East Timor: Letting go of Indonesian: The choice of Tetum and Portuguese as national languages presents challenges to the new nation

[Harold Schiffman]

Letting go of Indonesian:  The choice of Tetum and Portuguese as
national languages presents challenges to the new nation


Marie Quinn


For more than 20 years in East Timor official correspondence and
documentation, media, schooling and public life were all conducted in
Indonesian. By the time East Timor had achieved independence from
Indonesia in 1999 the majority of younger East Timorese could speak,
read and write Indonesian fluently. A whole generation of educated
East Timorese had attended university in Indonesia and used Indonesian
as their professional language. But since independence the position of
Indonesian has changed. The population has had to readjust to a new
language policy which prioritises the development of Tetum and the use
of Portuguese as the languages of higher education and government.

Choice of official languages
The official languages of independent East Timor are Portuguese, the
language of its former coloniser, and the indigenous language, Tetum.
With the realisation of independence, it was important for the new
nation to distinguish itself from its former coloniser and, with the
trauma of the Indonesian occupation still at the forefront of people’s
lives, it was politically impossible to adopt Indonesian as the
official language of public life. Portuguese was the language of the
resistance movement during the occupation. As such, it was a more
acceptable choice of official language for East Timor’s new leaders
despite Indonesian being spoken by a much larger section of the
population.

With the trauma of the Indonesian occupation still at the forefront of
people’s lives, it was politically impossible to adopt Indonesian as
the official language of public life In conjunction with Portuguese,
the East Timorese leadership chose to assume Tetum as a national
language. Tetum, a local language employed by the Portuguese
administrators and traders for use in Dili, was adopted by the
Catholic Church to celebrate Mass and other rituals in
Indonesian-controlled East Timor. As most East Timorese are Catholic,
Tetum accordingly spread across the country. Based on the most recent
census results (2004), 86 per cent of the population over the age of
six has some capacity in Tetum, with high levels of use across all
ages. This contrasts with the population’s capacity to speak
Portuguese, which is confined to only 37 per cent of the population.
Those who speak Portuguese are mainly people aged between 10 and 24
years.

According to East Timor’s constitution, both Indonesian and English
are assigned official roles as ‘working languages’. These are defined
as languages given a particular status to assist in interactions with
neighbouring countries and to foster business interests. This policy
means that while the languages of official documentation are
Portuguese and Tetum, many training and education resources produced
by NGOs and the Ministries appear in Indonesian. Indeed, many of the
more highly educated East Timorese working in NGOs or for government
departments slip quickly into Indonesian when discussing technical
concepts, using Indonesian words and concepts to elaborate and explain
English or Portuguese terminology.

Mixed abilities
In the 2004 census, the cohort most fluent in Indonesian is identified
as those aged between 15 to 34 years of age (today aged between 19 and
39). These individuals are working, raising families, completing post
secondary education and looking for leadership roles within the local
and wider community. They are the group best placed to develop and
encourage language and literacy skills in the next generation.
Ironically, they have to do this at a time when their strongest
language, Indonesian, has no place in the primary curricula.

While Indonesian is still used as the medium of instruction for the
final years of secondary school and for tertiary education, younger
students are not being taught the skills needed for a high level of
competency in Indonesian. Those who can speak Indonesian rely on what
they learnt during the occupation or what they pick up in their
everyday lives. After independence, a common complaint voiced by
tertiary educators is the diminishing competence of students in
understanding and using Indonesian. The loss of an estimated 80 per
cent of the Indonesian teachers in 1999 and the subsequent collapse of
the education system had an immense impact on language teaching for
Indonesian. The government policy of promoting Portuguese and – though
not as strongly – Tetum has meant that all resources available for
language training have gone into these new official languages. This
policy does not acknowledge that the Timorese population built up
skills in Indonesian over 25 years and has resulted in a lack of
language competency overall.

The ready availability of Indonesian products such as Supermie noodles
and Klin washing powder provides some continuity of written Indonesian
in the community. Another difficulty is posed by the fact that those
who were educated in the Indonesian system are not used to reading and
writing in Tetum. Because Tetum historically was an oral rather than
written language, educated Timorese often need to vocalise the words
in order to understand their meaning when presented with written
Tetum. This is not the case with Indonesian as people learnt this
language in both its oral and written forms.

Those who grew up during the Indonesian occupation are also less
likely than other sections of the population to have access to the
large-scale Portuguese language programs. These programs operate in
formal education settings such as schools and colleges and in some
government ministries and as such are often unavailable to this cohort
of the population. Some Timorese educated during the Indonesian
occupation have access to the government ministry training programs
depending on their seniority and their interest in learning
Portuguese, but many of the Indonesian-educated Timorese feel that
they are too old to start learning a new language. The implication is
that highly educated East Timorese risk being excluded from official
positions that require official language competency at a time of their
lives when they might be the most productive and motivated for work
and education.

Need for Indonesian?

Indonesian is, however, surviving in everyday contexts in East Timor,
if with diminishing impact. As Sloman describes in this edition,
Indonesian television remains popular, ensuring that the language is
still heard. Numbers up to ten are still referred to in Indonesian,
although the use of Portuguese is growing. Market vendors often use
the Indonesian ‘satu dolar’ for one dollar and the Portuguese ‘dois
dolar’ for two dollars. Fifty cents is generally described using the
Indonesian-derived ‘lima puluh cen’ (for centavos). The ready
availability of Indonesian products such as Supermie noodles and Klin
washing powder provides some continuity of written Indonesian in the
community.

The proximity of Indonesia, the fact that East Timorese families are
spread across the border and the relationships built up over time with
Indonesians amount to a compelling argument for the continued use of
Indonesian in East Timor. Moreover, for the East Timorese who might
find the money to send their children to university, Indonesia is
often the obvious choice. Ten years after the referendum there is,
however, an increased risk that East Timorese students may not have
sufficient language competency to access or pass tertiary courses in
Indonesia (see Bexley this edition). The designation of Indonesian as
a ‘working language’ may also be meaningless if East Timorese
individuals cannot communicate effectively in Indonesian for business
purposes. In short, it seems as if the opportunity to build on the
wealth of knowledge of Indonesian is being systemically overlooked.
 ii

Marie Quinn (mariemtjq at yahoo.com.au) has worked in various areas of
formal and non-formal education in East Timor since 2001. She is
currently conducting her PhD at the University of Melbourne, examining
the use of languages in primary school classrooms in East Timor.

http://insideindonesia.org/content/view/1191/47/

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