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John Gorton

Sir John Grey Gorton (9 September 1911 – 19 May 2002) was an Australian politician, farmer and airman who served as the 19th prime minister of Australia from 1968 to 1971. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, having previously been a senator for Victoria. He was the first and only member of the upper house of the Parliament of Australia to assume the office of prime minister.

Gorton was born out of wedlock and had a turbulent childhood. He studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, after finishing his secondary education at Geelong Grammar School, and then returned to Australia to take over his father's property in northern Victoria. Gorton enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1940, and was a fighter pilot in Malaya and New Guinea during the Second World War. He suffered severe facial injuries in a crash landing on Bintan Island in 1942, and whilst being evacuated, his ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. He returned to farming after being discharged in 1944, and was elected to the Kerang Shire Council in 1946; he later served a term as shire president. After a previous unsuccessful candidacy at state level, Gorton was elected to the Senate at the 1949 federal election. He took a keen interest in foreign policy, and gained a reputation as a strident anti-Communist. Gorton was promoted to the ministry in 1958, and over the following decade held a variety of different portfolios in the governments of Sir Robert Menzies and Harold Holt. He was responsible at various times for the Royal Australian Navy, public works, education, and science. He was elevated to the Cabinet in 1966, and the following year, he was promoted to Leader of the Government in the Senate.

Gorton defeated three other candidates for the Liberal leadership after Harold Holt's disappearance on 17 December 1967. He became the first and only senator to assume the office of Prime Minister, but soon transferred to the House of Representatives in line with constitutional convention. The Gorton government continued Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, but began withdrawing troops amid growing public discontent. It retained office at the 1969 federal election, albeit with a severely reduced majority. After alienating much of his government, he resigned as Liberal leader in 1971 after a confidence motion in his leadership was tied, and was replaced by Billy McMahon. After losing the prime ministership, Gorton was elected deputy leader under McMahon and appointed Minister for Defence. He was sacked for disloyalty after a few months. After the Coalition's defeat at the 1972 federal election, Gorton unsuccessfully stood as McMahon's replacement. He briefly was an opposition frontbencher under Billy Snedden, but stood down in 1974 and spent the rest of his career as a backbencher. Gorton resigned from the Liberal Party when Malcolm Fraser was elected leader and he denounced the dismissal of the Whitlam government; at the 1975 election he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate as an independent in the ACT and advocated for a Labor win. He later spent several years as a political commentator, retiring from public life in 1981.

Gorton's domestic policies, which emphasised centralisation and economic nationalism, were often controversial in his own party, and his individualistic style alienated many of his Cabinet members. His political views widely varied and were incongruous, although he is generally regarded as having shifted further to the left over time after starting his parliamentary career on his party's hard right. Conservatively he opposed Indigenous land rights, was opposed to an Australian Republic, and at times fervently supported Australia developing nuclear weapons, but progressively, he staunchly supported drug decriminalisation, LGBT equality and reproductive rights, having introduced the legislation nominally decriminalising homosexuality in Australia. Evaluations of his prime ministership have been mixed; although he is generally ranked higher than either Holt or McMahon, Gorton is usually considered to have been a transitional prime minister who ultimately fell short of his potential for greatness.

Birth and family background

John Grey Gorton was the second child of Alice Sinn and John Rose Gorton; his older sister Ruth was born in 1909. He had no birth certificate, but official forms recorded his date of birth as 9 September 1911 and his place of birth as Wellington, New Zealand. His birth was registered in the state of Victoria as occurring on that date, but in the inner Melbourne suburb of Prahran. However, that document contained a number of inaccuracies – his name was given as "John Alga Gordon", his parents were recorded as husband and wife, his father's name was incorrect, and his sister was recorded as deceased. At some point before 1932, Gorton's father told him that he had actually been born in Wellington. There are no records of his birth in New Zealand, but his parents are known to have travelled there on several occasions. John Gorton apparently believed he was born in Wellington, listing the city as his place of birth on his RAAF enlistment papers, and claiming so to a biographer in 1968. If he were so, it would make him the only Australian Prime Minister born in New Zealand (and the second to have been originally a New Zealander, after Chris Watson).

If John Gorton was indeed born in New Zealand, this would have made him a New Zealand citizen from 1 January 1949 under changes to New Zealand nationality law. Holding dual-citizenship would have rendered Gorton ineligible to sit in Australia's federal parliament under Section 44 of the Australian Constitution. Gorton's eligibility to have sat in parliament throughout his career is therefore unclear.

Gorton's father was born to a middle-class family in Manchester, England, UK. As a young man he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he went into business as a merchant – during the Boer War, he developed a reputation as a war profiteer. He reputedly escaped the Siege of Ladysmith by sneaking through Boer lines, and then made his way to Australia. He was involved in various business schemes in multiple states, and was to said to have "lived on the brink of a fortune which never quite materialised". One of his business partners was the inventor George Julius. At some point, Gorton's father separated from his first wife, Kathleen O'Brien, and began living with Alice Sinn – born in Melbourne to a German father and an Irish mother. However, Kathleen refused to grant him a divorce. Some official documents record Gorton's parents as having married in New Zealand at some point, but there are no records of this occurring; any such marriage would have been bigamous. Gorton never denied his illegitimacy as an adult, but it did not become generally known until a biography was published during his prime ministership.

Childhood
Gorton spent his early years living with his maternal grandparents in Port Melbourne, as his parents were frequently away on business trips. When he was about four years old, his parents took him to live with them in Sydney, where they had an apartment at Edgecliff. Gorton began his education at Edgecliff Preparatory School. When he was eight years old, his mother contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium to avoid passing on the disease. She died in September 1920, aged 32. Gorton's grieving father sent his son to live with his estranged wife Kathleen. There, he met his sister Ruth for the first time; he had previously been told that she was dead. Although she was his full sibling, she had been raised by Kathleen since birth, and rarely saw her biological parents. Gorton initially lived with Kathleen and Ruth at their home in Cronulla. They later moved into a larger house in Killara, in the north of Sydney.

While living in Killara, Gorton began attending Headfort College, a short-lived private school run by a former Anglican minister. In 1924, he began boarding at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), initially on a weekly basis but later on a full-time one. He did not excel academically, failing the Intermediate Certificate on his first attempt, but was a well-liked boy and good at sports. Gorton began spending his holidays with his father, who had purchased a property in Mystic Park, Victoria, and planted a citrus orchard. He left Shore at the end of 1926, and the following year began boarding at Geelong Grammar School, which he would attend for four years from 1927 to 1930. He represented the school in athletics, football, and rowing, and in his final year was a school prefect and house captain.

University
After leaving Geelong Grammar, Gorton spent a year working on his father's property in Mystic Park. His father then took out a second mortgage to allow him to travel to England and attend Oxford University. Gorton arrived in England in early 1932, and after a period at a "cramming school" passed the exam to enter Brasenose College. He also took flying lessons around the same time, and was awarded a pilot's licence in June 1932. Gorton began his degree in October 1932 and finished in June 1935 with an "upper second" in history, politics and economics. He was initially something of an outsider, with relatively little money and no social connections. However, his prowess in rowing – he won the O.U.B.C. Fours in his first year, and was Captain of the Brasenose College Boat Club – saw him elected to Vincent's Club and Leander Club. In 1934, while on holiday in Spain, he met his future wife Bettina Brown, the younger sister of one of his College friends. They married in early 1935.

Return to Australia
After his graduation, Gorton and his wife returned to Australia via the United States, spending some time with her family in Maine. He had expected to take up a position at The Herald and Weekly Times, Keith Murdoch's newspaper group. However, he arrived in Melbourne to find his father in failing health. His father subsequently required hospitalisation and died in August 1936. Gorton had taken over the management of the orchard as soon as his father entered hospital. He inherited an overdraft of £5,000, which took several years to pay off. However, the property – located on the western side of Kangaroo Lake – was in good condition, requiring only minor improvements. He employed up to ten seasonal workers during picking season. Mystic Park remained his primary residence until he was appointed to the ministry, at which point he and his family moved to Canberra.

1940–1942

On 31 May 1940, following the outbreak of World War II, Gorton enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve. At the age of 29, Gorton was considered too old for pilot training, but he re-applied in September after this rule was relaxed. Gorton was accepted and commissioned into the RAAF on 8 November 1940. He trained as a fighter pilot at Somers, Victoria and Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, before being sent to the UK. Gorton completed his training at RAF Heston and RAF Honiley, with No. 61 Operational Training Unit RAF, flying Supermarine Spitfires. He was disappointed when his first operational posting was No. 135 Squadron RAF, a Hawker Hurricane unit, as he considered the type greatly inferior to Spitfires.

During late 1941, Gorton and other members of his squadron became part of the cadre of a Hurricane wing being formed for service in the Middle East. They were sent by sea, with 50 Hurricanes in crates, travelling around Africa to reduce the risk of attack. In December, when the ship was at Durban, South Africa, it was diverted to Singapore, after Japan entered the war. As it approached its destination in mid-January, Japanese forces were advancing down the Malayan Peninsula. The ship was attacked on at least one occasion by Japanese aircraft, but arrived and unloaded safely after tropical storms made enemy air raids impossible. As the Hurricanes were assembled, the pilots were formed into a composite operational squadron, No. 232 Squadron RAF.

In late January 1942, the squadron became operational and joined the remnants of several others that had been in Malaya, operating out of RAF Seletar and RAF Kallang. During one of his first sorties, Gorton was involved in a brief dogfight over the South China Sea, after which he suffered engine failure and was forced to land on Bintan island, 40 km (25 mi) south east of Singapore. As he landed, one of the Hurricane's wheels hit an embankment and flipped over. Gorton was not properly strapped in and his face hit the gun sight and windscreen, mutilating his nose and breaking both cheekbones. He also suffered severe lacerations to both arms. He made his way out of the wreck and was rescued by members of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, who provided some medical treatment. Gorton later claimed that his face was so badly cut and bruised, that a member of the RAF sent to collect him assumed he was near death, collected his personal effects and returned to Singapore without him. By chance, one week later, Sgt Matt O'Mara of No. 453 Squadron RAAF also crash landed on Bintan, and arranged for them to be collected.

They arrived back in Singapore, on 11 February, three days after the island had been invaded. As the Allied air force units on Singapore had been destroyed or evacuated by this stage, Gorton was put on the Derrymore, an ammunition ship bound for Batavia (Jakarta). On 13 February, as it neared its destination, the ship was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-55 Kaidai class submarine and the Derrymore was abandoned. Gorton then spent almost a day on a crowded liferaft, in shark-infested waters, with little drinking water, until the raft was spotted by HMAS Ballarat, which picked up the passengers and took them to Batavia.

