Rivers: The Historical Relevance to the Bidayuh.

Holiday is coming soon. Can't wait to go back to my kampung and get ideas on the Bidayuh way of life. I plan to experience a boat ride, something that I've missed for about 11 years.

May be I introduce the importance and relevance of rivers to the Bidayuh, briefly. When I was young my family moved from one place to another. All the villages were situated along the Kayan River; the upper part of Sadong River. To be exact, the 'border' is the Sadong Bridge. From the bridge, up river is Kayan, down river is Sadong.  My father used to have a Johnson 6 (meaning 6 horse power) "enjin sangkut". We used to travel between Reteh Mawang, Reteh Plaman, Tema and Saan.  I was born when my father was teaching in Reteh. At that time the school was situated in Reteh Mawang. Later it was moved to Reteh Plaman. When I was about two years old, we moved to Mawang Taup. Later on, when I was about five, my family settled down in Tema. My father still worked in Mawang Taup but we stayed with our mother in Tema. When I was seven, we moved to Kampung Saan. This was because we wanted to study in SRK Tebedu (I'd written about my life there). Once a while we would travel between Saan and Tema. 

The villagers relied very much on  rivers because they were the only means they could travel between the villages. Even those from Pangkalan Amu, Mawang Taup, Reteh would use rivers to move between Krusen and their villages. Before the construction of Mongkos Road, Tebakang was their destination. There are four four main rivers that played a vital role to the Bidayuh villages in Tebedu and Mongkos areas. The rivers are Kayan River (Kampung Sejijag, Sungan, Saan, Tema, Reteh Plaman, Reteh Mawang and Reteh Karas, Krusen and Tebakang), Ruben River (Pangkalan Amu and Mawang Taup), Suhu River (Tebedu) and Kedup River (not sure about the villages). Rivers are less relevant to these villages after the construction of Mongkos Road, Tebedu Road and other village roads. Today we could drive all the way from Kuching to Gahat Mawang in about two hours (non-stop). This was impossible even up to the early millenium.

Rivers were not only as a means of communication but they play a major role in the Bidayuh way of life. They were the source of  water and fish to the villagers. I still remember in my younger days, how we used to go to the river early in the morning. Along the river we could see the mothers doing their washing. The villagers would carry their water supply from the river back to their houses in bamboos tied together. There were no pails or jerry cans in those days. We could  see a lot of people along the river in the evening. This was the time they got back from their farms and were cleaning themselves. During dry season, the men would come out at night looking for frogs and fishing. Life was simple.

I enjoy river until today. Whenever possible, I'll make sure that I have 'time with river'. I enjoy the cool and refreshing water. Tap water can never take the place of river. River...I could dip myself in it, swim, splash, float, dive, jump...I can't remember when was my first swimming lesson, that's because I don't have one. I LIVE WITH IT. So folks, till my next entry on river cruise experience, "Bidapud lagi..."



Even used as "natural" studio. This photo was taken...I don't know when.

THE REVIVAL AND SURVIVAL OF BIDAYUH LANGUAGE.

On 14 August, I posted an issue on the Bidayuh Graduate Association (BGA) Facebook. Surprisingly up to 10.28pm today it hits 143 comments. This shows that WE LOVE OUR LANGUAGE. All sorts of comments regarding our language are put forward. All agree that we need to do something about our language. The beauty is the comments started to use the different "types" of Bidayuh languages. Here Amang Alui would like to give us something to ponder, may be over the weekend. What should we use; Bidayuh "language" or "dialect"? Well let me give you my opinion, according to the world of linguistics.

In linguistics, "language" and "dialect" are two different things. "language" is used in official function and "dialect" is its variation. For example, we have the standard BM, which is used officially and the other state Malays are considered as dialect, for example the Kuching Malay dialect, the Kabong Malay and Malays in other states.

"Language" is usually labelled as "standard", means, the variety which forms the basis of printed media, books and is taught in schools. It is associated with education and broadcasting in public context. It is more easily describe in terms of written language, ie. vocabulary, spelling and grammar. 

"Dialects" are having distinc features of grammar and vocabulary between each other. "Dialects" exist according to regions. English language itself, both in th UK and the US is very much divided by different regional dialects: Northern dialect in the US is spoken in Upper Midwest (known as Northern dialect) which includes Minnesota, Dakota and Northern Iowa (Yule, 2000). This is also found in the UK, it has the Irish, British Scottish as the major dialects and even further broken down into the different parts of London.

Internationally, English is also divided into different accents (always misunderstood as slang), British, American, Canadian and Australian. These are the English speaking people. So, what's the standard English? BBC? CNN?

The study of this aspect is getting complex if I dwell into isoglosses and dialect boundarise. So, Amang Alui stop being a linguist here.

