THE PORTUGUESE-TIMOR ELEMENT IN THE PORTUGUESE OF EAST TIMOR

Luso-timorense is a terminology for lusophone elements specific to East Timor and it was forged by Thomaz (1995) in his paper analyzing the lexicon of the Portuguese language spoken on the island. The present paper is a result of an ongoing investigation on the variety of Portuguese language spoken by Timorese people. The two main objectives are to document and to valorize this Portuguese variety as a national one, so called Portugues de Timor Leste (PTL). Thus, a sociohistorical outline of Portuguese language in Timor Island will be presented (1). After that, a brief history of linguistic studies on PTL will be traced (2) followed by the analysis of luso-timorense element on the lexicon (3). Finally, some foreign lexemes unique to PTL will be pointed out aiming to a better knowledge of the lexicon of this variety (4).