Two schoolfriends, who had also been evacuated from Singapore to Batavia, heard that Gorton was in hospital, arranged for them to be put on a ship for Fremantle, which left on 23 February and treated Gorton's wounds. When the ship arrived in Fremantle, on 3 March, one of Gorton's arm wounds had become septic and needed extensive treatment. However, he was more concerned about the effect that the sight of his mutilated face would have on his wife. It is reported that Betty Gorton, who had been running the farm in his absence, was relieved to see Gorton alive.

1942–1944
After arriving in Australia he was posted to Darwin on 12 August 1942 with No. 77 Squadron RAAF (Kittyhawks). During this time he was involved in his second air accident. While flying P-40E A29-60 on 7 September 1942, he was forced to land due to an incorrectly set fuel cock. Both Gorton and his aircraft were recovered several days later after spending time in the bush. On 21 February 1943 the squadron was relocated to Milne Bay, New Guinea.

Gorton's final air incident came on 18 March 1943. His A29-192 Kittyhawk's engine failed on takeoff, causing the aircraft to flip at the end of the strip. Gorton was unhurt. In March 1944, Gorton was sent back to Australia with the rank of Flight Lieutenant. His final posting was as a Flying Instructor with No. 2 Operational Training Unit at Mildura, Victoria. He was then discharged from the RAAF on 5 December 1944.

During late 1944 Gorton went to Heidelberg Hospital for surgery which could not fully repair his facial injuries; he was left permanently disfigured.

Early political involvement
After resuming his life in Mystic Park, Gorton was elected unopposed to the Kerang Shire Council in September 1946. He remained on the council until 1952, overlapping with his first term in the Senate, and from 1949 to 1950 was shire president. Although he had little previous experience, Gorton began to develop a reputation as a powerful public speaker. His first major speech, in April 1946, was an address to a welcome-home gathering for returned soldiers at the Mystic Park Hall. In what John Brogden has described as "Australia's best unknown political speech", he exhorted his audience to honour those who had died in the war by building "a world in which meanness and poverty, tyranny and hate, have no existence". Gorton's next major speech was made in September 1947, at a rally against the Chifley government's attempt to nationalise private banks. He told the crowd in Kerang that they should oppose the establishment of banks run by politicians, and objected in particular to the government's decision not to take the issue to a referendum. According to his biographer Ian Hancock, "the bank nationalisation issue marked his advance beyond purely local politics and stamped him firmly and publicly as an anti-socialist".

Gorton had been a supporter of the Country Party before the war, along with most of his neighbours. Over time, he became frustrated with the party's frequent squabbles with the Liberal Party and its willingness to cooperate with the Labor Party. After the Victorian Country Party withdrew from its coalition with the Liberals in December 1948, Gorton became involved in efforts to form a new anti-socialist movement that would absorb both parties. At some point he was introduced to Magnus Cormack, the state president of the Liberals, who became something of a mentor. In March 1949, Gorton was elected to the state executive of the new organisation, which named itself the Liberal and Country Party (LCP). On a number of occasions he addressed Country Party gatherings, urging its members to join the new party and stressing that it would not neglect rural interests, as many feared. However, the LCP did not achieve its goal of uniting the anti-Labor forces, as most Country Party members viewed it as simply a takeover attempt; the new party affiliated with the federal Liberal Party of Australia.

In June 1949, Gorton stood for the Victorian Legislative Council as the LCP candidate in Northern Province. It was a safe Country Party seat, and at the preceding three elections no other parties had bothered to field a candidate. Making right-wing unity the focal point of his campaign, Gorton polled 48.8 percent of the vote to finish less than 400 votes behind the sitting member, George Tuckett. The result impressed the LCP's leadership, and the following month he was preselected in third place on its joint Senate ticket with the Country Party. He was relatively unknown within the party, and his rural background was a major factor in his selection. The Coalition won a large majority at the 1949 federal election, including four out of Victoria's seven senators. The LCP candidates joined the parliamentary Liberal Party.

Backbencher

Gorton's term in the Senate began on 22 February 1950. He was re-elected to additional terms at the 1951, 1953, 1958, and 1964 elections, and from 1953 occupied first place on the Coalition's ticket in Victoria. Gorton's early speeches on domestic policy foreshadowed the stances and policy initiatives he would later adopt as prime minister, such as economic nationalism, support for a strong central government, and support for nuclear energy. One of his first notable actions in the Senate came in November 1951, when he successfully moved a motion opposing "any substantial measure of ownership or control over any Australian broadcasting station" being granted to non-Australians. In his early speeches on foreign policy, Gorton drew analogies between the actions of the Soviet Union and Communist China and those of Nazi Germany. He developed a reputation as a "hardline anti-communist", speaking in favour of the Communist Party Dissolution Bill and campaigning for the "Yes" vote during the 1951 referendum to ban the Communist Party. At a campaign rally in September 1951, he had to be restrained by police after attempting to drag a heckler from his seat and shouting at him to "come outside, you yellow rat".

From 1952 to 1958, Gorton served on the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, including as chairman for a period. He developed a keen interest in Asia, which was rooted in his anti-communism, and joined parliamentary delegations to Malaya, South Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines. He strongly supported Australia joining the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), a collective defence initiative designed to prevent the spread of communism in the region. He also supported Taiwanese independence and opposed Australian recognition of the People's Republic of China (PRC). On a number of occasions, Gorton spoke of the need for Australia to develop a foreign policy independent of Britain and the United States. In May 1957, he told the Senate that Australia should acquire its own nuclear deterrent, including intercontinental missiles.

Navy portfolio

Gorton was elevated to the ministry after the 1958 election, as Minister for the Navy. This was a junior position subordinate to the Minister for Defence, Athol Townley. Although his promotion was unexpected, he would serve as Minister for the Navy for more than five years, the longest-serving navy minister in Australia's history. Gorton regularly attended meetings of the Naval Board, unlike previous ministers, and championed its recommendations at cabinet meetings. He was able to secure most elements of the board's desired modernisation program, despite Townley showing more interest in the air force. During Gorton's tenure, the navy acquired four Australian-built frigates and six British-built minesweepers, as well as placing orders for three Charles F. Adams-class destroyers and four Oberon-class submarines. He postponed the phasing out of the Fleet Air Arm, due to occur in 1963, and secured the purchase of 27 Westland Wessex helicopters.

Gorton was a supporter and admirer of Robert Menzies, who was sympathetic to his ambitions for higher office and assigned him additional responsibilities. In 1959, he was tasked with securing the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Bill, which introduced uniform divorce laws; he described it as "a systematic attempt to make a new approach to the problem of divorce". The bill was opposed by religious conservatives (mostly Catholics) on both sides of politics, but it eventually passed the Senate with only a single amendment. Gorton was appointed assistant minister to the Minister for External Affairs in February 1960, working under Menzies and later under Garfield Barwick and Paul Hasluck. In February 1962, he was also made minister-in-charge of the CSIRO. During question time in the Senate, he represented ministers from the House of Representatives, allowing him to gain experience in portfolios beyond his own.

Education and science portfolio

After the 1963 election, Gorton relinquished the navy portfolio and was placed in charge of the government's activities in education and scientific research. He was also made Minister for Works and Minister for the Interior, relatively low-profile positions dealing mostly with administrative matters; the latter post was taken over by Doug Anthony after a few months. Menzies had a personal interest in education, having previously handled the portfolio himself, and told Gorton that it should be his primary focus. He was given oversight of the Australian Universities Commission, the Australian National University, the Commonwealth Archives Office, the Commonwealth Literary Fund, and the National Library of Australia. In January 1966, Menzies retired and Harold Holt became prime minister. Gorton was elevated to cabinet, and at the end of the year was given the title Minister for Education and Science. He was placed in charge of the new Department of Education and Science, the first time those portfolios had been given a separate department at federal level.

Gorton presided over a "major intrusion" of the federal government into the education sector. His tenure saw significant increases in the number of university scholarships available, the number of new university entrants, and overall funding of education. One of the first major issues Gorton confronted was that of state aid to non-government schools. He believed that private schools should have equal access to federal government funding, and in 1964 announced that the government would fund science laboratories for private schools. This stance, supported by the Catholic education sector but opposed by secularists and most Protestant schools, eventually achieved widespread acceptance. In September 1965, Gorton created the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Advanced Education, tasked with advising the government on non-university technical and further education (TAFE). He announced that the federal government would fund technical colleges on a pro-rata basis with the states, and personally oversaw the establishment of the Canberra College of Advanced Education, the forerunner of the University of Canberra. As science minister, he lent his support to the Anglo-Australian Telescope project, securing cabinet approval for its construction in April 1967.

Role in the VIP aircraft affair
Gorton's reputation was significantly enhanced by his role in the VIP aircraft affair, a political controversy relating to the use of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) VIP aircraft by the Holt government and its predecessor the Menzies government that came to a head in October 1967. Holt had provided vague and inaccurate answers to parliamentary questions about the VIP fleet, notably denying the existence of passenger manifests which might confirm instances of misuse. Air Minister Peter Howson became aware of the inaccuracies and sought to protect Holt, but their statements were soon subjected to further scrutiny, leading to accusations that they had conspired to mislead parliament. Gorton, who had just replaced Denham Henty as Leader of the Government in the Senate on 16 October, helped resolve the situation by tabling the "missing" passenger manifests in their entirety on 25 October. He did so on the grounds that the government could not maintain such a cover-up.

Gorton's act has been credited for helping thrust him into general public view; boosting his standing among his parliamentary colleagues; and for the first time Gorton began to be viewed as a serious future leadership contender, which proved to be critical to his election as Holt's successor three months later. However, although Gorton defended Howson in Parliament, the affair also sowed the seeds of long-term enmity between him and Howson, the latter turning into a staunch, vocal opponent of Gorton during his years as prime minister and beyond.

Holt's disappearance

Harold Holt disappeared while swimming on 17 December 1967 and was declared presumed drowned two days later. His presumed successor was Liberal deputy leader William McMahon. However, on 18 December, the Country Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen announced that if McMahon were named the new Liberal leader, he and his party would not serve under him. His reasons were never stated publicly, but in a private meeting with McMahon, he said "I will not serve under you because I do not trust you". McEwen's shock declaration triggered a leadership crisis within the Liberal Party; even more significantly, it raised the threat of a possible breaking of the Coalition, which would spell electoral disaster for the Liberals. Up to that time, the Liberals had never won enough seats in any House of Representatives election to be able to govern without Country Party support.

The Governor-General Lord Casey swore McEwen in as prime minister, on an interim basis pending the Liberal Party electing its new leader. McEwen agreed to accept an interim appointment provided there was no formal statement of time limit. This appointment was in keeping with previous occasions when a conservative Coalition government had been deprived of its leader. Casey also concurred in the view put to him by McEwen that to commission a Liberal temporarily as prime minister would give that person an unfair advantage in the forthcoming party room ballot for the permanent leader.

