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not been there but a brother in law just drove recently from Manila to Gen San and he observed that once you reach Samar/Leyte, the houses that line the highway start becoming smaller.
if you are referring to how big the cities are compared to the North, yeah i have to agree with you that towns and cities are bigger in the Visayas and Mindanao. but then it only shows there are more people in the Visayas/Mindanao but it doesnt mean the quality of life is better.
Not true at all. I've been to many places in Visayas and Mindanao and of course Luzon, the house size and organization are almost the same. The only difference is that most towns in Leyte Samar are near coastlines, the highways are scenic and infrastructure is even better with longer and more beautiful bridges, San Juanico to note among others. You probably need to go see it for yourself.
Granted this article is already 10 years old, but the language issues!
5% spoke Portuguese, so they were bringing in Portuguese teachers to teach that language! Indonesia banned it when they had come in, etc. For curiousity sake, 85% speak Tetum, 58% Indonesian, and 21% English.
They were considering Tetum, but it had it's own issues, mostly because Portuguese had once been the dominant one for years in the legal sense. One mention at the end of the article is they could make 4 official languages. This could take more time just to research where they now with all of those things in 2018!
Granted this article is already 10 years old, but the language issues!
5% spoke Portuguese, so they were bringing in Portuguese teachers to teach that language! Indonesia banned it when they had come in, etc. For curiousity sake, 85% speak Tetum, 58% Indonesian, and 21% English.
They were considering Tetum, but it had it's own issues, mostly because Portuguese had once been the dominant one for years in the legal sense. One mention at the end of the article is they could make 4 official languages. This could take more time just to research where they now with all of those things in 2018!
That is true I recall seeing them interview some of the first teachers the Indonesians gave it their best effort to stamp out anything Portuguese including genocide. I also recall Timorenses being interviewed and these people were of partial Portuguese ancestry and craved information on the culture and wanted badly to learn to speak more Portuguese.
That is true I recall seeing them interview some of the first teachers the Indonesians gave it their best effort to stamp out anything Portuguese including genocide. I also recall Timorenses being interviewed and these people were of partial Portuguese ancestry and craved information on the culture and wanted badly to learn to speak more Portuguese.
I'm reading a number of sources at the moment. Looks like there are two interesting things going on. Tetum and Portuguese are the official languages. But English and Indonesian are the two more dominantly-needed languages.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the future.
Granted this article is already 10 years old, but the language issues!
5% spoke Portuguese, so they were bringing in Portuguese teachers to teach that language! Indonesia banned it when they had come in, etc. For curiousity sake, 85% speak Tetum, 58% Indonesian, and 21% English.
They were considering Tetum, but it had it's own issues, mostly because Portuguese had once been the dominant one for years in the legal sense. One mention at the end of the article is they could make 4 official languages. This could take more time just to research where they now with all of those things in 2018!
(Quick translation: The 2010 National Timor Census found that about 90% of the population uses Tetum daily, 35% are fluent speakers of Indonesian and 23.5% speak, read, and write Portuguese. This is an impressive figure, given that less than 5% said they understood Portuguese in 2002.)
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor#Languages): "It is estimated that English is understood by 31.4% of the population. As of 2012, 35% speak, read, and write Portuguese, which is up significantly from less than 5% in the 2006 UN Development Report."
(Quick translation: The 2010 National Timor Census found that about 90% of the population uses Tetum daily, 35% are fluent speakers of Indonesian and 23.5% speak, read, and write Portuguese. This is an impressive figure, given that less than 5% said they understood Portuguese in 2002.)
They have Ted Talks in Dili! That woman knows a lot about local history there. I bought a Lonely Planet Tetum Phrase Book. The language is infiltrated by TONS of Portuguese-origin words. I can see why they made Portuguese an official language and many people are picking it up... Timorese already have an easy bridge to it through Tetum. Tetum also looks like a very easy language to learn... it has certain Creole-like elements to it. East Timor is a living language laboratory. It looks like Tetum has consolidated itself as the national lingua franca, while Portuguese is gaining as a second language... and English is also important... but Indonesian is waning.
The national motto:
Unidade, Acção, Progresso (Portuguese) Unidade, Asaun, Progresu (Tetum) (the -aun suffix in Tetum corresponds to the -ão suffix in Portuguese)
In the schools, Portuguese has now overtaken the formerly dominant Tetum (and, not surprisingly, Indonesian). This is according to the Direcção Nacional de EstatÃstica (https://web.archive.org/web/20091114...s/table5.7.htm). In 2000-01, 8.4% of primary students studied through the medium of Portuguese. Just 4 years later, this rose to 81.6%!
The Portuguese influence is great there... much more than the Dutch influence in neighboring Indonesia. In addition to language, for example, 96.9% of Timorese are Catholic (as has been previously posted on this thread) and most also carry a Portuguese first AND last name. Many also have family ties to Portugal (especially Timor-Leste's leaders, including, importantly, those who fought for independence from Indonesia).
They have Ted Talks in Dili! That woman knows a lot about local history there. I bought a Lonely Planet Tetum Phrase Book. The language is infiltrated by TONS of Portuguese-origin words. I can see why they made Portuguese an official language and many people are picking it up... Timorese already have an easy bridge to it through Tetum. Tetum also looks like a very easy language to learn... it has certain Creole-like elements to it. East Timor is a living language laboratory. It looks like Tetum has consolidated itself as the national lingua franca, while Portuguese is gaining as a second language... and English is also important... but Indonesian is waning.
I know nothing about TETUM, but if there are a ton of Portuguese loan words, that is interesting. I'm assuming probably the nouns?
I'm probably hopefully dreaming here, but if Tetum lacked the complex multitude of Portuguese verbs, it would be amazing. One of the strong points of Indonesian is the simplified plurals and verbs.
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