Back to Bidayuh...language or dialect? Considering the definition, theories and examples, we don't have the "standard Bidayuh language" unlike the Iban. Iban is taught in schools and it has a body to conduct studies and document its literature, devise the syllabus and train their teachers. It has a proper written literature; text books, magazine (Pegari is one) and a foundation (Tun Jugah) to care for its survival. But, they are still able to maintain the different dialects. Bidayuh only relies on DBNA and lately we have REDEEMS. So, none of the Bidayuh: Bukar, Sadung, Biatah, Pinyewa, Jagoi, Singgai and Salako fit to be considered as standard or official and therefore considered as a "language".

On the other hand, none of it fits into "dialect" too. This is because we don't have the standard form. If we want to consider the different versions as "language", it is inaccurate because we are merely divided by regions and we share 80-98% similarity (except Salako). We understand each other well even if we don't use English or BM. The BGA facebook shows this.

Well, only if we have the standard Bidayuh, than we can have "language" and "dialects".  Personally, I disagree if we have one standard language to be taught as Bidayuh "language" because it would "kill" the other "dialects". Furthermore, if it is not planned properly, we would come out with a rojak version.Just to make all the Bidayuh regions happy, we take bits and pieces from all the areas and "WALLA! WE HAVE THE BIDAYUH LANGUAGE". Easy but dangerous solution.

Disturbing your weekend eh? Well...it's worth to ponder and consider. We don't have to quarrel among ourselves just to show who is dominant and superior. We just leave it as it is. Just do more work to revive and preserve each dialects for our survivor. Do as what has been done by the Singgai with their REDEEMS and CMPC and the Jagoi with their Bung Bratak. Don't step on others in order to go up the ladder. Support each other. TOGETHER WE REVIVE OUR LEGACY! Bidapud lagi...

Elokusi Minda: Pidato Etnik Piala Rektor (Public Speaking in Bidayuh).

About three weeks ago I received a phone call from my friend in UiTM Samarahan asking whether I could be one of the judges for their public speaking competition. Public speaking? Why me? Don't they have enough academicians for that? It's a UNIVERSITY, why looking for a school teacher. I was honoured to be contacted because it was not just a PUBLIC SPEAKING, it's a BIDAYUH PUBLIC SPEAKING. Public speaking in Bidayuh? That sounds interesting. Never in my life have I watched, heard or encountered such an event. So, I quickly grabbed the opportunity. AND I DON'T WANNA MISS A THING (Aerosmith).

So, on 13 August 2011, I reached UiTM campus at exactly 7.30 am and waited for my friend to arrive. We were given a briefing by the uni's debating club member (the organiser). Although the number of participants was small, still it was worth watched. We only had four: one in Biatah, three in Jagoi-Singgai. I was a little upset because there was nobody from Bukar-Sadung and Salako. Lucky that I could understand all the dialects. My friend Joe was able to understand too.

Two Jagoi-Singgai reps were trying their best. If public speaking is taken into account, all were good, but since we were looking at the language, the two seemed to be city boys. Their Bidayuh was rojak. True enough, one of them was my friend's son who speaks little Bidayuh at home. The Biatah guy was great, but still gasping for Bidayuh words. The Krokong girl was good. She was confident and used less Malay and English words. She must be a kampung girl. So, the Biatah and Jagoi dialects reached the final. They were given a new topic. Frankly speaking, the Biatah boy was unlucky. If I was given the same topic, I would not do well too. The topic "Pen Biru Pen Merah" was quite difficult for us because the saying is not from us and it was difficult for him to relate it with ideas in Bidayuh. Well, that's my personal opinion. May be you could do it better. The Jagoi girl was lucky. She got the topic "Lelaki Ego Wanita Ayu". She did not have problem in delivering her ideas...very well.

What was the lesson from this activity. It's not just a group of students delivering thier speech in Bidayuh but how we have forgotten the legacy that is part of our life: our language. This scenario is happening in my own family. My children are neither Sadung nor Singgai. They are able to understand both but mix the two dialects at home and they don't know which is which. But, I am happy because they are able to switch correctly when speaking to their grandparents  from both sides of the world and they don't get themselves mixed-up.

The Iban group received the biggest participants. I think it was 12 and they were good. Majority of them delivered their speech in pure Iban with their different accent, Serian, Betong, Kapit. The winner was a girl from Balai Ringin.

The effort done by the debating club of UiTM was a noble one. This is an innovative and creative idea of reviving the ethnic languages and dialects. Actually, it was public speaking in Sarawak Malay, Melanau, Iban and Bidayuh.

The Bidayuh dialects are experiencing a laguage shift. Most of the time language shift is a warning sign of language death. If not, our future generation will be speaking a language consisting of borrowed words. How long can we have the status. English is absorbing a lot of words from other languages and it survives to this day. The ability to absorb other languages is one of the ways a language is able to survive. The question is, how much can we absorb? It is just a matter of where we are, liberals or purists. Two heavily borrowed langauges: Latin and Sanskrit were dead languages. They are widely "borrowed" and used in many languages but why did they die?

Should we allow borrowing of words for the survival of our language? Think about it. Bidapud lagi...