In the subsequent leadership struggle, Gorton was championed by Army Minister Malcolm Fraser, Government whip in the Senate Malcolm Scott and Liberal Party Whip Dudley Erwin, and with their support he was able to defeat rivals Paul Hasluck, Les Bury and Billy Snedden to become Liberal leader even though he was a member of the Senate. He was elected party leader on 9 January 1968, and appointed prime minister on 10 January, replacing McEwen. He was the only senator in Australia's history to be prime minister and the only prime minister to have ever served in the Senate. He remained a senator until, in accordance with the Westminster tradition that the prime minister is a member of the lower house of parliament, he resigned on 1 February 1968 to contest the by-election for Holt's old House of Representatives seat of Higgins in south Melbourne. The by-election in this comfortably safe Liberal seat was held on 24 February; there were three other candidates, but Gorton achieved a massive 68% of the formal vote. He visited all the polling places during the day, but was unable to vote for himself as he was still enrolled in Mallee, in rural western Victoria. Between 2 and 23 February (both dates inclusive) he was a member of neither house of parliament.

Although he was still a senator when he was sworn in as prime minister, Gorton never sat in the Senate as prime minister because neither House of Parliament was in session between his swearing in as prime minister and his resignation from the Senate.

Activities in office

Gorton was initially a very popular Prime Minister. He carved out a style quite distinct from those of his predecessors – the aloof Menzies and the affable, sporty Holt. Gorton liked to portray himself as a man of the people who enjoyed a beer and a gamble, with a bit of a "larrikin" streak about him – hence one of his nicknames, "Gort the sport". Unfortunately for him, this reputation later came back to haunt him.

He also began to follow new policies, pursuing independent defence and foreign policies and distancing Australia from its traditional ties to Britain. But he continued to support Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, a position he had reluctantly inherited from Holt, which became increasingly unpopular after 1968. On domestic issues, he favoured centralist policies at the expense of the states, which alienated powerful Liberal state leaders like Sir Henry Bolte of Victoria and Bob Askin of New South Wales. He also fostered an independent Australian film industry and increased government funding for the arts.

Gorton proved to be a surprisingly poor media performer and public speaker, and was portrayed by the media as a foolish and incompetent administrator. He was unlucky to come up against a new and formidable Labor Opposition Leader in Gough Whitlam. Also, he was subjected to media speculation about his drinking habits and his involvements with women. He generated great resentment within his party, and his opponents became increasingly critical of his reliance on an inner circle of advisers – most notably his private secretary Ainsley Gotto.

The Coalition suffered a 7% swing against it at the 1969 election, and Labor outpolled it on the two-party-preferred vote. During the close election Gorton promised to waive all future government rent on residential leaseholders in Canberra. After surviving the election Gorton came through on his promise, giving away an estimated $100 million in equity to leaseholders and abandoning future government rent revenue. Still, Gorton saw the sizeable 45-seat majority he had inherited from Holt cut down to only seven. Indeed, the Coalition might have lost government had it not been for the Democratic Labor Party's longstanding practice of preferencing against the ALP. The Coalition was only assured of a ninth term in government when DLP preferences tipped four marginal seats in Melbourne —the DLP's heartland—to the Liberals. Had those preferences gone the other way, Whitlam would have become prime minister.

Leadership challenges and resignation

After the 1969 election, Gorton was unsuccessfully challenged for the Liberal leadership by McMahon and National Development Minister David Fairbairn; although on this occasion McEwen decided to lift his veto on McMahon. In the subsequent ministerial reshuffle, Gorton reinstated Don Chipp and promoted Andrew Peacock, Jim Killen and Tom Hughes to the ministry, among others. The Coalition suffered a significant primary vote swing in the 1970 Senate-only election, though seat losses were stemmed to just two and Labor was also judged to have performed poorly.

On 8 March 1971, a challenge was launched when Defence Minister Malcolm Fraser resigned from the ministry. Fraser had strongly supported Gorton for the leadership three years earlier, but now attacked Gorton on the floor of parliament in his resignation speech, accusing him of disloyalty in a dispute Fraser had with General Sir Thomas Daly and of "interference in (his) ministerial responsibilities". Fraser concluded the speech by condemning Gorton as "not fit to hold the great office of Prime Minister". Gorton's response on the floor of the House was infamously interrupted when journalist Alan Ramsey shouted "You liar!" to Gorton from the press gallery; realising his error, Ramsey quickly conveyed his gravest apology both to the House and, most particularly, to the Prime Minister. Gorton graciously accepted the apology, while inviting the Opposition to withdraw its motion that Ramsey be immediately arrested by the serjeant-at-arms of the House.

Gorton called a Liberal caucus meeting for 10 March 1971 to settle the matter. A motion of confidence in his leadership was tied. Under Liberal caucus rules of the time, a tied vote meant the motion was passed and hence Gorton could have remained as party leader and Prime Minister without further ado. However, he took it upon himself to resign, saying "Well, that is not a vote of confidence, so the party will have to elect a new leader." A ballot was held and McMahon was elected leader and thus Prime Minister. Australian television marked the end of Gorton's stormy premiership with a newsreel montage accompanied by Frank Sinatra's anthem "My Way".

In a surprise move, Gorton contested and won the position of Deputy Leader, forcing McMahon to make him Defence Minister. This situation lasted until August, when Gorton published two articles detailing the problems he had with ministers leaking information from cabinet. McMahon forced Gorton's resignation on the grounds of disloyalty, and Gorton went to the backbench.

Final years in parliament

A number of polls during McMahon's prime ministership had Gorton as both the preferred Liberal leader and the preferred prime minister. In 1972, businessman David Hains commissioned a series of polls in marginal electorates that showed the Coalition would significantly increase its vote if Gorton mounted a successful comeback; for instance, polling in the Division of Henty found that his return would add eight points to the Liberal vote. However, Gorton generally downplayed the polling and did not mount an active campaign to oust McMahon. Labor went on to win a nine-seat majority at the 1972 election, ending 23 consecutive years of Coalition rule. A number of Gorton's contemporaries – including Country Party leader Doug Anthony and Labor ministers Clyde Cameron, Doug McClelland, and John Wheeldon – retrospectively expressed doubts as to whether Whitlam could have won if Gorton had returned to the prime ministership. Rupert Murdoch, whose newspapers endorsed the Labor Party, stated in 2000 that "we would most certainly have supported the re-election of a Gorton government in 1972. And he would have won!".

The seat of Henty, which became a particular point of Hains' polling as Hains made his case for Gorton to be restored as prime minister, was narrowly retained by the Liberals despite a huge swing towards Labor. McMahon resigned as Liberal leader a few weeks after the 1972 election. Gorton was one of five candidates who stood the resulting leadership ballot, but polled only the fourth-highest total as Billy Snedden won a narrow victory over Nigel Bowen. Snedden subsequently appointed him to the opposition frontbench as spokesman for urban and regional development, the environment, and conservation. Soon after being sworn in as prime minister, Whitlam responded to a congratulatory letter from Gorton by promising to "advance some of the causes which you were the first Australian Prime Minister to identify". Over the following years, several failed initiatives from Gorton's prime ministership were passed into law by the Whitlam government. This included the establishment of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and the assertion of sovereignty over the territorial seabed and continental shelf.

Social liberalism
Early in 1973, Gorton stated his public support of "abortion on request, under certain conditions"; he was opposed to "compulsory pregnancy". He nonetheless voted against David McKenzie and Tony Lamb's private member's bill to legalise abortion in the Australian Capital Territory, as he believed it did not provide clear enough guidelines for medical practitioners. He preferred the conditions of the Menhennitt ruling. Gorton was also a supporter of no-fault divorce. During the debate over what became the Family Law Act 1975, he crossed the floor to oppose a Coalition amendment which he thought complicated the requirements for divorce through separation.

In October 1973, Gorton introduced a motion in the House of Representatives calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, co-sponsored by Labor's Moss Cass. It was modelled on the recommendations of the UK's Wolfenden report. While noting his personal objections to homosexuality, Gorton stated that most gay people "hurt no one, harm no one and yet have this hanging over them". He dismissed arguments that decriminalisation would violate "God's law", noting that many religious leaders were in favour of a change, and stated that the existing law had led to "bashing", blackmail, and suicides. The motion passed by 24 votes, with all parties receiving a conscience vote. However, it was of no legal effect as homosexuality law was the province of state laws and territory ordinances.

Resignation from the Liberal Party
Whitlam was re-elected at the 1974 election. Gorton was dropped from shadow cabinet after the election, as was McMahon. In November 1974, following an unsuccessful attempt to install Malcolm Fraser as Liberal leader, he condemned those involved and stated they had caused "irreparable damage" to the party. On 3 March 1975, as leadership tensions continued to build, Gorton announced that he would not recontest his seat in parliament at the next election, citing his unwillingness to be a perpetual backbencher. He also stated: "If Fraser got in, it would be a disaster. He is extreme right-wing. The Liberal Party can't be a right-leaning affair." When Fraser won a leadership spill on 21 March, Gorton reportedly stormed out of the meeting and slammed the door behind him.

On 23 May 1975, Gorton announced his resignation from the Liberal Party and his intention to be an independent candidate for one of the new Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Senate seats. He hoped to join Steele Hall on the crossbench and secure the balance of power. Opinion polling shortly after his announcement showed him winning 55 percent of the primary vote. His candidacy received endorsements from the small local branches of the Liberal Movement and the Australia Party. Gough Whitlam was dismissed as prime minister on 11 November, sparking an early election on 13 December. During the preceding constitutional crisis, Gorton had denounced Fraser's actions in blocking supply in the Senate. Gorton advocated a vote and "a resounding victory" for Labor in election ads aired nationally, in protest against the dismissal of the Whitlam government. In the election, he polled 11.9 percent of the ACT Senate vote running on a two-man ticket with Harold Hird. It was the second-highest percentage for an independent candidate nation-wide, after Brian Harradine's 12.8 percent in Tasmania, but nowhere near enough to win election. He had campaigned mainly on local issues, which obscured his candidacy somewhat in an election that was a virtual referendum on the Whitlam government.

Retirement and death

Gorton retired to Canberra, where he largely kept out of the political limelight. However, in March 1983, he congratulated Bob Hawke "for rolling that bastard Fraser" at that year's election.

In 1977, Gorton was recruited to record a series of three-minute radio broadcasts on current affairs, titled "Sir John Gorton's viewpoints". He wrote and recorded around 400 segments over the following four years, which were syndicated and broadcast by over 80 radio stations around the country. His broadcasts covered a wide range of issues – he supported the decriminalisation of marijuana and prostitution, called on Australians to welcome Vietnamese boat people, opposed the creation of SBS, denounced "the cacophony known as modern music", opposed Aboriginal land rights, supported uranium mining, and opposed republicanism. He frequently criticised the Fraser government, but grudgingly admired Fraser's ability to get his way as prime minister.

