Geoffrey Stephen Hull (born 6 September 1955) is an Australian linguist, ethnologist and historian who has made contributions to the study of Romance, Celtic, Slavonic, Semitic, Austronesian and Papuan languages, in particular to the relationship between language and culture.
Of English and Scots ancestry on his father's side, his maternal family belonged to the Latin community of Egypt (of mixed Maltese, Venetian, Triestine and French descent) which left that country during the post-war period of nationalization (1946–1957). [1] He grew up familiar with the large range of languages spoken in his extended family (French, Maltese, Italian and various dialects of Italy, Occitan, Slovene, Greek and Arabic). [2]
Hull studied arts at the University of Sydney (1974–1982), completing a doctorate in historical linguistics after dialectological research in Italy and Switzerland. His PhD thesis [3] was a reconstruction of the Padanian language underlying the modern Gallo-Italian, Venetian and Ladin dialects. Before graduation he also undertook studies in philosophy and theology at the Aquinas Academy, Sydney.
In his academic career Hull taught in the areas of linguistics and modern and classical European languages at Sydney University, Melbourne University, the University of Wollongong and other Australian tertiary institutions. He is a professional lexicographer and a translator working in over a dozen languages. He is currently an adjunct professor at Macquarie University, Sydney. [4]
In the 1990s he assisted the East Timorese leadership in exile by standardizing Tetum and creating a range of linguistic and literary resources for this and other languages of East Timor, then under Indonesian occupation. [5] [6] [7] [8] He was also a member of a human rights delegation organized by the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council which visited the country in 1997 amid escalating violence and reported to the United Nations, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission, the Australian government and the Vatican. In September 1999 he testified before the Australian Senate Inquiry on East Timor on abuses he had witnessed in that country during past visits. [9] [10] From 2001 to 2007 he was research and publications director of the Instituto Nacional de Linguística, the national language authority of the independent state of Timor-Leste. He was the designer, principal author and editor of the national Tetum dictionary [11] and was founder and co-editor of the academic journal Estudos de Línguas e Culturas de Timor-Leste. [12]
On 22 May 2012, Hull was awarded the honour of Comendador da Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique (Knight Commander of the Order of Prince Henry) by the President of Portugal, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, for services to the Portuguese language. [13]
Outside the field of linguistics Hull is known for writings on religious questions, most notably the historical causes and socio-cultural impact of church reforms of the 1960s on the Latin Catholic and Eastern Catholic traditions. [14]
Portuguese is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, and has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, and Macau. Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as "Lusophones". As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Celtic phonology.
Tetum is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste and it is also spoken in Belu Regency and in Indonesian West Timor.
The Lombard language belongs to the Gallo-Italic group within the Romance languages and is characterized by a Celtic linguistic substratum and a Lombardic linguistic superstratum and is a cluster of homogeneous dialects that are spoken by millions of speakers in Northern Italy and southern Switzerland, including most of Lombardy and some areas of the neighbouring regions, notably the far eastern side of Piedmont and the extreme western side of Trentino, and in Switzerland in the cantons of Ticino and Graubünden. The language is also spoken in Santa Catarina in Brazil by Lombard immigrants from the Province of Bergamo, in Italy.
The languages of East Timor include both Austronesian and Papuan languages. The lingua franca and national language of East Timor is Tetum, an Austronesian language influenced by Portuguese, with which it has equal status as an official language. The language of the Oecusse exclave is Uab Meto (Dawan). Fataluku is a Papuan language widely used in the eastern part of the country. A dialect of Malay-based creole called Dili Malay is spoken by a number of residents in the capital Dili, it borrowed words mostly from Portuguese and Tetum. Both Portuguese and Tetum have official recognition under the Constitution of East Timor, as do other indigenous languages, including: Bekais, Bunak, Galoli, Habun, Idalaka, Kawaimina, Kemak, Lovaia, Makalero, Makasae, Mambai, Tokodede and Wetarese.
Baucau is a municipality, and was formerly a district, of East Timor, on the northern coast in the eastern part of the country. The capital is also called Baucau. The population of the municipality is 111,694 and it has an area of 1,506 km2.
Bobonaro is a municipality in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste commonly known as East Timor. It is the second-most western municipality on the east half of the island. It has a population of 92,045 and an area of 1,376 km2.
The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance group. The majority of languages often labeled as regional are distributed in a continuum across the regions' administrative boundaries, with speakers from one locale within a single region being typically aware of the features distinguishing their own variety from one of the other places nearby.
The Gallo-Italic, Gallo-Italian, Gallo-Cisalpine or simply Cisalpine languages constitute the majority of the Romance languages of northern Italy: Piedmontese, Lombard, Emilian, Ligurian, and Romagnol. In central Italy they are spoken in the northern Marches ; in southern Italy in some language islands in Basilicata and Sicily.
The National University of East Timor, is a public university in East Timor, the only one of its kind in the country.
Lautém is one of the municipalities of East Timor, at the eastern end of the country. It has a population of 64,135 and an area of 1,813 km2. Its capital is Lospalos, which lies 248 km east of the national capital, Dili.
The Instituto Camões, formally, Camões — Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, I. P., is a Portuguese international institution dedicated to the worldwide promotion of the Portuguese language, Portuguese culture, and international aid, on behalf of the Government of Portugal. Headquartered in Lisbon with centers across five continents, the mission of the Instituto Camões is the promotion of Portugal's language, culture, values, charity, and economy. The institution is named for Portuguese Renaissance author Luís Vaz de Camões, considered the greatest poet of the Portuguese language and the national poet of Portugal.
Dili Municipality is one of the 14 municipalities, formerly districts, of Timor-Leste, and includes the national capital Dili. The municipality had a population of 277,279 as of 2015, most of whom live in the capital city.
Atauran is an Austronesian language spoken on Atauro island and in Manatuto Municipality, East Timor. It is closely related to Wetarese and Galoli.
East Timorese Portuguese, or Nusantaran Portuguese, is the variety of the Portuguese language spoken in Timor-Leste. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste alongside Tetum. As with other Lusophone countries besides Brazil, the Portuguese language curriculum in East Timor is based on European Portuguese, with some localisations in pronunciation. East Timor is the only sovereign state in Asia with Portuguese as an official language.
East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor - of which the western half is administered by Indonesia - the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-western half, and the minor islands of Atauro and Jaco. Australia is the country's southern neighbour, separated by the Timor Sea. The country's size is 14,950 square kilometres (5,770 sq mi). Dili - on the north coast of Timor - is its capital and largest city.
The Timoric languages are a group of Austronesian languages spoken on the islands of Timor, neighboring Wetar, and Southwest Maluku to the east.
Mambai, also called Mambae or Manbae, is a language spoken by the Mambai people, the second largest ethnic group in the island country of East Timor.
Idalaka is a Malayo-Polynesian dialect chain spoken in East Timor. The name is a portmanteau of Idaté and Lakalai.
The Questione Ladina is a controversy over whether the Romance languages of Romansh, Ladin and Friulian form a proper language subfamily or should rather be regarded as a part of a wider Northern Italian dialect continuum. Both the idea of a distinctive language sub-family and the denial of a Ladin unity still have strong proponents, the former especially among Swiss, German and Austrian, the latter among Italian linguists. The issue has political implications beyond the linguistic controversy, as the areas involved have been subjects of territorial disputes, especially during the first half of the 20th century.
Matías Freitas Boavida is a politician and university teacher from East Timor. He is member of the party Fretilin.
