著者

Wakana Okuda 奥田 若菜

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 = Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, no.3, pp.317-332, 2019-01-25

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Language policy is a governmental intervention that assigns languages arelative status. One language can thus be given priority over others by anauthoritarian state, and this distinction reflects the political and social situationof the society. In this article, the author discusses the process ofestablishing the legitimacy of Portuguese as an official language in Timor-Leste and illustrates two pillars of the discourse upon which this legitimacyhas been built. The first pillar is the invocation of history and leaders’speeches about Portuguese during the struggle for Timor-Leste’s independence,and the second is the argued necessity for Timor-Leste to join theinternational community for greater development. Resting on these two pillars,Portuguese has begun to function as the national language in Timor-Leste.