In the 1990s, Gorton quietly rejoined the Liberal Party; John Hewson credited himself with "returning Gorton to the fold." In 1993, Gorton was invited to open the Liberal Party's campaign headquarters for the 1993 election. He endorsed Hewson's Fightback! package. In his old age he was rehabilitated by the Liberals; his 90th birthday party was attended by Prime Minister John Howard who said at the event: "He (Gorton) was a person who above everything else was first, second and last an Australian." Although he was back within Liberal circles, he never forgave Fraser; as late as 2002 he told his biographer Ian Hancock that he still could not tolerate being in the same room as Fraser.

Gorton died at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital at the age of 90 in May 2002. A state funeral and memorial service was held on 30 May at St Andrews' Cathedral where extremely critical remarks of Fraser, who was in attendance with wife Tamie, were delivered during the eulogy by Gorton's former Attorney-General Tom Hughes. Current and former Prime Ministers Howard, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke were also in attendance. Gorton was cremated after a private service and his ashes interred within the 'Prime Ministers Garden' at Melbourne General Cemetery.

Marriages and family

During a holiday in Spain while an undergraduate, Gorton met Bettina Brown of Bangor, Maine, United States. She was a language student at the Sorbonne. This meeting came about through Gorton's friend from Oxford, Arthur Brown, who was Bettina's brother. In 1935, Gorton and Brown were married in Oxford. After his studies were finished, they settled in Australia, taking over his father's orchard, "Mystic Park", at Lake Kangaroo near Kerang, Victoria. They had three children: Joanna, Michael, and Robin. Bettina Gorton died of cancer in 1983. In 1993, he married again. His 2nd wife was Nancy Home (née Elliott), a long-time acquaintance.

Gorton's granddaughter is poet and novelist Lisa Gorton.

Religious beliefs
Gorton was a nominal Christian at least in the early part of his life, but was not a churchgoer. Some sources have identified him as agnostic or even atheist. He attended Anglican schools, and was influenced by the Christian socialist views of James Ralph Darling, his headmaster at Geelong Grammar. In a 1948 speech, Gorton said that "the story of Christianity is the most tremendous in the history of the world". However, in the lead-up to the 1999 referendum he publicly opposed mentioning God in the preamble. According to his biographer Ian Hancock: "Gorton may not have been a believing, let alone a practising, Christian, and when he spoke of religion of 'the soul' he did not have a particular faith in mind. Rather, his religion was founded upon the injunction in the Book of Deuteronomy: 'Man doth not live by bread only'."

Honours

Gorton was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1968, a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1971, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1977, and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1988. He was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001. Commonwealth Railways CL class locomotive CL1 was named John Gorton in February 1970.

title: John Gorton


text:
Tetum language

Tetum (Tetun ; Bahasa Tetun; Tétum ) 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.

There are two main forms of Tetum as a language:

 * Tetum Terik, which is a more indigenous form of Tetum marked by different word choice, less foreign influence and other characteristics such as verb conjugation
 * Tetum/n Prasa ('market Tetum', from the Portuguese word praça meaning 'town square') or Tetum/n Dili (given its widespread usage in the capital Dili). This is the form of Tetum (heavily influenced by Portuguese) that developed in Dili during colonial rule as local Tetum speakers came into contact with Portuguese missionaries, traders and colonial rulers. In East Timor, Tetun Dili is widely spoken fluently as a second language.

Ethnologue classifies Tetun Terik as a dialect of Tetun. However, without previous contact, Tetun Dili is not immediately mutually intelligible, mainly because of the large number of Portuguese origin words used in Tetun Dili. Besides some grammatical simplification, Tetun Dili has been greatly influenced by the vocabulary and to a small extent by the grammar of Portuguese, the other official language of East Timor.

Nomenclature
The English form Tetum is derived from Portuguese, rather than from modern Tetum. Consequently, some people regard Tetun as more appropriate. Although this coincides with the favoured Indonesian form, and the variant with m has a longer history in English, Tetun has also been used by some Portuguese-educated Timorese, such as José Ramos-Horta and Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo.

Similar disagreements over nomenclature have emerged regarding the names of other languages, such as Swahili/Kiswahili and Punjabi/Panjabi.

History and dialects

According to linguist Geoffrey Hull, Tetum has four dialects:

 * Tetun-Dili, or Tetun-Prasa (literally 'city Tetum'), is spoken in the capital, Dili, and its surroundings, in the north of the country. Because of its simpler grammar than other varieties of Tetun, extensive Portuguese loanwords, and supposed creole-like features, Ethnologue and some researchers classify it as a Tetun-based creole. This position, however, is also disputed in that while Tetun-Dili may exhibit simpler grammar, this does not mean that Tetun-Dili is a creole. According to Ethnologue, there were 50,000 native Tetun-Dili speakers in East Timor in 2004 and  L2 users.
 * Tetun-Terik is spoken in the south and southwestern coastal regions. According to Ethnologue, there were 50,000 Tetun-Terik speakers in East Timor in 1995.
 * Tetun-Belu, or the Belunese dialect, is spoken in a central strip of the island of Timor from the Ombai Strait to the Timor Sea, and is split between East Timor and West Timor, where it is considered a bahasa daerah or 'regional language', with no official status in Indonesia, although it is used by the Diocese of Atambua in Roman Catholic rites.
 * The Nana'ek dialect is spoken in the village of Metinaro, on the coastal road between Dili and Manatuto.

Tetun-Belu and Tetun-Terik are not spoken outside their home territories. Tetun-Prasa is the form of Tetum that is spoken throughout East Timor. Although Portuguese was the official language of Portuguese Timor until 1975, Tetun-Prasa has always been the predominant lingua franca in the eastern part of the island.

In the fifteenth century, before the arrival of the Portuguese, Tetum had spread through central and eastern Timor as a contact language under the aegis of the Belunese-speaking Kingdom of Wehali, at that time the most powerful kingdom in the island. The Portuguese (present in Timor from c. 1556) made most of their settlements in the west, where Dawan was spoken, and it was not until 1769, when the capital was moved from Lifau (Oecussi) to Dili that they began to promote Tetum as an inter-regional language in their colony. Timor was one of the few Portuguese colonies where a local language, and not a form of Portuguese, became the lingua franca: this is because Portuguese rule was indirect rather than direct, the Europeans governing through local kings who embraced Catholicism and became vassals of the King of Portugal.

When Indonesia occupied East Timor between 1975 and 1999, declaring it "the Republic's 27th Province", the use of Portuguese was banned, and Indonesian was declared the sole official language, but the Roman Catholic Church adopted Tetum as its liturgical language, making it a focus for cultural and national identity. After the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) took over governance in September 1999, Tetun (Dili) was proclaimed the country's official language, even though according to Encarta Winkler Prins it was only spoken by about 8% of the native population at the time, while the elite (consisting of 20 to 30 families) spoke Portuguese and most adolescents had been educated in Indonesian. When East Timor gained its independence on 20 May 2002, Tetum and Portuguese were declared as official languages. The 2010 census found that Tetum Prasa had 385,269 native speakers on a total population of 1,053,971, meaning that the share of native Tetum Prasa/Dili speakers had increased to 36.6% during the 2000s.

In addition to regional varieties of Tetum in East Timor, there are variations in vocabulary and pronunciation, partly due to Portuguese and Indonesian influence. The Tetum spoken by East Timorese migrants in Portugal and Australia is more Portuguese-influenced, as many of those speakers were not educated in Indonesian.

Indigenous
The Tetum name for East Timor is Timór Lorosa'e, which means 'Timor of the rising sun', or, less poetically, 'East Timor'; lorosa'e comes from loro 'sun' and sa'e 'to rise, to go up'. The noun for 'word' is liafuan, from lia 'voice' and fuan 'fruit'. Some more words in Tetum:

 * aas – 'high'
 * aat – 'bad'
 * ai – 'tree'
 * ai-fuan – 'fruit'
 * ai-manas – 'spice'
 * bee – 'water'
 * belun – 'friend'
 * boot – 'big'
 * di'ak – 'good'
 * domin – 'love'
 * ema – 'person, people'
 * fatin – 'place'
 * feto – 'woman'
 * foho – 'mountain'
 * fulan – 'moon/month'
 * funu – 'war'
 * hamlaha – 'hungry'
 * haan – 'eat'
 * hahán – 'food'
 * hemu – 'drink'
 * hotu – 'all'
 * ida – 'one'
 * kalan – 'night'
 * ki'ik – 'little'
 * kraik – 'low'
 * labarik – 'child'
 * lafaek – 'crocodile'
 * lais – 'fast'
 * lalenok – 'mirror'
 * laran – 'inside'
 * lia – 'language'
 * liafuan – 'word' (from lian 'voice' and fuan 'fruit')
 * lian – 'voice', 'language'
 * loos – 'true'
 * loron – 'day'
 * lokraik – 'afternoon'
 * tauk – 'sacred'
 * mane – 'man'
 * maromak – 'god'
 * moris – 'life'
 * rain – 'country'
 * tasi – 'sea'
 * tinan – 'year'
 * tebes – 'very'
 * teen – 'dirt'
 * toos – 'hard'
 * uluk – 'first'
 * ulun – 'head'

From Portuguese
Words derived from Portuguese:

 * adeus – 'goodbye'
 * ajuda – 'help'
 * aprende – 'learn', from aprender
 * demais – 'too much'
 * desizaun – 'decision', from decisão
 * edukasaun – 'education', from educação
 * envezde 'instead of', from em vez de
 * entaun – 'so', 'well', from então
 * eskola – 'school', from escola
 * governu – 'government', from governo
 * igreja – 'church'
 * istória – 'history', from história
 * jerasaun – 'generation', from geração
 * keiju – 'cheese', from queijo
 * komprende – 'understand', from compreender
 * menus – 'less', from menos
 * obrigadu/a – 'thanks', from obrigado/a
 * paun – 'bread', from pão
 * povu – 'people', from povo
 * profesór – 'teacher', from professor
 * relijiaun – 'religion', from religião
 * semana – 'week'
 * serbisu – 'work', from serviço
 * serveja – 'beer', from cerveja
 * tenke – 'must', from tem que
 * xefe – 'chief', from chefe
 * ideia – 'idea'
 * múzika – 'music', from música
 * esperiénsia – 'experience', from experiência
 * teknolojia – 'technology', from tecnologia
 * forsa – 'force', from força
 * eletrisidade – 'electricity', from electricidade
 * terrorizmu – 'terrorism', from terrorismo
 * embaixada – 'embassy'
 * organizasaun – 'organization', from organização
 * arkitetura – 'architecture', from arquitetura
 * kafé – 'coffee', from café
 * ekipamentu – 'equipment', from equipamento
 * prezidente – 'president', from presidente
 * froñas – 'pillowcases', from fronhas
 * aviaun – 'airplane', from avião
 * kompañia – 'company', from companhia
 * televizaun – 'television', from televisão
 * enjeñaria – 'engineering', from engenharia
 * korrupsaun – 'corruption', from corrupção
 * polísia – 'police', from polícia
 * fízika – 'physics', from física
 * profisaun – 'profession', from profissão
 * imposivel – 'impossible', from impossível
 * gitarrista – 'guitarist', from guitarrista
 * pasaporte – 'passport', from passaporte
 * mensajen – 'message', from mensagem
 * Natál – 'Christmas', from Natal

