Major General Taur Matan Ruak on Portuguese Language

Major General Taur Matan Ruak interviewed in Metinaro last week speak out aggressively against the ongoing use of Portuguese in Timor-Leste' courts. Claiming that common Timorese who find accused cannot understand the charges, processes, verdicts and sentencing. He states that every international staff in the court system should either learn Tetun or leave the country.

In 2001 the Constituent Assemby adopted Portuguese as an official language in what was a generally unpopular decision as the vast majority of Timorese do not speak, understand or read Portuguese.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Taur
• Matan
• Ruak

[TempoSemanal]

Well many Timorese has been victim of the so call Portuguese language in the court. As a Timorese I can't understand the language which has been adopted as our national language. So many Timorese can't defend them self in front of the court due to the judges and Prosecutors whom hire by UN only speak portuguese and the suspects or victims most of them only speaks tetun. I would prefer to use portuguese to enrich our Tetun no to use it as an official language.

[Arlindo2176]

O tetum nao pode funcionar bem como a lingua nacional sozinha porque carecem de muitos vocabulos,mais de metade de tetum falado ou escrito sao derivados de portugues.A presente geracao tem dificuldades em compreender a lingua portuguesa,mas na proxima geracao o problema iria desaparecer.

[Maukiak]

Jeneral ida mas koalia uja emosi hanesan ema beik...la fo argument maibe buka nervous deit...sim komprende konstitusi mas hakara lori nia pangkat ne para hakat liu tiu impoe nia hakarak.

[sayyid14]

@zeberzeleniev Timor also Keep Bahasa and English as Working langauage.as foreigner i have nothing to do to your country but as same race stock i love Timorese as well.If Bahasa keep as Timor Official it easy to us like Malaysian,Bruneian,Indonesian to spoken or communicate to local Timorese or Working in Malaysia and Brunei it also spoken language of West Timor your family,not all Malaysian fluent in English some of them like me poor in English.Bahasa is Austronesian language same like Tetum.

[sayyid14]

@zeberzeleniev Portuguese in Malaysia are treated as Native not even Chinese and Indian get that status.but they are minority.What you said is true =)

[zeberzeleniev]

@sayyid14 By the way, in your country (more specifically in Malacca) there's still a community of Portuguese-speaking people. The Portuguese were expelled from Malacca by the Dutch in 1641 (almost 4 centuries ago) and never returned, but their presence is still there. Does this say enough to you about the Portuguese colonization in Asia?

[zeberzeleniev]

@sayyid14 You refer Portuguese as a colonial language, but you also say that "Timor Should Used Bahasa". That makes absolutely no sense. Indonesia was the one who colonized Timor in the worst sense of the word. Ask Ramos Horta, Xanana Gusmão or even Taur Matan Ruak what they think about the Portuguese colonial Era (there are some videos about it on YouTube) and perhaps you'll understand why they decided to keep Portuguese as an official language.

[traviesofilipino]

@sayyid14 The presence of French in Indochina was poor compared with 300+ years of Spanish presence in the Philippines and 250+ years of Portuguese presence in Timor-Leste.

[traviesofilipino]

@sayyid14 I don't know. PH has a totally different historical background. The Dutch and the British had different ways of running their colonies. As far as I know, the presence of Spain in her former colonies is always there. Maybe the Dutch and the British kept their culture among themselves and refused to impart. I don't know. =)

[sayyid14]

@traviesofilipino If Philippine love Spanish why Indonesian hate Dutch?? why Indonesian not used Dutch langauge plz why?

[sayyid14]

@traviesofilipino Yes that what thier choose to be even they wanted to used Japanese or Korean as Timor offical =)..im sad Patani dont gets they Independence just because they dont have best reason..