By Rita Lasimbang and Trixie Kinajil
This article examines the role the Kadazandusun Language Foundation has played in changing the language ecology of the Kadazandusun language. Over the period of he last15 years, the stateof the Kadazandusun language has undergonemajor progression that includes the making of a trilingual Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English dictionary. This article also relates to the impact the language situation has had on changing attitudes toward mother-tongue use in the Kadazandusun community.
Sociolinguistic Background [1]
There are 138 languages in Malaysia, [2] of which 54 are indigenous to Sabah (Grimes, 1996). Thirteen of these indigenous languages are classified under the Dusunic language family. [3] There areno current data for language from the recent national census, but according to the 1999 Sabah census projection, speakers of Kadazan/Dusun ethnicity should have numbered 750,000 by 2000 – making Kadazan and Dusun the largest single language community in the State. Speakers of theKadazan/Dusun language aremainly found along the west coast of Sabah and also extending some distance inland (see Banker& Banker, 1984 for details).
‘Kadazan‘ and ‘Dusun‘ in this article are terms that various groups of people who speak varieties of this language have come to call themselves. The term ‘Kadazandusun‘ is the conjoined term decided on as the official name of the shared language – the standard language – that has been introduced in Sabah schools. More recently, the word has been used as a general umbrella term for both Kadazan and Dusun people, and as a loose term for all languages in the Dusunic language family.
According to Banker and Banker (1984), the Kadazan/Dusun language consists of a chain of dialects that are reasonably understood by neighbouring communities. But because the language differs in varying degrees, communication between members from one end of the chain to the othermay be more difficult, e.g. between Coastal Kadazan speakers in the south, and Central Dusun speakers in the north.
Bahasa Malaysia, the national language of Malaysia since 1963 (Omar, 1984), was selected on the basis of having the greatest number of speakers – at the time theMalay people madeupmore than half of the population of PeninsularMalaysia. However, Sabah on the island of Borneo, with 80%of its populationmade up of indigenous ethnic groups, [4] presents a host of ethnic languages to choose from when selecting a lingua franca for that region.
The Kadazandusun Language
Beginnings
The Penampang populace – south-east of the capital Kota Kinabalu – was first introduced to literacy through the school-building efforts of Mill Hill Missionaries who arrived in the early 1880s. [5] However, World War II interrupted these educational efforts.Mission schools were resiliently set up again after the war. These schools were known as Native Voluntary Schools in the 1960s.They appealed greatly to the localKadazan and Dusun folk because they ‘opted to teach literacy to rural folk initially through their local Kadazan or Dusun dialect only shifting gradually by the third or fourth year into English‘ (Reid, 1997).
The Kadazan language underwent vast developments post-war. The year 1953 saw the Kadazan language introduced in the all-English newspaper Sabah Times. The following year Radio Sabah started a Kadazan programme that ran for 15 minutes daily, increasing to 14 hours per week in 1960 (Reid, 1997). The 1960s saw massive publication of literature. The earliest record of a Kadazan publicationwas SamuelMajalang‘s Tanong do Kadazan [Kadazan Stories], which was published by the Borneo Literature Bureau in 1962.
During the Nationalism era (after joining Malaya in 1963), mother-tongue development went into decline as emphasis was put on the acquisition of the national language, Bahasa Malaysia (Malay). To safeguard social and economic interests aswell as to assist assimilation into the fast-growingMalaysian culture, Kadazan/Dusun parents had begun to allow the use of the Malay language in the home. However, this move did more harm than good when code-mixing became evident, slowly removing the need to converse in the mother tongue (Lasimbang, 1996).
The Kadazan/Dusun community only began to identify with the now-apparent language loss in the early 1980s. By then, the infiltration of ‘broken‘ Kadazan and Dusun songs into themusic industry had added further damage to the situation. Their fun and catchy tunes belied the growing disparaging view held against mother-tongue use by many Kadazan/Dusun speakers.
Therefore, as has happened in many other language situations around the world (see, e.g.Mühlhäusler, 1996),modernisation and development hasmeant that the ecology of theKadazan/Dusun language chainswas breaking down and powerful new languages were entering that ecology (i.e. Bahasa Malaysia, English).
