Page 148 - Demo

1st Int. Transborder Conf. of the Timor Island: Timor %u2013 Science without borderDili, 7-8 May 2025147Why Is The Portuguese Spoken In East Timor Called Timor-Leste Portuguese (Ptl)?Fl%u00e1via M. A. MartinsFCS-UNTL, Timor-LesteAbstractEast Timor is located between two developed countries: Australia and Indonesia. The Timorese people have endured multiple foreign occupations%u2014first by the Australians and Dutch, then by the Japanese in the mid-20th century, and later by Indonesia toward the end of the century. These occupations significantly influenced the region%u2019s official language over time. During the Indonesian occupation at the end of the 20th century, Portuguese language instruction was discontinued, and Timorese students were prohibited from continuing their studies in Portuguese. Education, from elementary through high school, was conducted entirely under the Indonesian curriculum. In 1976, East Timor was officially declared the 27th province of Indonesia. Many Timorese were educated at Indonesian universities and graduated in various fields of knowledge. Upon returning to Timor-Leste, these individuals became regional government officials, doctors, nurses, teachers, soldiers, and more. For 24 years during the Indonesian occupation, education was delivered exclusively in Indonesian, and Portuguese was not taught. Even today, some Timorese students continue their studies at Indonesian universities. In pedagogical meetings, both teachers and students frequently face challenges using the Portuguese language. Additionally, national and international radio and television broadcasts are often in Indonesian. As a result, young people frequently watch Indonesian-language programs and speak the language fluently. Beyond the influence of foreign languages, East Timor is home to 16 regional languages, contributing further to linguistic complexity. Currently, many young people and educators study Portuguese in Portugal, Brazil, and other member countries of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). In Timor-Leste, Portuguese is taught from elementary school through university. However, challenges in spoken and written Portuguese persist due to the multilingual environment. One notable difficulty is mastering nominal and verbal agreement, which does not exist in Tetum or Indonesian.As a result, Portuguese spoken and written in East Timor is often mixed with vocabulary and structures from other local languages. These historical and educational influences have led to the emergence of unique linguistic variations in the use of Portuguese in academic, political, and administrative contexts. Consequently, some international researchers refer to this variant as Portuguese of Timor-Leste (PTL). Considering the historical background and linguistic contact in Timor-Leste, this presentation aims to compare the syntactic functioning of noun phrases (NPs) and verb phrases (VPs) in standard European Portuguese with those in the local contact languages. The findings suggest that this contact may be giving rise to a national variety with distinct syntactic features, although Timorese linguists have yet to reach a consensus on this issue.Keywords: Portuguese spoken in East Timor, Designated Portuguese of East Timor.