language.

Sociohistorical background
Thomason and Kaufman (1991:35): “it is the
sociolinguistic history of the speakers, and not
structure of their language, that is the primary
determinant of the linguistic outcome of language
contact. … [L]inguistic interference is conditioned
in the first instance by social factors, not linguistic
ones.”

Origin of Tetun Prasa
1) Tetun was diffused by missionaries from the Soibada
mission founded in 1898

2) Tetun was diffused as a língua franca from Dili when
the capital was transferred there from Lifau in 1769

3) It was the tribe of Belos that spoke Tetun and then
expanded from its original area prior to the 17th
century and came to dominate the eastern part of
Timor (Thomaz 1974, 2002)

Malay influence

Portuguese in SE Asia

Tetun in contact with
       Portuguese language

•   Malacca Creole Portuguese (MalCP)
•   Macau Creole Portuguese (MacCP)
•   European Portuguese (EP)
•   Bidau Creole Portuguese (BidCP)

Creole in East Timor?
• Creole languages were a result of the communication
  needs between two communities that lacked a common
  language. This way, a new language – a pidgin – arose in
  order to facilitate their communication. Gradually, this
  pidgin became a mother tongue of the community and
  became a creole. But this was not the case of mixed
  languages.
• In Timor-Leste, there was no need to create a new
  language for the Portuguese and the Timorese being able
  to communicate between each other.

Tetun Prasa – what language is it?
• Grimes (1997:52):“creole” = a language that has largely shifted
  from its original source.
• Thomaz (2002:103): a Portuguese-influenced simplified form of
  Tetun whose characteristics are close to those of creoles and
  compares it to Língua Geral in Brazil, which was not a creolized
  form of Portuguese but rather a language of the Tupi-Guarani
  family enriched with Portuguese loanwords (2002:69).
• Hull (1999:ix):“a fully creolized form” of Tetun and at the same
  time as “a hybrid language, basically Austronesian, but with a
  heavy Portuguese superstratum” = English after the Norman
  Conquest, which showed the massive French influence it had
  undergone.

Lexicon
• colloquial speech and media: ratio of Portuguese
  borrowings can be as high as 75% for open class words
  (Williams-van Klinken & Hajek 2009).
• informal urban speech, there are only 10 to 20% of
   Portuguese loanwords (Williams-van Klinken & Hajek,
   2009).
• In general, the ratio of lexical borrowings correlates
   with the level of education and the proficiency in
   Portuguese language.

JBP: Beni, Ita nu'udar grupu dezenvolvimentu agrikultura lokál
saida mak prinsipál liu ba Ita atu halo iha fulan ida-ne'e?

“Beni, what do you, as a part of the local agricultural development group, find the most
important to be done this month?“

BE: Di'ak, obrigadu ba tempu,buat importante mak ita halo no
planu iha futuru mak primeiru, ita survei ita-nia rain, rai ne'ebé
mak atu hala'o agrikultura nian, segundu, ita halo relasaun husu
apoiu ruma ba ajénsia ne'ebé de’it mak relevante, atu nune'e bele
ajuda ita-nia grupu, terseiru, ita tama ba kampu de servisu, ida-
ne'e mak importante liu.

„Well, thank you for the time. What is important that we do and plan in the future is, first,
that we survey the soil that is going to be used for the agriculture, third, we will, most
importantly, do the fieldwork.“

Rezignasaun Xanana fo Impaktu ba Ezekusaun
Orsamentu Jeral Estadu 2014.
“Resignation of Xanana will impact the execution of the General State Budget
2014”

Esbosu Lei Imprensa Reprezenta Aspirasaun
Komunidade Media
“Draft of the Press Laws represents an aspiration of the media community.”

Komandu Geral PNTL Lansa Planu Estrategiku
PNTL
“PNTL General Command launches a strategic plan for PNTL.”

(all examples from Suara Timor Lorosae, February 11th 2014, pgs. 1-3)

Lexicon in creole languages
• high number of foreign lexical elements is one of the most
  salient characteristic of creole languages = the superstrate
  language provides the overwhelming majority (75% to 95%)
  of a creole’s vocabulary.
• Tetun Prasa = most of its vocabulary is still native rather
  than derived
• McWhorter (2005:267): “…[L]exical mixture itself does not
  equate with creolization. Languages can borrow massive
  amounts of lexicon and even morphology without evidencing
  any traits that would suggest the label creole to any
  linguist…”

Structural features
McWhorter (2005:10): three characteristics that distinguish
creole from other languages in terms of structure:
• little inflectional morphology
• no tones
• semantically regular derivational morphology.