From Malay

As a result of Bazaar Malay being a regional lingua franca and of Indonesian being a working language, many words are derived from Malay, including:

 * atus 'hundred', from ratus
 * barak 'much', from banyak
 * bele 'can', from boleh
 * besi 'iron', from besi
 * udan 'rain', from hujan
 * dalan 'way' or 'road', from jalan
 * fatu(k) 'stone', from batu
 * fulan 'moon' or 'month' from bulan
 * malae 'foreigner', from melayu 'Malay'
 * manas 'hot', from panas
 * rihun 'thousand', from ribu
 * sala 'wrong', from salah
 * tulun 'help', from tolong
 * dapur 'kitchen', from dapur
 * uma 'house', from rumah

In addition, as a legacy of Indonesian rule, other words of Malay origin have entered Tetum, through Indonesian.

Numerals

 * ida 'one'
 * rua 'two'
 * tolu 'three'
 * haat 'four'
 * lima 'five'
 * neen 'six'
 * hitu 'seven'
 * ualu 'eight'
 * sia 'nine'
 * sanulu 'ten'
 * ruanulu 'twenty'

However, Tetum speakers often use Malay/Indonesian or Portuguese numbers instead, such as delapan or oito 'eight' instead of ualu, especially for numbers over one thousand.

Combinations
Tetum has many hybrid words, which are combinations of indigenous and Portuguese words. These often include an indigenous Tetum verb, with a Portuguese suffix -dór (similar to '-er'). For example:

 * han ('to eat') handór – glutton
 * hemu ('to drink') hemudór – heavy drinker
 * hateten ('to say') hatetendór – chatterbox, talkative person
 * sisi ('to nag, pester') sisidór – nag, pest

Basic phrases

 * Bondia – 'Good morning' (from Portuguese Bom dia).
 * Di'ak ka lae? – 'How are you?' (literally 'Are you well or not?')
 * Ha'u di'ak – 'I'm fine.'
 * Obrigadu/Obrigada – 'Thank you', said by a male/female (from Portuguese Obrigado/Obrigada).
 * Ita bele ko'alia Tetun? – 'Do you speak Tetum?'
 * Loos – 'Right'
 * Lae – 'No.'
 * Ha'u' [la] komprende – 'I [do not] understand' (from Portuguese compreender).

Personal pronouns
Hau rona asu hatenu

1S hear dog barking

"I hear the dog barking"

Nia sosa sigaru

3S buys cigarettes

"He/She buys cigarettes"

Ita rona rádiu?

1PL hearing radio

"Are we hearing a radio?"

Sira moris hotu ka?

3P alive all ?

"Are they all alive?"

A common occurrence is to use titles such as Senhora for a woman or names rather than pronouns when addressing people.

Senhora mai hori bain-hira?

Mrs come PAST when

"When did you arrive?"

The second person singular pronoun Ó is used generally with children, friends or family, while with strangers or people of higher social status, Ita or Ita boot is used.

Nina, Ó iha nebee?

Nina 2S.FAM LOC where

"Nina, where are you?"

Plural
The plural is not normally marked on nouns, but the word sira 'they' can express it when necessary.

 * feto 'woman/women' → feto sira 'women'

However, the plural ending -s of nouns of Portuguese origin is sometimes retained.

 * Estadus Unidus – United States (from Estados Unidos)
 * Nasoens Unidas – United Nations (from Nações Unidas)

Definiteness
Tetum has an optional indefinite article ida ('one'), used after nouns:

 * labarik ida – a child

There is no definite article, but the demonstratives ida-ne'e ('this one') and ida-ne'ebá ('that one') may be used to express definiteness:

 * labarik ida-ne'e – this child, the child
 * labarik ida-ne'ebá – that child, the child

In the plural, sira-ne'e ('these') or sira-ne'ebá ('those') are used:

 * labarik sira-ne'e – these children, the children
 * labarik sira-ne'ebá – those children, the children

Possessive/genitive
The particle nia forms the inalienable possessive, and can be used in a similar way to 's in English, e.g.:

 * João nia uma – 'João's house'
 * Cristina nia livru – 'Cristina's book'

When the possessor is postposed, representing alienable possession, nia becomes nian:

 * povu Timór Lorosa'e nian – the people of East Timor

Inclusive and exclusive we
Like other Austronesian languages, Tetum has two forms of we, ami (equivalent to Malay kami) which is exclusive, e.g. "I and they", and ita (equivalent to Malay kita), which is inclusive, e.g. "you, I, and they".

 * ami-nia karreta – 'our [family's] car'
 * ita-nia rain – 'our country'

Nominalization
Nouns derived from verbs or adjectives are usually formed with affixes, for example the suffix -na'in, similar to "-er" in English.

 * hakerek 'write' → hakerek-na'in 'writer'

The suffix -na'in can also be used with nouns, in the sense of 'owner'.

 * uma 'house' → uma-na'in 'householder'

In more traditional forms of Tetum, the circumfix ma(k)- -k is used instead of -na'in. For example, the nouns 'sinner' or 'wrongdoer' can be derived from the word sala as either maksalak, or sala-na'in. Only the prefix ma(k)- is used when the root word ends with a consonant; for example, the noun 'cook' or 'chef' can be derived from the word te'in as makte'in as well as te'in-na'in.

The suffix -teen (from the word for 'dirt' or 'excrement') can be used with adjectives to form derogatory terms:

 * bosok 'false' → bosok-teen 'liar'

Derivation from nouns
To turn a noun into a nominalised adjective, the word oan ('person, child, associated object') is added to it.

 * malae 'foreigner' → malae-oan 'foreign'

Thus, 'Timorese person' is Timor-oan, as opposed to the country of Timor, rai-Timor.

To form adjectives and actor nouns from verbs, the suffix -dór (derived from Portuguese) can be added:

 * hateten 'tell' → hatetendór 'talkative'

Gender
Tetum does not have separate masculine and feminine gender, hence nia (similar to ia/dia/nya in Malay) can mean either 'he', 'she' or 'it'.

Different forms for the genders only occur in Portuguese-derived adjectives, hence obrigadu ('thank you') is used by men, and obrigada by women. The masculine and feminine forms of other adjectives derived from Portuguese are sometimes used with Portuguese loanwords, particularly by Portuguese-educated speakers of Tetum.

 * governu demokrátiku – 'democratic government' (from governo democrático, masculine)
 * nasaun demokrátika – 'democratic nation' (from nação democrática, feminine)

In some instances, the different gender forms have distinct translations into English:

 * bonitu – 'handsome'
 * bonita – 'pretty'

In indigenous Tetum words, the suffixes -mane ('male') and -feto ('female') are sometimes used to differentiate between the genders:

 * oan-mane 'son' → oan-feto 'daughter'

Comparatives and superlatives
Superlatives can be formed from adjectives by reduplication:

 * barak 'much, many' → babarak 'very much, many'
 * boot 'big, great' → boboot 'huge, enormous'
 * di'ak 'good' → didi'ak 'very good'
 * ikus 'last' → ikuikus 'the very last, final'
 * moos 'clean, clear' → momoos 'spotless, immaculate'

When making comparisons, the word liu ('more') is used after the adjective, optionally followed by duké ('than' from Portuguese do que):

 * Maria tuan liu (duké) Ana — Maria is older than Ana.

To describe something as the most or least, the word hotu ('all') is added:

 * Maria tuan liu hotu — Maria is the oldest.

Adverbs
Adverbs can be formed from adjectives or nouns by reduplication:

 * di'ak 'good' → didi'ak 'well'
 * foun 'new, recent' → foufoun 'newly, recently'
 * kalan 'night' → kalakalan 'nightly'
 * lais 'quick' → lailais 'quickly'
 * loron 'day' → loroloron 'daily'

Prepositions and circumpositions
The most commonly used prepositions in Tetum are the verbs iha ('have', 'possess', 'specific locative') and baa/ba ('go', 'to', 'for'). Most prepostional concepts of English are expressed by nominal phrases formed by using iha, the object and the position (expressed by a noun),optionally with the possessive nia.

 * iha uma (nia) laran — ' inside the house'
 * iha foho (nia) tutun — ' on top of the mountain'
 * iha meza leten — ' on the table'
 * iha kadeira okos — ' under the chair'
 * iha rai li'ur — ' outside the country'
 * iha ema (nia) leet — ' between the people'

Copula and negation
There is no verb to be as such, but the word la'ós, which translates as 'not to be', is used for negation:

 * Timor-oan sira la'ós Indonézia-oan. — 'The Timorese are not Indonesians.'

The word maka, which roughly translates as 'who is' or 'what is', can be used with fronted phrases for focusing/ emphasis:

 * João maka gosta serveja. — 'It's John who likes beer.'

Interrogation
The interrogative is formed by using the words ka ('or') or ka lae ('or not').

 * O bulak ka? — 'Are you crazy?'
 * O gosta ha'u ka lae? — 'Do you like me?'

Derivation from nouns and adjectives
Transitive verbs are formed by adding the prefix ha- or hak- to a noun or adjective:

 * been 'liquid' → habeen 'to liquify, to melt'
 * bulak 'mad' → habulak 'to drive mad'
 * klibur 'union' → haklibur 'to unite'
 * mahon 'shade' → hamahon 'to shade, to cover'
 * manas 'hot' → hamanas 'to heat up'

Intransitive verbs are formed by adding the prefix na- or nak- to a noun or adjective:

 * nabeen — '(to be) liquified, melted'
 * nabulak — '(to be) driven mad'
 * naklibur — '(to be) united'
 * namahon — '(to be) shaded, covered'
 * namanas — '(to become) heated up'

Conjugations and inflections (in Tetun-Terik)
In Tetun-Terik, verbs inflect when they begin with a vowel or consonant h. In this case mutation of the first consonant occurs. For example, the verb haree ('see') in Tetun-Terik would be conjugated as follows:

 * ha'u karee — 'I see'
 * ó maree — 'you (sing.) see'
 * nia naree — 'he/she/it sees'
 * ami haree — 'we see'
 * imi haree — 'you (pl.) see'
 * sira raree — 'they see'

Past
Whenever possible, the past tense is simply inferred from the context, for example:

 * Horisehik ha'u han etu – 'Yesterday I ate rice.'

