Debate in East Timor over the place of mother tongues

Linguistically, East Timor is an interesting place. Portugal was the colonial overlord for centuries, so Portuguese was the language of higher education and opportunity. Then from the mid 1970s through 1999, Indonesia occupied the country, and Indonesia was the language of classroom instruction. Meanwhile, there are several mother tongues spoken by different populations. Tetun (Tetum) is the mother tongue of a large plurality of people, but there are other first-languages spoken, too.



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