Cultural factors in the changing ecology of the Kadazandusun Language
Anewsustaining ecology for the language familywas also slowto develop, as the process of forming a common nomenclaturewas a difficult one.According to Lasimbang and Miller (1990), this was seen as early as 1886 in the problematic ‘language labelling‘ exercise conducted by various groups amongst the indigenous population of North Borneo. Members of groups could not agree on a common language/ethnic group label, nor could they agree to the labels outsiders had for them. Since language labelling works only ifmembers of a group are open to it (Lasimbang & Miller, 1990), the not un-alike Kadazan and Dusun communities had to contend with the continuing pressure to arrive at a single way of identifying themselves.
By the 1960s it became obvious that this dilemma was also causing problems for the preservation of the mother tongue. While the desire for mother-tongue education was central to both communities, the touchy subject of identity – whether Kadazan or Dusun (Reid, 1997) – created confusion as to how to go about the matter.The followingdecade sawmore ambivalence tomother-tongue issues and to cultural identity for thatmatter. Finally, in 1985 there was a breakthrough with the crucial decisions being taken on orthography and, in 1995, the standardisation of dialects materialised.With that, a close approach to a wider group identity was achieved.
In the following sections, we discuss how this new language ecology has begun to emerge.
Orthography and dialects standardisation issues
The 100-year old initial Kadazan orthography was standardised in 1985, based on the orthography decisions by the Kadazan Cultural Association (KCA) Language Sub-Committee in 1984. The amendments to the orthography included the writing of the glottal stop whenever it occurs, the marking of plosives, e.g. b and d, uniformity in the use of hyphens, spelling of particles or clitics, and decisions on the use of varying spellings (Miller & Miller, 1983, 1984).
The KCA began the first application of the standardised Kadazan orthography during the 1985 publication of books from a Kadazan Children‘s Literature Production Workshop. In 1987, the biggest application of the standardised orthography was made in the update of Antonissen‘s 1958 Kadazan Dictionary and Grammar. The update was manifested in the first-ever linguistic and trilingual Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary.
In 1988, much encouraged by the outcome of a language survey conducted amongst Kadazan children, the KCA began to make efforts to request that the Kadazan language be taught in schools. The survey revealed that the Kadazan community had longwanted their language to be taught in schools but that their desire for this had never been made public (Lasimbang et al., 1992). That same year, the Minister of Education made a statement that the study of languages such as Kadazan might be incorporated into the school syllabus. [6] This raised great hopes within the Kadazan/Dusun community. However, the long-standing issue of standardisationof the various dialects within the Dusunic language family still needed to be resolved before this could occur.
Therefore, the following year a symposium, Towards the Standardisation of the Kadazan Dialects, organised by KCA, was held to examine the matter. But old differences quickly cropped up on which label to use for the standard language – whether Kadazan or Dusun. All too soon, conflicting views of identity had shelved the issue of standardisationand with it, the hope of teaching the Kadazan language in schools.
The re-introduction of the Kadazandusun language in Sabah schools
Nevertheless, in September 1990, various efforts to include the Kadazan language in schoolswere once again put forward, [7] but none of these effortswere fruitful. The idea of the re-introduction of the Kadazan language in schoolswas not revived until 1994, when a concerned Member of Parliament and a Kadazandusun himself, YB [Honourable] Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok, began seriously pursuing the matter. [8]
At that time, however, with no provision for the Kadazan language to be taught in public schools, a private classwas proposed and set up under the trading licence of the Kadazan Language Centre (KLC). Nonetheless, YB Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok continued pushing for the teaching of the Kadazandusun language and succeeded in the re-introduction of theKadazan/Dusun language in schools in April 1995. [9]
However, the problem of the old ‘name game‘ – the need to define the new language ecology – still lacked a definitive resolution. The Sabah Education Department played themediator for the two cultural custodians – the Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association and the United Sabah Dusun Association – on the decision for the name of the standard language that was to be taught in schools. The compromise went on to document the combined term ‘Kadazandusun‘ as the official name of the shared language, [10] at the same time solving the issue of standardisation of dialects within the Dusunic language family.
