Tetun Medical Words

Tetun (or Tetum) is spoken by most people in Dili and the surrounding region. Around 30 different languages are spoken throughout Timor Loro-sa'e. Portuguese is also an official language but more people speak Indonesian, which can be very useful in areas where Tetun is not spoken.

Dr. Mark Raines, who volunteered for BPC in the past, put together an extremely useful list of medical words which you can download here. He has also compiled a list of Tetun language resources.

He also recommends the following resources

Tetun English Medical Guide (pdf file 40 KB)

Health Terms (pdf file 130 KB)
A more comprehensive list of words in Tetun with their English meanings. It is ordered in Tetun not English. Written by the Peace Corp in East Timor in 2003.

Health Explanations in Tetun (pdf file 21 KB)
A list of several statements that may be useful during consultations.

Anatomy chart (110 KB jpg file)
Body parts labelled in Tetun

Timor Agriculture has several simple dictionaries in pdf format which you can download from their website, here.