However, it can be expressed by placing the adverb ona ('already') at the end of a sentence.

 * Ha'u han etu ona – 'I've (already) eaten rice.'

When ona is used with la ('not') this means 'no more' or 'no longer', rather than 'have not':

 * Ha'u la han etu ona – 'I don't eat rice anymore.'

In order to convey that an action has not occurred, the word seidauk ('not yet') is used:

 * Ha'u seidauk han etu – 'I haven't eaten rice (yet).'

When relating an action that occurred in the past, the word tiha ('finally' or 'well and truly') is used with the verb.

 * Ha'u han tiha etu – 'I ate rice.'

Future
The future tense is formed by placing the word sei ('will') before a verb:

 * Ha'u sei fó hahán ba sira – 'I will give them food.'

The negative is formed by adding la ('not') between sei and the verb:

 * Ha'u sei la fó hahán ba sira – 'I will not give them food.'

Perfect
The perfect aspect can be formed by using tiha ona.

 * Ha'u han etu tiha ona – 'I have eaten rice / I ate rice.'

When negated, tiha ona indicates that an action ceased to occur:

 * Ha'u la han etu tiha ona – 'I didn't eat rice anymore.'

In order to convey that a past action had not or never occurred, the word ladauk ('not yet' or 'never') is used:

 * Ha'u ladauk han etu – 'I didn't eat rice / I hadn't eaten rice.'

Progressive
The progressive aspect can be obtained by placing the word hela ('stay') after a verb:

 * Sira serbisu hela. – 'They're (still) working.'

Imperative
The imperative mood is formed using the word ba ('go') at the end of a sentence, hence:

 * Lee surat ba! – 'Read the letter!'

The word lai ('just' or 'a bit') may also be used when making a request rather than a command:

 * Lee surat lai – 'Just read the letter.'

When forbidding an action labele ('cannot') or keta ('do not') are used:

 * Labele fuma iha ne'e! – 'Don't smoke here!'
 * Keta oho sira! – 'Don't kill them!'

Orthography and phonology
The influence of Portuguese and to a lesser extent Malay/Indonesian on the phonology of Tetun has been extensive.

In the Tetum language,, and  tend to have relatively fixed sounds. However and  vary according to the environment they are placed in, for instance the sound is slightly higher if the proceeding syllable is  or.

All consonants appearing in parentheses are used only in loanwords.

Stops: All stops in Tetum are un-aspirated, meaning an expulsion of breath is absent. In contrast, English stops, namely 'p' 't' and 'k' are generally aspirated. Fricatives: is an unstable voiced labio-dental fricative and tends to alternate with or is replaced by ; e.g. –  meaning 'grandparent.'

As Tetum did not have any official recognition or support under either Portuguese or Indonesian rule, it is only recently that a standardised orthography has been established by the National Institute of Linguistics (INL). The standard orthography devised by the institute was declared official by Government Decree 1/2004 of 14 April 2004. However, there are still widespread variations in spelling, one example being the word bainhira or 'when', which has also been written as bain-hira, wainhira, waihira, uaihira. The use of  or  is a reflection of the pronunciation in some rural dialects of Tetun-Terik.

The current orthography originates from the spelling reforms undertaken by Fretilin in 1974, when it launched literacy campaigns across East Timor, and also from the system used by the Catholic Church when it adopted Tetum as its liturgical language during the Indonesian occupation. These involved the transcription of many Portuguese words that were formerly written in their original spelling, for example, educação → edukasaun 'education', and colonialismo → kolonializmu 'colonialism'.

Reforms suggested by the International Committee for the Development of East Timorese Languages (IACDETL) in 1996 included the replacement of the digraphs nh (digraph) and lh (digraph) (borrowed from Portuguese, where they stand for the phonemes and ) with  and , respectively (as in certain Basque orthographies), to avoid confusion with the consonant clusters  and , which also occur in Tetum. Thus, senhor 'sir' became sen̄ór, and trabalhador 'worker' became trabal̄adór. Later, as adopted by IACDETL and approved by the INL in 2002, and  were replaced by  and  (as in Spanish). Thus, sen̄ór 'sir' became señór, and trabal̄adór 'worker' became traballadór. Some linguists favoured using ny (digraph) (as in Catalan and Filipino) and ly (digraph) for these sounds, but the latter spellings were rejected for being similar to the Indonesian system, and most speakers actually pronounce ñ and ll as  and, respectively, with a semivowel  which forms a diphthong with the preceding vowel (but reduced to ,  after ), not as the palatal consonants of Portuguese and Spanish. Thus, señór, traballadór are pronounced, , and liña, kartilla are pronounced ,. As a result, some writers use and  instead, for example Juinu and Juilu for June and July (Junho and Julho in Portuguese).

As well as variations in the transliteration of Portuguese loanwords, there are also variations in the spelling of indigenous words. These include the use of double vowels and the apostrophe for the glottal stop, for example boot → bot 'large' and ki'ik → kiik 'small'.

The sound, which is not indigenous to Tetum but appears in many loanwords from Portuguese and Malay, often changed to in old Tetum and to  (written ) in the speech of young speakers: for example, meja 'table' from Portuguese mesa, and kamija 'shirt' from Portuguese camisa. In the sociolect of Tetum that is still used by the generation educated during the Indonesian occupation, and  may occur in free variation. For instance, the Portuguese-derived word ezemplu 'example' is pronounced by some speakers, and conversely Janeiru 'January' is pronounced. The sound, also not native to the language, often shifted to , as in serbisu 'work' from Portuguese serviço (also note that a modern INL convention promotes the use of serbisu for 'work' and servisu for 'service').

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Tetum language


text:
945

Year 945 (CMXLV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.

Byzantine Empire

 * January 27 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown barely a month after deposing their father, Romanos I. With the help of his wife, Constantine VII becomes sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire. He appoints to the highest army commands four members of the Phokas family, which have been in disgrace under Romanos.
 * Constantine VII concludes a Rus'–Byzantine treaty in which Rus' merchants are to conduct their trade in Constantinople. While many Rus' make their fortunes in trade with the Arab Muslims, the Rurik Dynasty of Kiev grows rich from Byzantine commerce.

Europe

 * Spring – Berengar of Ivrea invades Italy with hired Lombard troops and takes up residence in Milan. Berengar proceeds to Verona, where he is joined by forces of Count Milo and other partisans.
 * King Hugh of Provence lays siege to Vignola to put an end to Berengar's advance. But to no avail, as Berengar of Ivrea is hailed throughout northern Italy as a liberator, and Hugh flees to Provence.
 * April 13 – Hugh of Provence abdicates the throne in favor of his son Lothair II (who has been co-ruler since 931) and is acclaimed as sole king of Lombardia. Hugh is allowed to retire in Pavia.
 * Igor I, ruler of the Kievan Rus', is killed while collecting tribute from the Drevlians and is succeeded by his three-year-old son Sviatoslav I. His mother Olga becomes regent and the official ruler.
 * Summer – King Louis IV ("d'Outremer") is captured by the Normans and handed over to Hugh the Great. In return for the release of Louis, Laon surrenders to him in compensation.
 * Caliph Abd-al-Rahman III occupies the palace of Medina Azahara (called "the shining city") as the new capital of the Caliphate of Córdoba (modern Spain).

England

 * King Edmund I conquers Strathclyde, forms an alliance with Malcolm I (king of the 'Picts and Scots') and cedes Cumberland and Westmorland to him.
 * King Hywel Dda ("the Good") convenes a conference at Whitland, which draws up a standardized code of laws in Wales (approximate date).

Arabian Empire

 * Summer – Sayf al-Dawla is defeated by Muslim forces under Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid near Qinnasrin. He is forced to abandon his Syrian domains and flees to Raqqa. In October the two men come to an agreement, which recognizes Hamdanid rule over northern Syria, founding the Emirate of Aleppo.
 * Winter – Muslim forces under Nasir al-Dawla capture Baghdad and restore Caliph Al-Muttaqi to power again. Al-Dawla establishes himself as amir al-umara, or de facto regent of the Abbasid Caliphate.

China

 * Autumn – The Min Kingdom is destroyed by the Southern Tang. Emperor Yuan Zong expands its domains beyond those of the former Wu Kingdom. He annexes Min territory into its own boundaries.

Religion

 * Dunstan becomes abbot of Glastonbury Abbey in England. He re-creates monastic life by establishing Benedictine monasticism in the monastery.

Births

 * Abbo of Fleury, French monk and abbot (approximate date)
 * Adelaide of Aquitaine, French queen consort (or 952)
 * Al-Muqaddasi, Arab Muslim geographer (approximate date)
 * Al-Sijzi, Persian astronomer and mathematician (d. 1020)
 * Eric the Victorious, king of Sweden (approximate date)
 * Judah ben David Hayyuj, Jewish linguist (approximate date)
 * Tróndur í Gøtu, Viking chieftain (approximate date)

Deaths

 * January 21 – Yang Tan, Chinese general and governor
 * February 14
 * Lian Chongyu, Chinese general
 * Zhu Wenjin, emperor of Min (Ten Kingdoms)
 * June 30 – Ki no Tsurayuki, Japanese writer and poet (b. 872)
 * July 4 – Zhuo Yanming, Chinese Buddhist monk and emperor
 * October 23 – Hyejong, king of Goryeo (Korea) (b. 912)
 * Abu Muhammad al-Hasan, Arab Muslim geographer (b. 893)
 * Adarnase II, prince of Tao-Klarjeti (Georgia)
 * Bagrat I, prince of Tao-Klarjeti (Georgia)
 * Fujiwara no Nakahira, Japanese statesman (b. 875)
 * Igor I, Varangian ruler of Kievan Rus'
 * Krešimir I, king of Croatian Kingdom
 * Song Fujin, empress and wife of Li Bian
 * Tuzun, Abbasid general and de facto ruler
 * Wang Jichang, Chinese general and chancellor
 * Yang Sigong, Chinese official and chancellor
 * Zhang Gongduo, Chinese general and official

title: 945


text:
448

Year 448 (CDXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Praetextatus and Zeno (or, less frequently, year 1201 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 448 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Byzantium

 * Emperor Theodosius II sends an embassy to Attila the Hun; Anatolius, an Eastern Roman general (magister militum) responsible for the security of the Eastern frontier, achieves a peace treaty with the Huns, in exchange for an annual tribute of 2100 lb of gold per year.
 * Attila demands in the treaty the evacuation of the territory running from Singidunum (Belgrade, in Serbia) 300 mi east along the Danube to Novae (Svishtov, in Bulgaria). This depopulated buffer zone deprives the Romans of their natural defensive advantages.
 * Theodosius II orders all non-Christian books burned.