In 2000, the Kadazandusun language was being taught to 19,731 children by 881 trained teachers, in 440 primary schools in 21 districts throughout the State of Sabah. [11]
The Role of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation
With these official developments in progress, the time had come for the KLC (now called the Kadazandusun Language Centre) to expand its functions. In order to ensure continued efforts to preserve, develop and promote the Kadazandusun language, an official language body to monitor and coordinate language work needed to be set up. In December 1994, the first five trustees-to-be met to discuss the formation and registration of a trust for the Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF). On 20 June 1995, the KLF‘s joint trustees were granted a Certificate of Incorporation under the Trustees (Incorporation) Ordinance 1951 Cap. 148 (Sabah).
The KLF‘s objectives are wide-ranging and are subdivided into four programme areas: Linguistics and Anthropology; Literacy and Literature; Translation and Community Service; and Training and Development.
Since its establishment, the KLF has been particularly concernedwithmobilising the Kadazandusun community towards taking increasing responsibility for the development of the language. The KLF recognises that community involvement in and acceptance of its work is vital to the survival of the Kadazandusun language. To this end, the following language activities have been conducted by the KLF to ensure positive involvement by the community in the directions the Kadazandusun language is taking. Imparting basic linguistic knowledge
The KLF has taught several groups from a variety of backgrounds the basic linguistic aspects of their mother tongue. Aside from primary school teachers, who needed to understand the linguistic components of the Kadazandusun language before being sufficiently confident to teach the subject in schools, participants have also included journalists, school-aged children, young working adults, pre-school teachers and tertiary-level instructors.
These input sessions are often coordinated by the respective Kadazandusun communities themselves; for example, the KLF continues to be called upon to provide input on linguistics in a yearly teacher-training workshop held by Suausindak, a Community Pre-school. Suausindakwas the first school in Sabah to offer Kadazandusun language classes to pre-school age children.
Providing technical support, advice and consultancy
Once it was agreed to go ahead with the teaching of the Kadazandusun language in schools, the Sabah Education Department called upon the KLF to provide technical advice and consultancy. The KLF first began to provide this service in April 1995 to key personnel from the Department in the first national-level meeting to draft the Kadazandusun language curriculum. The KLF continues to provide technical consultancy to the Sabah Education Department on a needs basis.
The KLF has also assisted the University ofMalaysia Sabah in the preparation of their Kadazandusun language classes, which they offered as an elective in 1998. Perwira Tuition Centre, a local organisation that offered conversational Kadazandusun language courses, was also given assistance in setting up their coursework.
On the occasion of the yearly Harvest Festival (a traditional Kadazandusun celebration), district level and village level committees have continued to seek the KLF‘s advice on judging criteria and the suitability ofmaterial used in reading and story-telling competitions.TheKLF is also often invited to head the judging panel.
Providing funding support
The KLF has also assistedthe Sabah EducationDepartment in acquiring funding for running Kadazandusun language teachers‘ district-level in-house training programmes. Up to now, the KLF has channelled 29 funding packages to the districts that required them, as well as providing additional funds for a major centralised training programme held in 1998. The KLF continues to look for funding opportunities to support training requests of Kadazandusun language teachers in schools. Another request by the Sabah Education Department for language materials saw the KLF raising funds to purchase 100 copies of the ‘Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary‘ in 1999. A second ‘Dictionary Drive‘ is to be conducted shortly. Where possible, the KLF also sponsors language materials for school-level language activities/competitions.
Production of local literature
The KLF has undertaken a publishing role that had been badly needed in the Kadazandusun community. It serves as an official outlet for the production of vernacular books, with the hope that in this way much of Kadazandusun oral tradition could be preserved. To date, 21 titles have been published and circulated. By increasing the production ofmother-tongue literature, the KLF continues to tap into local talent for materials written in the mother tongue. By conducting a yearly writing competition,members of the community have been encouraged to put folktales and short stories down in writing. Since 1996, winning entries in the competition have been compiled into volumes and made available at book fairs and exhibitions.
Training workshops
Training and workshops have been highly useful inmobilisingmore community involvement in mother-tongue preservation. For a new supportive language ecology to develop, human resourcedevelopment and the transference of skills must take root. To push for this ideal, the KLF has conducted writers‘ workshops to address the development of literature in the mother tongue. The aim is to increase writers‘motivation aswell as to provide them with the skills to produce literature to support local education efforts.
