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UN PhotoTIMOR LESTE / MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY
STORY: TIMOR LESTE / MOTHER LANGUAGE DAY
TRT: 05:00
SOURCE: UN NEWS PORTUGUESE
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: PORTUGUESE / NATS
DATELINE: 22 - 29 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
24 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
1. Various shots, aerial views of the city
22 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
2. Various shots, city views
27 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
3. Wide shot, exterior National University
4. Various shots, students at the University
5. Wide shot, former National University Rector Benjamin Corte-Real walking in the school hallways
6. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Benjamin Corte-Real, Former Rector, Universidade Nacional de Timor-Leste:
“The language has been greatly rejuvenated in Timor. There is an old generation that reaffirmed the language after our independence. A generation that had to reappropriate the language because it stopped practicing it, learning the language. A generation that started learning from the root and it is the one that is now arriving at universities. Therefore, the language is constantly rejuvenating itself. Nowadays it is already the language of youth.”
7. Wide shot, two students
8. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Benjamin Corte-Real, Former President, Universidade Nacional de Timor-Leste:
"It's a language of the soul that you use for your patriotic expression, because it goes much deeper. No one ever goes, let's say, with the English language as if it were the language of the soul. It will be very useful, but always with a purpose, let's say, for the job market. Pragmatic utilitarian value, not so much as an expression of the patriotic vocation, not so much as an expression of the Timorese soul. This will always be the place of Portuguese."
9. Various shots, exterior National Parliament
10. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) David Ximenes, Member of the National Parliament:
"We are a small country in the midst of giants. If we don't differentiate ourselves, we will be eaten. Although there is still great resistance in Timor to the development of the Portuguese language, we are aware of this. Especially those who graduated in Indonesia put up a lot of resistance. But we are gradually gaining ground. Young people began to speak Portuguese, although with a certain hesitation in the conjugation of verbs, especially in the conjunctive. But I'm glad they go there. Some have already gone to study in Portugal, others in Brazil. I mean, many are passing through the CPLP countries and this gives us a certain guarantee that one of these days the Portuguese language will have its bright day in Timor."
29 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
11. Various shots, exterior National Parliament in session
12. Wide shot, National Parliament President, Maria Fernanda Lay addressing Parliament
13. Wide shot, delegates
14. Med shot, Lay next to President José Ramos-Horta
15. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Maria Fernanda Lay, President, National Parliament:
"Parliament is promoting the use of the Portuguese language, with sessions, interventions in plenary sessions twice a month. And the deputies - and I encourage them to be able to use Portuguese as a national language and possibly for the future - will agree to do it three times a month and thus promote the language in Parliament, to set an example for the other institutions. This is our intention."
16. Various shots, Parliament
23 AUGUST 2024, DILI, TIMOR-LESTE
17. Various shots, aerial views, school children playing in the yard of UNICEF supported school
18. Various shots, school children in the yard
19. Various shots, school children in class
20. Tilt down, Tetum alphabet
The preservation and expansion of the Portuguese language in Timor-Leste - the youngest nation and the only one located in Asia to adopt Portuguese as an official language - reinforces the message of Mother Language Day 2025, emphasizing linguistic diversity.
On a visit to the National University of Timor-Leste in Dili, UN News spoke with the former rector of the institution, Benjamin Corte Real, who highlighted the rejuvenation of the Portuguese language through education.
Corte Real said, “the language has been greatly rejuvenated in Timor. There is an old generation that reaffirmed the language after our independence. A generation that had to reappropriate the language because it stopped practicing it, learning the language. A generation that started learning from the root and it is the one that is now arriving at universities. Therefore, the language is constantly rejuvenating itself. Nowadays it is already the language of youth.”
Corte-Real said Portuguese is "a language of the soul” and explained that the English language, although considered attractive to the job market, does not have a deep link with national identity.
He said English “will be very useful, but always with a purpose, let's say, for the job market. Pragmatic utilitarian value, not so much as an expression of the patriotic vocation, not so much as an expression of the Timorese soul. This will always be the place of Portuguese."
Portugal carried out between 2019 and 2024 a partnership with the Ministry of Education of Timor-Leste to train teachers so that they are able to master the use of Portuguese in the teaching process. During this period, the Pro-Portuguese project resulted in the training of 2,894 professionals at the initial level, 1,592 at the intermediate level and 1,185 at the advanced level. The second phase of the initiative is scheduled to start in 2025.
Member of Parliament David Ximenes stressed the strategic importance of the language, as a means of differentiating the powers that surround the small Asian island nation.
He said, "we are a small country in the midst of giants. If we don't differentiate ourselves, we will be eaten. Although there is still great resistance in Timor to the development of the Portuguese language, we are aware of this. Especially those who graduated in Indonesia put up a lot of resistance. But we are gradually gaining ground.”
Young people, Ximenes said, have begun to speak Portuguese, and “some have already gone to study in Portugal, others in Brazil. I mean, many are passing through the CPLP countries, and this gives us a certain guarantee that one of these days the Portuguese language will have its bright day in Timor."
The President of the National Parliament, Maria Fernanda Lay, for her part said, "Parliament is promoting the use of the Portuguese language, with sessions, interventions in plenary sessions twice a month. And the deputies - and I encourage them to be able to use Portuguese as a national language and possibly for the future - will agree to do it three times a month and thus promote the language in Parliament, to set an example for the other institutions. This is our intention."
The percentage of Timorese who master Portuguese is currently around 30 to 40 percent. A considerable increase compared to the post-independence period, which registered something around 20 percent.
Timor-Leste currently has 13 Teaching and Learning Training Centres spread across all municipalities in the country. In these schools, almost 13 thousand students are fully instructed in Portuguese, from the pre-school level to the 12th grade of schooling.
Even with the reinforcement of teaching, the diffusion of Portuguese in Timor-Leste faces several challenges such as a multilingual environment, with a strong influence of English and Indonesian, and with the predominant use of the local language, Tetum.
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