CM says this is to prevent it from getting extinct, preserve racial identity and heritage
Adenan signing a copy of the dictionary to be kept as a memento at the foundation’s headquarters. Looking on (from left) are Linggi, Uggah, Robert, Janang and Jabu (right). — Photo by Jeffery Mostapa
KUCHING: The multi-ethnic communities in the state should document, enrich and enliven their language as a way to prevent their mother tongue from disappearing with time.
In giving this advice, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem said it is important, especially for the small ethnic groups, to conserve their mother tongue to avoid a ‘language death’ – a situation when future generations shift to another language and no longer learn their mother tongue as their first language.
Adenan was officiating at the launching of the ‘Comprehensive Iban-English Dictionary’ by Dayak Cultural Foundation (DCF) yesterday.
“What happens today (yesterday’s launching) proves that the Iban language is still alive, well and prospering because of your care, concern and love for the language. I urge other races to do the same before their language disappears. Put it on record, who knows, sometime in the future, certain languages might become extinct,” he advised at the event held at Hilton Hotel here.
Deputy Chief Minister and DCF chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas, patron Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu Numpang, the foundation’s managing trustee Tan Sri Datuk Amar Leonard Linggi Jugah, including two of the book’s authors Janang Ensiring and Dr Robert Menua Saleh were also present.
Adenan cited native North American languages such as Apache and Cheyenne (among others) as examples of mother tongues that were critically endangered because there were only a few native speakers of the languages around.
He believed some of the said languages could be found in digital forms in museums and research facilities.
“We hope this would not happen to the natives here,” he added.
The 1,980-page Iban-English dictionary aims to preserve and promote Iban culture particularly in the fields of performing arts, language and literature. Bilingual in nature, the dictionary has Iban as source of language and English as a target language.
The dictionary is the result of many years of collaboration among Janang, Robert and Jantan Umbat from the Tun Jugah Foundation, with Prof Emeritus Dr Vinson H Sutlive Jr and Joanne Sutlive, who were commissioned by DCF to compile the dictionary two years ago.
It contains over 30,000 entries of headwords and derivatives with definitions, synonyms, antonyms, idioms, pronunciations, etymologies and examples of phrases and sentences.
To this, Adenan said: “The launching of the Iban-English dictionary is a reflection of what we are doing today, a reflection that when we do have culture, when we do have tradition, we have civilisation. The Ibans not only have words to describe things, but also words to describe abstract thoughts.”
He stressed on the importance of learning and practising languages of the multi-ethnic groups in the state, especially at the secondary school level, in order to keep them alive.
“I always remind our brothers and sisters in the peninsula that when you talk about Bumiputera, in Peninsular Malaysia there are 99 per cent Malay Muslims but not all Bumiputeras in Sarawak and Sabah are Malays or Muslims. In fact, most are Christians. You must give them recognition, don’t categorise them as ‘lain-lain’ (other ethnics),” he added.
Unlike the colonial era, he pointed out, the multi-ethnic languages here should not be treated merely as ‘curiosity’ but must be practised, learnt and preserved to reflect the identity of the different communities.
Despite different pronunciations, he noted many similarities of words in Iban and the Malay language, which he believed indicated inter-mingling between the various races in Sarawak since the old days.