To enablewriters to tap into information found in source languages, a translation workshop has been conducted where translation principles are taught. Editors‘ training and workshops are also conducted to add to the skills of the body of local writers. It is hoped that thiswill help to ease the backlog of publication sincemoremembers of the community will be confident and able to assist in the publishing component of literature production.TheKLF also has organised a Shell Book Production Workshop to introduce the technique of producing massive numbers of books in a short period of time using a template (shell). The Shell Book technique has been useful in the instruction of basic concepts such as health and hygiene for beginning literates.
Networking
In setting up a LocalWriters‘ and Illustrators‘ Network, the KLF has encouraged localwriters and illustrators to forge their like-minded ideas together. This network, begun in 1997, has the potential to become a strong advocate for preserving and promoting the mother tongue.
Providing translation services
Over the years, the KLF has provided major translation services to several government agencies that needed them, e.g. the translation of health materials, speeches, advertisements and patriotic songs into Kadazandusun. There is a growing awareness of the possibilities of using the Kadazandusun language to address a wider audience or tomarket materials or ideas. In the use of health pamphlets amongst rural communities in particular, it is especially important to be able to provide instruction in the mother tongue, as there is a great likelihood that clients only have basic literacy acquisition. Thewritten text then will be extremely useful to both Kadazandusun and non-Kadazandusun health personnel.
Preserving oral tradition
It has been suggested by some scholars that once a non-literate community becomes literate, it will abandon its oral tradition (cf. the discussion in Crowley, this volume). That has not been the case in the Kadazandusun community. Rather, the strong desire to draw out this oral component of the culture has been evident in community participation in events such as the Humius (Traditional Kadazandusun Singing) andMananong (Traditional Kadazandusun Story-telling) conducted by the KLF.
For example, a Humius event in June 2000 involved as many as 24 participants, most ofwhomwere Bobohizan (Kadazandusun priestesses) and elders in the community. Traditional songs as in ritual chanting and songs traditionally sung in community gatherings were performed. Itwas truly a celebration of oral tradition as the Kadazandusun community heard it in its original form – the expression of culture found in traditional songs.
In an earlier event, aMananong demonstrationwas held to impart story-telling skills to Kadazandusun language teachers who coach their students yearly for a TraditionalKadazandusunStory-Telling Competition.Observations of this activity countered the finding that school students were strongly influenced by Malay or English language story-telling styles, e.g. in voice modulation, intonation, pitch, etc.
Both events have been videotaped and properly recorded, i.e. transcribed and translated for cultural posterity. The Kadazandusun community is proud that samples of oral tradition within the community have been preserved, and that the KLF hasmaintained equal interest in the promotion of the rich oral tradition of the Kadazandusun people.
Production of language-learning software
A major first in terms of Kadazandusun language development in the age of computers has been the production of the ‘Learning Kadazandusun‘ CD-ROM. Produced in January 2000, it displayed the ability of the Kadazandusunlanguage to respond to the changing needs of the Kadazandusun community and even the wider public. The CD-ROM has also given welcomed prestige to the relatively new Kadazandusun language efforts.
Conclusion
The KLF‘s role in helping to map out the changing ecology in which the Kadazandusun language is now located has been well defined and given due recognition by both the Federal and State governments. As a coordinating language body, the KLF‘s role has also given the Kadazandusun community the firm assurance that language maintenancewill be supported. In addition to this great responsibility, the KLF must also bear an added role in the promotion of a future-oriented outlook for Kadazandusun language development.
For this to happen there is a need for further study of community responses to the Kadazandusun language, e.g. acceptance or rejection of the label ‘Kadazandusun‘, the teaching of the standard language in schools, and parental support or lack thereof for language use at home. This will enable the KLF to further understand the perspective of the Kadazandusuncommunity and enable it to meet new community needs as they arise.
Understanding andworking with the community on itsmother tongue needs will also encourage ecologically sound language planning and policies to assist practitioners at all levels of language development. Perhaps of paramount importance in the short term is the need to understand whether the community has accepted the Kadazandusun language as a standard language. Acceptance would indicate that the standard language is in its final stage of development (Lasimbang, 1998).
This paper has provided an example of the role that community-based language planning bodies like the KLF can have in sustaining language ecologies. There are great expectations fromthose involved in the KLF and in the preservation of the Kadazandusun language that a viable language ecology can be developed and sustained.However, the ultimate outcome of thiswill be known when the Kadazandusun language is finally accepted, publicly acknowledged and fully owned by the Kadazandusun community itself.
