SDNU Youth and BRAINS plan to hold forum on Iban language

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Mawan (right) with Churchill and Bromeley (centre) after their first meeting on the holding of Symposium on Iban Knowledge 2016 yesterday.

Mawan (right) with Churchill and Bromeley (centre) after their first meeting on the holding of Symposium on Iban Knowledge 2016 yesterday.

KUCHING: Sarawak Dayak National Union (SDNU) Youth in collaboration with a research consultancy and a media partner yesterday proposed to hold a forum to promote and develop the Iban language.

The research consultancy is Borneo Research Initiative on Native Studies (BRAINS) led by director Assoc Prof Dr Bromeley Philip whereas the media partner to handle publicity and recording has yet to be identified.

SDNU president Tan Sri William Mawan Ikom who is also advisor to the event organising committee said the tentative date for the ‘Simposium Lumpung Penemu Iban 2016’ (or Symposium on Iban Knowledge 2016) is the last weekend of November.

The committee has proposed to invite Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem to be the patron and also to open and close the two-day symposium at a hotel here, said Mawan after meeting Bromeley and SDNU Youth chief Churchill Edward Drem at his office along Jalan Rubber here yesterday.

He said the targeted participants are Iban language teachers and trainee teachers as well as head and/or representatives of relevant government agencies while the invited speakers include Teachers Training College trainers, university professors on languages and linguistic researchers regardless of race and religion.

Mawan said: “The Iban language is very close to my heart. It is the tool of our Iban identity. I am glad that the SDNU Youth headed by Churchill and BRAINS led by Dr Bromeley have decided to work closely together in providing a useful platform for well-meaning members of the Dayak, particularly the Iban community to discuss on the development of the Iban language.”

Bromeley said side programmes for the symposium would be a series of roadshows to schools throughout Sarawak on the Iban language as a subject and to promote the use of the Iban Alphabet among secondary school students.

He said the development of the Iban Alphabet system may again be discussed at the symposium.

“The Iban language is spoken by almost one million people throughout Sarawak. It belongs to the Ibanic Austronesian language group and is an officially recognised vernacular within Malaysia. Although it is officially a minority language in Malaysia, it is widely spoken in many domains in Sarawak not just between the Iban- Iban but also Iban-non-Iban speakers,” Bromeley said.

There has been however less codification of the Iban language in terms of grammars, dictionaries and teaching materials compared to Bahasa Malaysia, he pointed out.

There are also few written reference materials in Iban such as textbooks, literary works and academic books, he added.

“For these reasons Brains will embark on rigorous effort of constructing a large and representative corpus of Iban on similar lines to the British National Corpus (BNC). The approach involves drawing Iban words from possibly all existing written and spoken texts in Iban,” he said.

“This corpus known as Iban National Corpus (INC) will form the basis for further language preservation and revitalisation efforts. It is our hope that INC will eventually enable Iban to become a dynamic academic language,” Bromeley said.

On a personal basis, Churchill said the symposium would be the second collaboration between him and Bromeley after their first platform for discussion, ‘Forum Jaku Iban 2011’ (FJI2011), was held successfully here on Sept 17, 2011.

The one-day FJI2011 aimed at promoting the Iban Alphabet system was jointly organised by Utusan Borneo (Iban Section) and the then Ministry of Social Development and Urbanisation, he added.