| Language name: | TETUN |
| UPSID number: | 2437 |
| Alternate name(s): | TIMORESE |
| Classification: | Austro-Tai, Central Malayo-Polynesian |
| This language has | 19 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.551522931 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p "t k ? b "d "s f h m "n "r "l w i a u "e "o |
| Comment: | Tetun is spoken on the island of Timor around Dili and in two separate areas to the east and west. Morris (1984) is a linguistically unsophisticated source with some especially confusing remarks about vowel sequences. More sequences occur in the dictionary than are listed in the introduction; probably all pairs of vowels occur. /w/ might be analyzed as a prevocalic variant of /u/, as Morris proposes, but there is no parallel to this with /i/. Stress is normally penultimate except a few items stressed on the final syllable. |
| Source(s): | Morris, Cliff. 1984. Tetun-English Dictionary. Pacific Linguistics Series C, no. 83. Australian National University, Canberra. |