Entulu (centre), Yunus (right) and Ringgit Dinggat, a committee member of Labuan Dayak Association, during the ‘Miring’ ceremony of the Gawai Day celebration.
LABUAN: Minister in the Prime Minister Department, Datuk Joseph Entulu Belaun, said that ‘Dayak’ would likely be used to describe the Dayak people in this country rather than the word ‘lain-lain’ (others) that is being used to describe their race.
In his speech while officiating the recent Gawai Day celebration here, he disclosed that the bumiputera (Dayak) technical committee for both Sabah and Sarawak had endorsed and recommended for the proposal to be adopted to the federal government.
“Now, the committee secretariat is expected to hand over the memorandum to the cabinet to approve the proposal. Once approved, the ‘Dayak’ word would replace the ‘lain-lain’ word used in government formal forms and we hope the private sector will follow suit,” he said, adding that the people would have to wait a while for the cabinet approval.
He later shared his opinion on the Iban language, saying that, while he thanked the government for allowing the language to be taught at primary and secondary schools, the current method of teaching the Iban language was ineffective.
“If we continue the current way of teaching Iban language, then, it is my strong opinion that our children may not be able to speak the language well in the future and we will not be able to preserve the language.
“It is very grammatical, and it is taught the way English and Malay are taught, where in the end what we have is not truly the Iban language,” he said, giving some examples of words that were wrongly interpreted from Iban to Malay and vice versa.
Entulu proposed four objectives or levels in Iban language teaching, namely, to learn the vocabulary, to teach the students how to speak, teaching students with advanced Iban language after they have become fluent in Iban, and those interested to become a linguist in Iban to also know its literature.
“If we are able to achieve these four objectives or levels, then, there will be a group of Iban people that will always use the original Iban language. There is no point to have the dictionary in Iban and know the vocabulary, but you cannot speak the language.
“Thirty percent of Iban language is now already diluted with other language, which is worrisome, and this problem must be highlighted in order to preserve the language,” he said, adding that students scoring As in their Iban subject at schools were not guaranteed to be able to speak in Iban correctly if the current method of teaching continued in schools.
He also announced that his office would make a cash contribution of RM30,000 to Labuan Dayak Association.
Also present at the event was Senator Datuk Yunus Kurus.