Languages spoken in Flores and Timor = present a very creole-
like features =>McWhorter calls them Nonhybrid
Conventionalized Second-Language varieties – NCSLs
(McWhorter 2011:246).

Possessive constructions
1. possessor + POSS (-(ni)nia) + possessum
2. possessum + possessor + POSS (-(ni)nian)

= two factors affecting them:
• the alienability/inalienability of the possessor
• the lexical nature of the possessor (pronominal versus
   nominal).

• Tetun Terik does not require any possessive marker,
  weather the possessor is nominal or pronominal = simple
  juxtaposition ‘possessor + possessum’ (gloss) (Hull &
  Eccless 2005:36).

POSS with preposed pronominal possessors
• only Tetun Prasa makes use of a possessive marker with
  preposed pronominal possessors = possibly influenced by
  a creole (Esperança 2001:33)
• similar construction also found in restructured varieties of
  Malay and Portuguese spoken in the region:
• Paauw (2008:408): Ambonese Malay (AmbM) - possessive
  marker pung, e.g. antua pung rambut = 3S.FORMAL
  POSS hair ‘her hair’.
• Hull and Eccles (2005:20) that the possessive marker -nia
  used in Tetun Prasa originated indeed in Malay punya and
  then assimilated to the 3S personal pronoun.

POSS with preposed pronominal possessors
• similar parallel in all Asian varieties of Creole Portuguese,
  including Malacca CP, Macau CP (Batalha 1959:188) and
  Bidau CP.
• Baxter (1988:91-93): Malacca CP - two possessive markers:
  => sa: follows the possessor (possessor + sa + possessum)
  => di: precedes the possessor (possessum + di +
  possessor)
• sa is possibly a contracted form of Port. sua ‘3S.POSS.FEM’
  = ‘her’ (Rêgo 1998:66) or of Port. vossa/nossa
  ‘2S.HON.FEM/1P.FEM’ = ‘your/our’ (Baxter 1988:92-93), di
  comes from Port. de ‘of, from’

Plural marking
1. no plural marking
2. postposing the native definite plural
marker sira ‘they’
3. the Portuguese plural marker –s/-es
4. reduplication as found in Malay/Indonesian
5. the Tetun Terik plural suffix –r/-n

(1) Ha’u     bá sosa       fahi
    1S       go buy pig
    “I’m going to buy pigs.” (Costa 2015:53)

(2) ema       estudante tékniku agrikultura sira
     person student              technical    agriculture    PL
     “technical students of agriculture” (JBP_0005)

(3) ita-nia                atividades loroloron        (…)
    2S.HON-POSS activity.PL RDP-day
    “your everyday activities” (JBP_0014)

(4) seluk – seseluk (‘other - others’)
    hotu – hotu-hotu (‘everything – everybody’)
    ai-fuan ‘fruit’ – ai-fufuan ‘fruits’

(5) ema – emar ‘person - people’
    belu – belun ‘friend - friends’

Conclusions
• both sociolinguistic and linguistic aspects
• the number of lexical borrowings nor the innovative
  grammatical features are determinant = many scholars
  believe that the grammar of creole is not necessarily much
  different from non-creole languages.
• McWhorter (2005:???): creole is not only a linguistic class but
  also a sociohistorical one.
• Thomason and Kaufman (1991:214): we need to “interpret
  linguistic facts based on social context.”
=> Tetun Prasa is indeed a rather unusually complex
    contact language/variety which emerged within a
    heterogenous linguistic context.

