The East Timorese in Australia: multilingual repertoires, language attitudes, practices and identity in the diaspora

ABSTRACT

This article explores language repertoires, attitudes, and practices amongst members of the East Timorese diaspora in Australia. It relies on quantitative and qualitative data gathered through a recent sociolinguistic survey, ethnographic observation, as well as on general observations of online language use. Our study reveals a complex multilingualism that reflects in the first instance specific sociolinguistic conditions and changing language policies in East Timor, leading to a reshaping of language repertoires over generations in that country. Participants, mostly raised in East Timor, are more multilingual than their parents, but their children raised in Australia show signs of shift to English, as well as evidence of reduced multilingualism. An increasing emphasis on English is coupled with a rise in the importance assigned, more generally, to Tetum amongst most East Timorese at the expense of Portuguese and other languages. Tetum is most strongly linked to East Timorese identity whilst Portuguese and other languages show signs of restricted use and status, if not decline, in the Australian context. At the same time, the Hakka Chinese sub-group of East Timorese maintain in Australia, as in East Timor, a different linguistic patterning coupled with a strong sense of their own ethnic and linguistic identity.

KEYWORDS:

• East Timor
• multilingualism
• diaspora
• Tetum
• Australia

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their kind assistance and feedback. All errors of course remain our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Technically under the constitution they are identified as ‘national languages’ but for convenience here they will be referred to as ‘local languages’ and do not include Tetum which has explicit co-official status.

2 Our evaluation and presentation of online language use, including in any social media activity, are generic and anonymous – in line with human ethics advice.

3 This is not a surprising outcome, since this question allowed for more than one response – unlike the one specifically on East Timorese identity.