A big -- but often overlooked -- issue in legal language is "what language is legal?" In East Timor, the news agency AKI reports that the Asia Foundation is working on translating the laws into the local language, Tetun. Until now, most of East Timor's laws were exclusively in Portuguese, a holdover from Portugal's colonial rule, which ended in 1975. That may seem like a small matter, but it has been estimated that only about 5 percent of East Timorese are fluent in Portugese; the other 95 percent have no access to the country's statutes. Until now, that is.
To all those Tetun speakers out there: welcome to the world of legalese!
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2 comments:
Did you know they finally have a Wikibrowser in Tetun too?
Check it out:
Tetun wiki browser
useful referencetry these out click siteclick here to find out more newshis comment is here
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