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...