Timor Language debate to hang on for a while

Timor Hau Nia Lian
Photo: Sapo.pt

By: Acacio Angel

The debate on Portuguese language in Timor Leste re-emerges in public discussions as Politician, students, journalists, lawyers as well social activists are affected by the challenge the language presents. The debate intensified as the President of the National Parliament, Mr. Vicente Guterres, called all the state officials to speak the language instructed by article 13 of the RDTL Constitution. Despite the call, Portuguese remains a challenging language among other Parliament members as well as the youth who find it difficult to speak the language.

The vice president of the Parliament, Mr. Adriano Nascimento, who commented on the speech to be ineffective, as only small elite politicians would understand, soon criticized Mr. Guterres’ call. Although Mr. Nascimento himself later on encouraged all Timorese to exercise their civic duties by learning the language, his earlier comment was nonetheless an inflammatory remarks to the existing dissatisfaction with the language policy in the country. A youth group soon posted an online referendum for choosing either Portuguese or Tetum to be the only official language. Consequently, at least 30.124 people voted in the preliminary referendum posted in the Facebook by Mr. Renato Costa. The majority of the voters preferred Tetum to be the only official language used to facilitate the official communications among government institutions. This somewhat survey, of course, cannot be a base for any policy changes but it certainly has a point to be discussed further.

The call to live up to civic duty and its hostile criticism has been a long time dilemma that faces the country. The debate (an informal debate) has been a public sensation since the beginning of 2002 when the constitution was approved by the then FRETILIN-led parliament and promulgated by the then president Xanana Gusmao. Since then, the consecutive governments have maintained the importance of Portuguese language in Timorese culture and society but little has been done to promote the language nationwide.

The youth have reasons for criticizing the language and country’s leaders. For Timorese born during the Indonesian occupation, Portuguese is a difficult language compared to Bahasa Indonesia or English, partly because they did not have the chance to learn it. This generation has since restlessly argued that the Iberian language is the language of small elites of Timorese society and a symbol of neo-colonialism, etc.  

Nonetheless, the reasons are obvious. Anybody who is familiar with the country’s history and its present situation would agree that the founding fathers’ choice on adopting Portuguese language to assist Tetum in its development to be a standard language was not a mistake. The lack of political will in implementing the language as well as the failure to develop Tetum as an alternative are mostly to be blamed.

In “A lingua Portuguesa em Timor Leste”, Bishop Belo acknowledges the challenges and proposes ways to do it otherwise. But neither government nor the CPLP communities have been committed to the official language in the country, wrote the Bishop. The politicians often find it difficult to agree with one another, sending mix-messages to the public on the official language. For instance, on one hand Mr. Guterres appealed the office-bearers to speak Portuguese, on the other hand, President Taur Matan Ruak reaffirmed President Cavaco Silva saying “Portugues está para ficar” or Portuguese is here to stay” (Sapo.pt) yet to be thought as a foreign language. How would, then, the country overcome the challenge when only small percentage of the population speaks the language?

Various sources indicate there are only about 20% of the population who could speak Portuguese while majority speak Tetum and local dialects. What makes the matter worse is that there is no statistic that shows the percentage of people speaking Portuguese at home or at least communicating it in the offices. Tetum is so far used widely in the country but even so, very little efforts have been made to develop it to be a standard language.

There was a symposium at the Seminario Nossa Senhora de Fatima Balide back in 2010, to assess if Tetum was ready to be used across different fields such as literature, science, technology and philosophy. The three groups that are working on developing Tetum: the National Institute of Language (INL), the Dili Institute of Technology (DIT) and the Major Seminary of Fatumeta - Dili, hardly come to agree with one another on spelling and punctuation.  Hence, it makes the matter worse because both languages are facing challenges in the country.

The government has to play an important role here. It has to start from within its institutions where its pubic recruitment office, for instance, set the criteria clear to making it compulsory for office-holders to be fluent in Portuguese language. Otherwise, it goes around affecting the other institutions and weakening the language policy. Interviewing in Portuguese, for instance, in the recent presidential debates between Lu-Olo and Taur Matan Ruak, would send the signal that the demand for language proficiency matters. Furthermore, the government should follow up its policy in education by providing further teacher trainings, Portuguese-proficient teachers, teacher’s manual and student textbooks for education and learning process to take place.

Hence, the call to the state official to speak Portuguese is a call to mission-impossible; the debate is going to hang on until the government delivers its promises.