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<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Is there any sort of professional entity that can advise
countries on language policy options? CLPP? Something in UNESCO? Having noted
the travails of Timor Leste over the last few years and some parallels with
countries elsewhere, it seems that some of the problems currently faced could
have been avoided.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Of course language policy gets political and the notion of external
experts writing prescriptions might be unacccptable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Or what about an annual "state of the world's language
policies" report that could be a starting point for sharing successful approaches
and less duplication of mistakes?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Don<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:owner-lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Harold
Schiffman<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, July 31, 2007 2:23 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> lp<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Timor Leste: A New Country’s Tough Non-Elective:
Portuguese 101<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><br clear=all>
A New Country's Tough Non-Elective: Portuguese 101 <o:p></o:p></p>
<div id=wideImage>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:5.25pt'><span style='border:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
padding:0in'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Dita Alangkara/Associated Press<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=caption>Writings on a church in Dili, East Timor, are in Tetum, the
main local language. A new constitution made Portuguese the language of
government. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>By <a
href="http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=SETH%20MYDANS&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=SETH%20MYDANS&inline=nyt-per"
title="More Articles by Seth Mydans"><span style='color:#004276'>SETH MYDANS</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Published: July 31, 2007<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id=articleBody>
<p>DILI, <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/easttimor/index.html?inline=nyt-geo"
title="More news and information about East Timor."><span style='color:#004276'>East
Timor</span></a> — The rumble of a generator and the whir of ceiling fans
muffled the quiet words of a judge as he questioned a witness in a murder trial
here one recent hot, still afternoon. But even if they could have heard him,
most of the people sprinkled through the little courtroom, including the
defendant and the witnesses, could not have understood what he was saying. The
judge was speaking in Portuguese, the newly designated language of the courts,
the schools and the government — a language that most people in East
Timor cannot speak. The most widely spoken languages in this former Portuguese
colony are Tetum, the dominant local language, and Indonesian, the language of
East Timor's giant neighbor. For a quarter of a century, Portuguese had been a
dying tongue, spoken only by an older generation. It was banned after Indonesia
annexed the territory in 1975 and imposed its own language. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In a disorienting reverse, a new Constitution re-imposed Portuguese after
East Timor became independent in 2002. The marginalized became mainstream
again, and the mainstream was marginalized. Linguistic convenience was
sacrificed to politics and sentiment. In a nation that had never governed
itself and had few cultural symbols to unite it, this language of resistance to
the Indonesian occupiers was an emblem — particularly to the older generation
— of freedom and national identity. The choice has brought a tangle of
complications, disenfranchising a generation of Indonesian speakers and
introducing a new language barrier among the country's many other problems.
Along with a struggle to provide health care, education, government services,
jobs and even food for its people, East Timor is now on a crash course to learn
its own official language, importing scores of teachers from Portugal to help. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>"I have finished two levels of Portuguese, but I still don't speak it
well, just basic Portuguese," said Zacharias da Costa, 36, a lecturer in
conflict management at the National University of East Timor.Within five years,
according to the government's plan, he will be required to teach all his
courses in Portuguese, a language that is hardly heard on the campus here. A
bulletin board at the entrance to the campus carries 14 notices from teachers.
Eight are written in Tetum, four in Indonesian and two in English. None are in
Portuguese. For all its awkwardness, East Timor's experience is not uncommon,
said Robert B. Kaplan, a senior co-editor of the journal Current Issues in
Language Planning. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The imposition of new national languages happens when countries are
colonized and it happens when they decolonize, he said. Sometimes, as in East
Timor, it happens a second time when they decolonize again. East Timor's
language problems are those of many countries that decree a language shift,
complicating the daily business of the nation and cutting off its people from their
history and literature, which has been written in what may well become an alien
language. In Azerbaijan, for example, a former Soviet republic that is now
fully independent, a simple change in alphabet, from Cyrillic to Roman, has
created a new class of illiterates. East Timor's courts are among the
hardest-hit institutions. Translations back and forth among Portuguese, Tetum
and Indonesian produce a game of telephone in which outside monitors say
testimony is often distorted. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>During a just-completed parliamentary election, news conferences were held
in four languages, sometimes producing somewhat different versions of the news.
At The Timor Post, an English-language newspaper, reporters said they could not
read government news releases in Portuguese, so they ignored them. The reported
number of Portuguese speakers in East Timor varies widely, perhaps because of
different standards of fluency and perhaps because of the effects of the
current language-training programs. The <a
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org"
title="More articles about the United Nations."><span style='color:#004276'>United
Nations</span></a> reported in 2002 that only 5 percent of the population of
800,000 spoke Portuguese. In the 2004 census, 36 percent said they had "a
capability in Portuguese," said Kerry Taylor-Leech, a linguist at Griffith
University in Australia who has written about the languages of East Timor.
"Since the 1990s, you'll see that a language shift has taken place,"
she said. "The changes from what I see are taking place quite
rapidly." <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>According to the census, 85 percent claim a capability in Tetum, 58 percent
in Indonesian and 21 percent in English. The new Constitution establishes
Portuguese and Tetum as the country's two official languages, but Tetum is seen
as thin and undeveloped, and most of the nation's official business is
conducted in Portuguese. "This is a political decision and I have to
implement it, like it or not," said Judge Maria Pereira, a Dili District
Court judge who has taken crash courses and now writes her decisions in what
she calls fairly good Portuguese. "I have no choice. As a judge I have to
implement the law." Some young Indonesian speakers, who had at first
opposed the use of Portuguese, now say they embrace it as a means of enriching
and developing Tetum. Already as much as 80 percent of Tetum is made up of
Portuguese loan words or Portuguese-influenced words, Ms. Taylor-Leech said,
although she said speaking Portuguese was unlikely to increase this number. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Another approach comes from President José Ramos-Jorta, one of the authors
of the Portuguese-language law. "We have to rethink our language
policies," he said in a telephone interview. As a first step, he said,
English and Indonesian should be added to Portuguese and Tetum as official
languages. "I see no problem with a nation having four official
languages." But his plan does not end there, suggesting that questions of
language could preoccupy his country for years to come. Once they have become
accustomed to their four official languages, he said, "We can give the
people the option to choose two of them as compulsory languages." <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/asia/31timor.html?ref=world">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/world/asia/31timor.html?ref=world</a><br>
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