This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.This article explores language repertoires, attitudes, and practices amongst
members of the East Timorese diaspora in Australia. It relies on quantitative and
qualitative data gathered through a recent sociolinguistic survey, ethnographic
observation, as well as on general observations of online language use. Our study
reveals a complex and variable multilingualism that reflects in the first instance
specific sociolinguistic conditions and changing language policies in East Timor,
leading to a reshaping of language repertoires over generations in that country.
Participants, mostly raised in East Timor, are more multilingual than their
parents, but their children raised in Australia show signs of shift to English, as
well as evidence of reduced multilingualism. An increasing emphasis on English
is coupled with a rise in the importance assigned, more generally, to Tetum
amongst most East Timorese at the expense of Portuguese and other languages.
Tetum is most strongly linked to East Timorese identity whilst Portuguese and
other languages show signs of restricted use and status, if not decline, in the
Australian context. At the same time, the Hakka Chinese sub-group of East
Timorese maintain in Australia, as in East Timor, a different linguistic patterning
coupled with a strong sense of their own ethnic and linguistic identity