Correspondence Any correspondence should be directed to Ms Rita Lasimbang, Kadazandusun Language Foundation, PO Box 420, 89507 Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia, klf@sabah.org.my
References
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Lasimbang, R. (1996) Cherish your language through knowing your language. Paper presented at ‘EmbraceYourCulture,Cherish Your Language for Excellence and Unity‘ seminar, in conjunction with Minggu Galakan Membaca Bahasa Kadazandusun [Kadazandusun Language Week]. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, 4 November.
Lasimbang, R. (1998) Kadazandusun mother tongue education. In K.K. Soong (ed.)
Mother Tongue Education of Malaysia EthnicMinorities (pp. 96–9). Kuala Lumpur: Dong Jiao Zong Higher Learning Centre.
Lasimbang, R. and Miller, C.P. (1990) Language labelling and other factors affecting perception of ethnic identity in Sabah. In J.T. Collins (ed.) Language and Oral Traditions in Borneo (pp. 115–39). (Selected Papers fromthe First Extraordinary Conference of the Borneo Research Council, Kuching, Sarawak,Malaysia, 4–9 August.) Borneo Research Council Proceedings Series (vol. 2). Williamburg, VA: Borneo Research Council.
Lasimbang, R., Miller, C. and Miller, J. (eds) (1995) Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary. Kota Kinabalu: Kadazan Dusun Cultural Association (KDCA).
Lasimbang, R., Miller, C.P. and Otigil, F.G. (1992) Language competence and use among coastal Kadazan children: A survey report. InW. Fase, K. Jaspaert and S. Kroon (eds) Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages (pp. 333–55). Studies in Bilingualism 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Majalang, S. (1962) Tanong Do Kadazan [Kadazan Stories]. Kuching: Borneo Literature Bureau.
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Omar, A.H. (1984)The development of the national language ofMalaysia. In A. Gonzalez (ed.) Panagani: Essays in Honour of Bonifacio P. Sibayan on his Sixty-Seventh Birthday (pp. 7–23). Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines.
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[1] We wish to thank Associate Professor Richard B. Baldauf Jr of the University of Sydney for his kind assistance in the preparation of this article.
[2] UNESCO statistics (1998) – http://www.escap-hrd.org/fsmal.html.
[3] SIL/Malaysia Branch, Revised ‘List of Western Austronesian Languages and Dialects in Sabah‘ March 1996: Kota Kinabalu.
[4] Yearbook of Statistics – Sabah (1999 projection) p. 15.
[5] St. Michael‘s Parish JubileeCelebration Souvenir Book, July 2000,Penampang, Sabah. p. 12
[6] Sabah Times. 19 November 1988. ‘Kadazan in school?‘
[7] Borneo Mail. 11 March 1999. ‘Kadazandusun language earns degree of recognition.‘
[8] Borneo Mail. 5 June 1994. ‘PDS to push for classes in schools.‘
[9] Daily Express. 4 April 1995. ‘Federal govt‘s move on Kadazandusun lauded.‘
[10] Perjanjian Perisytiharan Bahasa Kadazandusun sebagai Bahasa Rasmi‘ [Declaration of Agreement that ‘Kadazandusun‘ is Official language] 24 January 1995.
[11] Launching speech of YB Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok,Minister in the Prime Minister‘s Department, during the Kadazandusun LanguageWeek 2000 organised by the Sabah State Library Borneo Mail 20 June 2000. ‘No Place for Opposition‘.
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The Authors
Rita Lasimbang is Chief Executive Officer of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation after serving as Curator at the Department of Sabah Museum. She has served as a project coordinatorand linguistic consultant in the compilationof the Kadazan Dusun–Malay–English Dictionary, a major application of the standardised Kadazan orthography. She maintains active involvement in the nation-wide Database of Indigenous Terms Project coordinated by the Institute of NationalLanguage and Literature inMalaysia [Dewan Bahasadan Pustaka].
Trixie Kinajil has been a Research Officer at the Kadazandusun Language Foundation since 1998. Previously she taught English Language in a local secondary school. For her training in Child Development she practised at Parent Educational Services, Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii, on how to observe their children‘s development; and at Michigan Database, a data bank and research unit atMichigan State University,where she helped prepare statisticaldata for a needs project on childcare.
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