Os estrangeirismos e empréstimos linguísticos do português no léxico do tétum

This article aims to investigate and describe the influence of the phenomena of foreignisms and linguistic borrowings from Portuguese in the Tetum language. We also address foreignisms originating from the working languages of Timor-Leste (English and Indonesian). Although Portuguese is one of the official languages, a significant part of the population speaks Tetum and other mother tongues. Even so, the vocabulary of Tetum is largely composed of borrowings from Portuguese, whether direct or with phonetic/phonological adaptations. We analyzed a corpus of news published in online newspapers written by Timorese, such as Timor Post, Tatoli, STL Mídia, Jornal Diário, Jornal Independente, and Timor News. The results show that Portuguese contributes significantly to the enrichment of Tetum vocabulary, especially in the religious, political, administrative, educational, health, and agricultural domains.