Europe

 * Flavius Aetius suppresses the Bagaudae in Armorica (Gaul), and defeats the Salian Franks under King Chlodio near Arras (Belgica Secunda); the invaders are stopped around a river-crossing near Vicus Helena.
 * Rechiar succeeds his father Rechila as king of the Suebi in Galicia (Northern Spain). He marries a daughter of the Visigoth king Theodoric I and converts to Catholicism.

China

 * Kou Qianzhi, Chinese Daoist reformer, dies after having converted emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei and having established Daoism as the country's dominant religion. His death presages a revival of Buddhism as China's dominant faith.

Religion

 * Eutyches is accused of heresy at a synod held in Constantinople.

Births

 * Cyriacus of Athens, Greek anchorite and saint (d. 557)

Deaths

 * Kou Qianzhi, Chinese high official and Daoist (b. 365)
 * Rechila, king of the Suebi (approximate date)
 * Saint Germanus, bishop of Auxerre (approximate date)

title: 448


text:
Dwarf (folklore)

A dwarf is a type of supernatural being in Germanic folklore. Accounts of dwarfs vary significantly throughout history; however, they are commonly, but not exclusively, presented as living in mountains or stones and being skilled craftspeople. In early literary sources, only males are explicitly referred to as dwarfs. However, they are described as having sisters and daughters, while male and female dwarfs feature in later saga literature and folklore. Dwarfs are sometimes described as short; however, scholars have noted that this is neither explicit nor relevant to their roles in the earliest sources.

Dwarfs continue to feature in modern popular culture, such as in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Terry Pratchett, where they are often, but not exclusively, presented as distinct from elves. They are often depicted as miners, smiths, armorers, tailors, carpenters, artisans and mechanics.

Etymology
The modern English noun dwarf descends from dweorg. It has a variety of cognates in other Germanic languages, including dvergr and twerg. According to Vladimir Orel, the English noun and its cognates ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic dwergaz. A different etymology of dwarf traces it to Proto-Germanic *dwezgaz, with the r sound being the product of Verner's Law. Anatoly Liberman connects the Germanic word with Modern English dizzy, suggesting a link between the etymology and their role in inflicting mental diseases on humans, similar to some other supernatural beings in Germanic folklore such as elves.

For forms earlier than the Proto-Germanic reconstruction, the etymology of the word dwarf is highly contested. Scholars have proposed theories about the origins of the being by way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, including the idea that dwarfs may have originated as nature spirits, as beings associated with death, or as a mixture of concepts. Competing etymologies include a basis in the Indo-European root *dheur- (meaning "damage"), the Indo-European root *dhreugh (whence, for example, modern English "dream" and German Trug "deception"), and scholars have made comparisons with Sanskrit (a type of "demonic being").

Modern English has two plurals for the word dwarf: dwarfs and dwarves. Dwarfs remains the most commonly employed plural. The minority plural dwarves was recorded as early as 1818. However, it was later popularized by the fiction of philologist and legendarium author J. R. R. Tolkien, originating as a hypercorrective mistake. It was employed by Tolkien for some time before 1917. Regarding his use of this plural, Tolkien wrote in 1937, "I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go with it."

Terminology
Scholars have noted that the Svartálfar ('black elves') appear to be the same beings as dwarfs, given that both are described in the Prose Edda as the residents of Svartálfaheimr. Another potential synonym is dökkálfar ('dark elves'); however, it is unclear whether svartálfar and dökkálfar were considered the same at the time of the writing of the Prose Edda. The partial overlap of dwarfs in Eddic sources with elves is supported by the names of dwarfs recorded in the Dvergatal section of Völuspá, which include Álfr ('Elf'), Gandálfr ('Wand-elf'), Vindálf ('Wind-elf'). Dvergatal further lists Yngvi – a name of the god Freyr who was given Álfheimr, the home of the elves, to rule according to Grímnismál.

Notable Eddic dwarfs

 * Andvari, a shapechanging dwarf featuring in the Völsung cycle who is extorted out of his treasure by Loki.
 * Fjalar and Galar, two brothers who murder Kvasir and brew the mead of poetry from his blood.
 * Brokkr and Sindri, brothers who craft Draupnir, Gullinbursti and Mjölnir for the gods.
 * Sons of Ívaldi, brothers who craft Gungnir, Skíðblaðnir and Sif's hair for the gods.
 * Alvíss, a dwarf who requested the hand in marriage of Thor's daughter Þrúðr. Thor outwits him by keeping him talking until daybreak, whereupon he turns to stone
 * Litr, a dwarf kicked by Thor into Baldr's funeral pyre for an unclear reason.

Continuity with older beliefs
After the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples, dwarfs continued in the folklore of Germanic-speaking areas of Europe and the literary works produced there. Opinions on the degree of continuity in beliefs on dwarfs before and after Christianisation differ significantly. Some scholars, such as Rudolf Simek, propose that the folk beliefs remained essentially intact in the transitional period, making later sources exceedingly informative on pre-Christian Germanic religion. In contrast, others, such as Schäfke, argue that there is no resemblance between Eddic and skaldic dwarfs and those in later sources.

Old Norse
Dwarfs feature throughout both fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur. In Völsunga saga, which details the events that unfold after Loki extorts treasure out of the dwarf Andvari, to pay the wergild for his killing of Ótr, a being whose brother Regin is also described in some sources as either resembling or being a dwarf. In Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, the sword Tyrfing is forged, and subsequently cursed, by a dwarf named Dvalinn, and another named Dulin in the Hauksbók manuscript.

Middle High German
In German literature, many dwarfs can make themselves invisible, typically via a "Tarnkappe" (cloak of invisibility), which has been suggested to be an ancient attribute of dwarfs. Depending on the story, they may be hostile or friendly to humans.

The dwarf Alberich plays a vital role in the Nibelungenlied, where he guards the Nibelung's treasure and has the strength of twelve men. He is defeated by Siegfried and afterwards serves the hero. In Ortnit, Alberich seduces the Lombardy queen, spawning the hero Ortnit. The dwarf then aids Ortnit in his adventures after revealing to the hero that he is his father. In Das Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrid, Siegfried is aided by the dwarf Eugel, who is the son of the dwarf king Nibelung, originator of the Nibelung's treasure.

The hero Dietrich von Bern is portrayed in adventures involving dwarfs. In Laurin, he fights against the dwarf King Laurin at the dwarf's magical rose garden. He later rescues a woman whom Laurin had kidnapped. A similar plot occurs in the fragmentary poem Goldemar. In Virginal, Dietrich rescues the dwarf queen Virginal from a force of invading heathens. The dwarfs Eggerich and Baldung play a role in aiding Dietrich in the poem Sigenot: Baldung gives Dietrich a magical gem that prevents him from being bitten when thrown into a snake pit, whereas Eggerich helps Dietrich and Hildebrand escape. In the Heldenbuch-Prosa, a dwarf takes Dietrich out of this world after the death of all the other heroes, a role given to Laurin in some different versions of Dietrich's end.

Modern period
Dwarfs feature in the modern folklore of Germanic-speaking regions of Europe, such as the Simonside Dwarfs in Northumberland, who are sometimes believed to use lights to lure people off paths, akin to a will-o'-the-wisp.

Some dwarfs in modern folklore have been argued to belong to a broader group of smith-beings living within hollow mountains or in caves such as the Grinkenschmied. These craftsmen can be referred to explicitly as dwarfs or terms that describe their roles such as bergsmed ('mountain smith'). Mounds in Denmark can also be referred to by names derived from their inhabitants, such as 'smedsberg' or 'smedshoie' ('smith's hill' or 'smith's mound'). Anglian folklore tells that one can hear a forge from within a mound and feel furnace fires under the earth, while in Switzerland, the heat can be attributed to the underground kitchens of dwarfs. In one example, the furnace's heat is believed to increase soil fertility.

Diversity and vagueness
Rather than existing a "true" single nature of a dwarf, they vary in their characteristics, not only across regions and time but also between one another in the same cultural context. Some are capable of changing their form entirely. The scholar Ármann Jakobsson notes that accounts of dwarfs in the Eddas and the section of Ynglinga saga regarding Sveigðir lack prominence in their narratives and cohesive identity. Based on this, he puts forward the idea that dwarfs in these sources are set apart from other beings by their difficulty to be defined and generalised, ultimately stemming from their intrinsic nature to be hidden and as the "Other" that stands in contrast with humans.

Form and colour
Based on the etymology of dwarf, it has been proposed that the oldest conception of a dwarf was as exclusively a formless spirit, potentially as in the case of disease-causing dwarfs; however, this view is not seen in the oldest manuscript accounts. In the quotation of Völuspá in the Prose Edda, the dwarfs emerge as beings with human form (mannlíkun), while in the Codex Regius manuscript the first two dwarfs created either dwarfs or people with human forms. The prose of the Ynglinga saga describes a dwarf sitting, standing, and speaking, leading to the proposal that at the time of writing, dwarfs were believed to, at least sometimes, have a human-like form. It nonetheless appears to have been recognised as a dwarf; however, that may have been due to its behaviour instead of its physical appearance. In skaldic and Eddic sources, it has been noted that their roles are what define them rather than their physical appearance, which has no significant relevance.

Many dwarf names in Eddic sources relate to light and brightness, such as Dellingr ('the gleaming one') and Glóinn ('glowing'). Stories do not explain these names, but it has been theorised that they refer to the fires in the forges the dwarfs work, or to haugaeldar ('grave mound fires') that are found in later Icelandic folklore. In contrast, Snorri describes dökkálfar (which are typically identified as dwarfs) as "blacker than pitch". Alvíss is described by Thor in Alvíssmál as being as unsuitable for wedding his daughter Þrúðr as he was "pale about the nostrils" and resembled a þurs.

In Middle High German heroic poetry, most dwarfs have long beards, but some may appear childish.

Size
In the early Old Norse sources, dwarfs are typically described vaguely, with no reference to them being particularly small; in the legendary sagas and later folklore, however, they are often described as short.

Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri are four dwarfs, potentially depicted as four anthropomorphic figures on the hogback stone in Heysham in Lancashire, that according to the Prose Edda, each holds up a corner of the sky, that was fashioned from the skull of Ymir. It has been suggested that this would imply that dwarfs could be very tall; however, it has been noted that the sky could have been conceived of as being close to the earth at the horizon. Regin, a figure identified as either a dwarf or resembling a dwarf, is a similar size to the hero Sigurd on both the Ramsund carving and carvings from the Hylestad Stave Church. Dwarf names in Eddic sources include Fullangr ('tall enough') and Hár ('high'); however, the terms are ambiguous and do not necessarily mean the dwarfs were conceived of as tall relative to a human. Some names suggest a small size, such as Nori and Nabbi, which have been translated as "tiny" and "little nub", respectively; however, it has been argued that this was not necessarily the general rule.

