Diak Ka Lae? A Dummy's Guide to Timor-Leste.

ida...
rua...
kilat musan rua borus nia hirus-matan.
nia monu...
nia hamriik fali, ho nia kilat.
nia tiru...
pa pa pa pa...

tolu...
haat...
kilat musan rua belit tan iha nia isin.
nia monu...

kurtina mean monu hosi lalehan,
taka nia oin...

Some readers e-mailed me to include instructions for installation in a MACOS MS Word. Here it is:
Download the wordlist here (press ctrl and click) and save it to a folder and remember it. Then open MS Word and follow the instructions below:

1. Word
2. Preferences
3. Spelling and Grammar
4. Dictionaries...
5. Add... Locate the file, select it and click Open. Make sure there is a tick next to it and click OK.
6. Click OK again and you are set.
   

Here is a Tetum spell checker for MS Word which I built and used on my PC (it's a Mac). It's no rocket science or computer hackery. It's just a simple wordlist saved as a text (.txt) file. I have been using this dictionary on my computer for a number of years and I have added new words to it in the process. At the moment there are over 7300 entries in this list. The dictionary has been very helpful for me when I write in Tetum. It particularly enables me to write Tetum with consistency (spelling).
The Tetum used in this spell checker is the official and standard Tetum as developed by Timor-Leste's Instituto Nacional de Linguisticas or the INL (National Institute of Linguistics) based at UNTL. You can find these words inside any good INL published Tetum dictionaries.
I hope you also find this spell checker useful in your Tetum writing. Here is how you can set it up for use with your PC.
This instruction is to be used only for PCs, not Macs. If you have any querry, please e-mail me on diakkalae(a)gmail.com, or just leave your comment on the blog.
First you need to download the wordlist. Right click here and click Save Target As... Save this file into a folder and remember it. I usually save it to the same folder as MS Word’s CUSTOM.DIC (a MS Word file which registers your own vocabularies – don’t ask me about this). The path to this folder is C:\Documents and Settings\[YOUR USERNAME]\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof. [YOUR USERNAME] is the same as the username you use to login to your PC.
Note that the file tetum_proof_dic.txt is just a wordlist. You can open it with MS Word or Text Editor and you will find that there are over 7300 Tetum entries in it.
Save the file - tetum_proof_dic.txt - to a folder. Remember where this folder is. Open MS Word, open up a new document and follow the instructions below:

1. Select Tool, then Options – a window called Options will pop up
2. Select Spelling & Grammar tab – click Custom Dictionaries... A window called Custom Dictionaries will pop up (note that there is a file in it called CUSTOM.DIC (default). Don't mind this file).
3. Click Add... and another window will pop up called Add Custom Dictionary
4. Now go and locate the folder where you kept the file tetum_proof_dic.txt. If you can't find it in that folder (in the same window), go to the bottom of the Add Custom Dictionary window, in the field called Files of Type, click on it and select All Files.
5. Select the tetum_proof_dic.txt file and click OK.
6. Make sure there is a tick next to tetum_proof_dic.txt.
7. Click OK, and OK again on the Options window.
8. And you are set.

Download the wordlist here here.

Contact me if you have any problems.

These lorikeets are going for US$5.00 each outside Erli Restaurant, next to Cafe Terrace.

Last few years I saw a government poster (or was it UNTAET’s?) identifying some (if not all) of the rare birds in Timor-Leste. The poster also warned people against trapping these birds, buying or selling them. It was said to be a criminal offence if any of these birds were in someone’s possession instead of out there in the wild. I don’t blame the government for doing so. For starters, there is only one place for wild animals in this world, in the wild; and this also includes monkeys which some restaurants in Dili and Com are displaying inside makeshift cages for their customers’ amusement. I don’t find it funny. Since then trades in wild birds in and around Dili specially disappeared. No longer did you see men parading all over Dili with exotic species of birds like eagles (or hawks) or lorikeets, selling them for as little as a few dollar.

Today I walked out of Café Terrace in down town Dili and there they were again. There were a couple of men who brought with them a number of birds for sale. Among these birds were wild pigeons (the ones with white head), a kakoak and a baby eagle (or hawk). Look at their pictures below?

I wanted to buy these birds and then set them free but on careful consideration I decided not to. If I bought these birds of them, I would have only encouraged them and others to trap more wild birds and sell them. And if I released them, I wouldn’t have a clue where to do it and if they would survive at all after spending sometime trapped in a cage. They are probably too traumatised to be able to find their way alone and survive. Besides, the eagle chook just wouldn’t survive anywhere.

As far as I know, the government has not made any change to the laws covering the protection of these wild birds. But how can you stop the people from trapping these birds? I hope you don’t buy them, so encourage them to go and get more.

Kakoak, a strange looking bird but is very elusive. Indonesians bought hundreds of them and exported them to Java before 1999.

This eagle (or hawk) chook is going for US$10.00. Its Tetum name is makikit.

Wild pigeos.