References
ALBUQUERQUE, DAVI BORGES DE. 2011. Esboço gramatical do Tetun Prasa: língua oficial de Timor-Leste. Brasília:
Universidade de Brasíla MA thesis.
BATALHA, GRACIETE NOGUEIRA. 1959. Estado actual do dialecto macaense. Separata da Revista portuguesa de filologia, vol.
IX, 1958. 177-213. Coimbra: Casa do Castelo.
BAXTER, ALAN NORMAN. 1988. A Grammar of Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese). Canberra: Australian National
University.
BAXTER, ALAN NORMAN. 1990. Notes on the Creole Portuguese of Bidau, East Timor. Journal of Pidgin and Creole
Languages 5:1. 1-38.
COSTA, LUÍS. 2015. Língua Tétum – Contributos para uma Gramática. Lisbon: Edições Colibri.
DURAND, FRÉDÉRIC. 2010. História de Timor-Leste da Pré-História à Actualidade/Istória Timor-Leste nian husi Pre-Istória to´o
Atualidade. Lisboa: Lidel.
ESPERANÇA, JOÃO PAULO T. 2001. Estudos de Linguística Timorense. Aveiro: SUL – Associação de Cooperação para o
Desenvolvimento.
GRIMES, CHARLES.E. ET AL. (1997). A guide to the people and languages of Nusa Tenggara. Kupang: Artha Wacana Press. 13
HIMMELMANN, NIKOLAUS P. 2005. The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar: typological characteristics. The
Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, ed. by Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, 110-181. London
and New York: Routledge Language Family Series.
HOLM, JOHN. 1989. Pidgins and creoles:Volume II – Reference Survey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HOLM, JOHN. 2004. An introduction to pidgins and creoles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
HULL, GEOFFREY. 1993. Mai Kolia Tetun: a course in Tetum-Praça, the Lingua Franca of East Timor. North Sydney: Australian
Catholic Relief and Australian Catholic Social Justice Council
HULL, GEOFFREY. (1999). Standard Tetum – English Dictionary. Sydney: Allen & Unwin in assoc. with University of Western
Sydney Macarthur.

References
HULL, GEOFFREY. 2003a. Southern Mambai (Manbae-Ainaru nor Same). Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, UNTL.
HULL, GEOFFREY. 2005b. Makasai (Makasae). Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, UNTL.
HULL, GEOFFREY. 2005c. Fataluku (Fatalukunu). Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, UNTL.
HULL, GEOFFREY, and LANCE ECCLES. 2005. Gramática da Língua Tétum. Lisbon: Lidel. Translation of Hull & Eccles 2001.
MAURER, PHILIPPE. 2011. The former Portuguese Creole of Batavia and Tugu (Indonesia). London; Colombo: Battlebridge.
MAURER, PHILIPPE AND THE APICS CONSORTIUM. 2013. Nominal plural marker and third-person-plural pronoun. Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language
Structures Online, ed. by Susanne Maria Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath and Magnus Huber. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology. (Available online at http://apics-online.info/parameters/25, Accessed on 2014-08-07.)
MCWHORTER, John. (2005). Defining Creole. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
MCWHORTER, JOHN. 2011. Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity: Why do languages undress?. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
PAAUW, SCOTT. 2008. The contact Malay varieties of Eastern Indonesia: A typological comparison. Buffalo, NY: University at Buffalo, PhD dissertation.
RÊGO, ANTÓNIO DA SILVA. 1998[1942]. Dialecto Poruguês de Malacca e outros escritos. [Reedition of the 1942 edition including re-edition of some of the
author's articles]. Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses
SÁ, ARTUR BASÍLIO DE. 1961. Textos em teto da literatura oral timorense. Lisboa : Junta de Investigações do Ultramar.
SNEDDON, JAMES NEIL; ALEXANDER ADELAAR; DWI NOVERINI DJENAR; AND MICHAEL C. EWING. 2010. Indonesian Reference Grammar. 2nd edition. St.
Leonards, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin.
THOMASON, SARAH G. AND TERRENCE KAUFMAN. (1991). Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley, London: University of California
Press.
THOMAZ, LUÍS FILIPE F. R. 1974. Timor: notas histórico-linguísticas. Portugaliae Historica 2. 167-300.
THOMAZ, LUÍS FILIPE F. R. 1981. The formation of Tetun-Praça, vehicular language of East Timor. Papers on Indonesian Languages and Literutures. Cahier
d’Archipel 13, ed. by Phillips, N. and A. Khaidir, 1-30. Paris: Association Archipel.
THOMAZ, LUÍS FILIPE F. R. 2002. Babel Loro Sa´e: O Problema Linguístico de Timor-Leste. Lisboa: Instituto Camões.
VAN KLINKEN, CATHARINA LUMIEN. 1999. A grammar of the Fehan dialect of Tetun: an Austronesian language of West Timor. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
[see also Williams-van Klinken]
WILLIAMS-VAN KLINKEN, CATHARINA, and JOHN HAJEK. 2009b. Real-time language contact and change in the Austronesian world: Tetun as a new media
language. Paper presented at Eleventh International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Aussois, France, 22-26 June 2009.
WILLIAMS VAN KLINKEN, CATHARINA; JOHN HAJEK; and RACHEL NORDLINGER. 2002a. Tetun Dili: a grammar of an East Timorese language. Canberra: Pacific
Linguistics.

Thank you!
Obrigadu barak!