Not all late sagas involving dwarfs describe their size, but all that do describe them as short. In some German stories, the dwarf takes on the attributes of a knight but is most clearly separated from normal humans by his small size, in some cases only reaching up to the knees. Despite their small size, dwarfs in these contexts typically have superhuman strength, either by nature or through magical means. Anatoly Liberman suggests that dwarfs may have been initially thought of as lesser supernatural beings, which became literal smallness after Christianization.

Shape changing
Diversity in appearance is not only seen between dwarfs throughout time and region but also with individual dwarfs, who can be capable of changing their shape and size, such as in Reginsmál, in which the dwarf Andvari lived as a pike in the water due to curse from a Norn, however, could also take on a human-like shape. In later German folklore, the Zwergkönig ('Dwarf King') is a tiny being but is capable of becoming enormously tall at will.

Gender and family groups
In Eddic and skaldic sources, dwarfs are almost exclusively male; for example, in the Dvergatal, every dwarf named is male. Some scholars have proposed that female dwarfs were not believed to exist; however, they are likely attested in charms dating to the early medieval period and are explicitly described in later saga material. Dwarfs are also widely referenced in these sources as having family relations with others, such as brothers and sons. Pairs or groups of brothers are seen relatively abundantly in Eddic contexts, as with the sons of Ívaldi, and Fjalarr and Galarr.

The inscription on the 8th century Ribe skull fragment has been interpreted by some scholars as explicitly referring to a dvergynja ('female-dwarf') that may have been believed to have been causing harm to the user of the fragment. This interpretation is paralleled in Wið Dweorh XCIIIb (Against a Dwarf XCIIIb), in which a harmful dwarf's sister is called to prevent him from causing an afflicted person's illness.

In Fáfnismál, the worm Fáfnir refers to some Norns as "Dvalinn's daughters" (Dvalins dǿtr), while in the Prose Edda, they are described as "of the dwarfs' kin" (dverga ættar). As Norns are also female, this could mean that dwarfs were conceived of by the author of the poem as able to be female, it is not clear whether either their mother (or mothers) are dwarfs, or if they themselves are considered dwarfs just because they are descended from dwarfs.

It has been noted that it may not be that female dwarfs did not exist in the folklore of this period, only that no explicit references to them survive in preserved narratives. It has been proposed this may be because narratives typically centre on the gods rather than dwarfs and that female dwarfs were not conceived of as of great relevance to the gods, given their primary interest in obtaining goods from dwarfs, which does not depend on their gender. Humans, being of lower power and status, cannot control dwarfs as easily and require alternative strategies to obtain treasures from them, potentially explaining why female dwarfs are more prominent in saga literature.

Female dwarfs feature in the late Gibbons saga, Bósa saga and Þjalar-Jóns saga, where they are referred to by the term "dyrgja". In these cases, female dwarfs are only mentioned alongside males and are not independently important to the plot. Beyond Svama, the named dyrgja in Þjalar-Jóns saga, the only other explicitly named dwarf woman in saga literature is the daughter of Sindri in Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, Herríðr. In saga material, dwarf children are also seen. In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar and Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana, central characters help these children and are rewarded in return by the father with treasures. Conversely, in Sigurðar saga þǫgla, the human Hálfdan is cursed after he throws a rock at a dwarf child, breaking its jaw, and is subsequently visited by the child's father in a dream who curses him. Hálfdan's brother later gives the child a gold ring to atone for the harm and is rewarded by the father, once more in a dream. Together, this suggests that dwarfs could be conceived of as loving and protective of their children by the saga authors. In Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, this family love is extended to the human Hálfdan who develops a fostering relation with the dwarf Litr, likely with Hálfdan as the foster son. In German heroic legend, male dwarfs are often portrayed as lusting after human women. In contrast, female dwarfs seek to possess the male hero in the legends.

Craftsmanship and treasure
In Eddic sources dwarfs are attributed with creating magical treasures for the gods such as Mjölnir, Sif's hair, Draupnir, Gullinbursti, Skíðblaðnir, Gleipnir and Gungnir, while in Sörla þáttr they craft Brísingamen for Freyja. They further created the Mead of Poetry from the blood of Kvasir, which grants skill in poetry to those who drink from it. According to Skáldskaparmál, due to the role of dwarfs in crafting the drink, poetry can be referred to by kennings such as "the Billow of the Dwarf-Crag", "Thought's Drink of the Rock-Folk", "the Drink of Dvalinn", "the Dwarves' ship" and the "Ale of the Dwarves". John Lindow noted that stanza 10 of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá can be read as describing the creation of human forms from the earth and follows a catalogue of dwarf names; he suggests that the poem may present Ask and Embla as having been created by dwarfs, with the three gods then giving them life.

In Eddic and some saga sources, rather than being exchanged, items of value move from dwarfs to others, often through extortion. This has been suggested to be a critical differentiator between dwarfs and elves in pre-Christian Germanic religion, who maintain reciprocal and positive relationships with gods and humans; Kormaks saga describes how food was to be shared with elves to heal sickness and Austrfararvísur records an álfablót being held around the early 11th century in Sweden. Dwarfs, on the other hand, according to these sources, are asocial, and there are no records of them receiving blóts or other gifts in this period.

Dwarfs maintain their roles as reluctant donors of their possessions in some later Old Norse legends such as Volsunga saga and Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, where they are forced to give up Andvaranaut and Tyrfing respectively. Some legendary and romance sagas diverge from this, with dwarfs acting friendlily and helpfully; however, this is attributed to their lateness and likely do not represent perceptions that predate Christianisation. Typically, in these later sagas, fighting dwarfs is considered dishonourable, in contrast to other beings such as dragons. Receiving help from a dwarf, however, such as being healed or given a treasure, was not seen as problematic; it has been proposed that the worldview of the saga writers was that a hero is not defined by achieving deeds alone but by being able to both give and accept help.

In German legends, they also possess other magical objects and often appear as master smiths.

Association with mountains and stones
The Codex Regius version of Völuspá records that dwarfs were produced out of the earth, while in the Prose Edda, they form like maggots in the flesh of Ymir, which became the earth. Beyond this, in early Old Norse sources, there is ambiguity between whether dwarfs live within stones or whether they are themselves stones. In Völuspá they are referred to as 'masters of the rocks' (veggbergs vísir) and skaldic kennings for 'stone' include 'dvergrann' ('house of the dwarf') and 'Durnis niðja salr' ('the hall of Durnir's kinsman'). In Ynglingatal stanza 2 and the accompanying prose in the Ynglinga saga, a dwarf lures King Sveigðir into an open stone which closes behind them, whereupon he is never seen again. Ynglingasaga also describes this dwarf as being afraid of the sun (dagskjarr), akin to in Alvíssmál, where the poem's eponymous dwarf is turned to stone sunlight.

In German legends, they typically live inside of hollow mountains; in some cases, they may live above the ground, while in saga literature, such as Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar they commonly live in individual stones, which could also serve as workshops, such as in the forging of Brísingamen in Sörla þáttr. The presentation of dwarfs living within stones continued into modern folklore surrounding specific landscape features such as the Dwarfie Stane, a chambered tomb located on the island of Hoy, and the Dvergasteinn in Seyðisfjörður.

It has been proposed by Lotte Motz that the inhabitation of mountains, stones, and mounds by dwarfs may be derived from their earlier association with the dead who were frequently buried in mounds and around megaliths.

Causing disease
The term 'dweorg' can be used in Old English texts to describe an illness; it is commonly used in medical texts derived from Greek or Latin sources, where it is used to gloss symptoms such as fever. The "Dictionary of Old English" divides the definition of dweorg into either "a dwarf or pygmy" or "a fever"; however, it has been argued that the distinction between the two meanings may not have been prevalent among Germanic peoples in the Early Middle Ages, due to the close association between the beings and sickness in medicinal charms.

The 8th century Ribe skull fragment, found in Jutland, bears an inscription that calls for help from three beings, including Odin, against either one or two harmful dwarfs. The item's function has been compared to the Sigtuna amulet I and Canterbury charm that seek to drive away a "lord of þursar" that is causing an infection, the latter explicitly with the help of Thor. A similar inscription dating between the 8th and 11th century is found on a lead plaque discovered near Fakenham in Norfolk, which reads "dead is dwarf" (dead is dwerg), and has been interpreted as another example of a written charm aiming to rid the ill person of the disease, identified as a dwarf. The Lacnunga contains the Anglo-Saxon charm Wið Dweorh XCIIIb (Against a Dwarf XCIIIb) that refers to a sickness as a dweorg that is riding the afflicted person like a horse, similar to the harmful mare in the later folklore of the Germanic-speaking peoples. Despite the Christian elements in the Wið Dweorh charms, such as the saints called upon for help, their foundations likely lie in a shared North-Sea Germanic tradition that includes inscribed runic charms such as those found in Ribe and Norfolk.

The conception of diseases as being caused by projectiles from supernatural beings is widespread in Germanic folklore through time, such as in the phenomenon of elfshot, in Wið færstice, where they are thrown by elves, Ēse and witches, and in the Canterbury charm in which an infection is caused by the 'wound-spear' (sár-þvara) used by the "lord of þursar". In the case of dwarfs, this association has continued in places into the modern period, such as in the Norwegian words dvergskot or dvergskott which refer to an 'animal disease' and translate literally as 'dwarfshot'.

Toponomy
Placenames derived from dwarf or cognate:

England
 * Dwarriden (Dwarf dale) – Valley in the West Riding of Yorkshire

Influence on popular culture
Dwarfs feature in modern tellings of folklore such as Walt Disney's 1937 film based on the folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm.

Most dwarfs in modern fantasy fiction closely follow those of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, where the dwarves (Tolkien's spelling) were distinguished from elves: most modern fantasy has continued this distinction. Dwarfs are also present in other fantasy literature such as C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories, Terry Pratchett's Discworld and the Artemis Fowl novels by Eoin Colfer.

The emergence of fantasy video games has led to differing depictions and interpretations of dwarfs. In the universe of The Elder Scrolls, "dwarves" (or Dwemer) are presented as a race of subterranean elves whose culture was centred around science and engineering, which differs from Tolkien's conceptualisation in that they are not particularly short, and are extinct. Other games like Dragon Age and Warcraft present an image of dwarfs as stout, bearded mountain dwellers, separate from Elves.

title: Dwarf (folklore)