Sunday, December 13, 2009

Preserving Kadazandusun Language Should Start At Home: Pairin

Published on: Friday, April 22, 2005 (Daily Express)

KOTA KINABALU: The preservation of the Kadazandusun language should start at home to ensure it continues to be a source of pride for the community.

Datuk Seri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who is President of the Kadazandusun Cultural Association (KDCA), said parents, therefore, have a responsibility to see that the language is spoken in their homes.

"Obviously, one way to preserve the language is to record it, conduct a research or put it in film.

"But the basic step is for parents to speak it at home since the mother tongue is learnt through listening," he said at the launching of "Sinsindion Kadazan" book written by ex-Water Department Director Datuk Cosmas Abah.

Pairin, who is also Deputy Chief Minister-cum-Rural Development Minister, said it is also easier for children to learn and master the language if deliberately spoken at home.

Earlier, Kadazandusun Language Foundation Chairman Tan Sri Simon Sipaun said hundreds of tribal languages around the world are facing the threat of extinction. He said many words in the Kadazandusun language that are used to describe the community's daily lives are no longer used in conversations today.

"Hence, it is important for all of us to consciously and deliberately develop and preserve the language," he said.

However, he said the Kadazandusun, being a minority group, is having a hard time to preserve the legacy, heritage and language of the community. In this respect, Pairin said the community must make an effort to ensure the language is not lost.

"If we all have this realisation to make it a point to speak it, we can perpetuate the language," he said.

Citing Latin, he said the language is supposedly no longer spoken but religions such as Christianity have ensured the language prospered and continued to be used.

When imparting the language, he said there must be consensus as to what standard dialect is used.

"It doesn't matter which dialect should be used because we can't be groping in the dark and lead the people astray. "So, in future standardise it and when you teach others the language, teach in the dialect you know best," he said.

On the book by Cosmas, Pairin said the Kadazandusun community should emulate him by attempting to write books in the language.

He said the language was not really given prominence in print form since not many from the Kadazandusun community have the urge to put in paper their thoughts, ideas and knowledge.

The book, a collection of 113 poems written through observation, environment, feelings and the spur of the moment, he said is a good reference material for the younger generation.

Cosmas said he was inspired to jot down his thoughts on paper in 1992 when he was still the Director of the Water Department.

Initially, he said it was meant to educate the consumers of their responsibility to preserve water.

The poems, he said, were basically about culture, peace, love, social, patriotism, and environment as well as golf, of which he is an avid player.

He said he would be publishing his second book on the same subject matter in the near future.

NON-NATIVE TEACHING KADAZANDUSUN IN SCHOOLS

Source: http://akimomogun.blogspot.com/
10 December 2009

Reports By BERNAMA

KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) in Tanjong Malim, Perak, is offering Kadazandusun language as a minor programme beginning next year as part of its efforts to produce trained graduate teachers in the language.

Its Dean of the Faculty of Languages, Dr Abdul Ghani Abu, said that for a start, 20 students currently taking Malay language studies at the university would be selected for the course.

"These students will graduate with two majors, in Malay language and the Kadazandusun language," he said when closing a workshop on Kadazandusun language in Kota Kinabalu Thursday.

He said the Kadazandusun programme would be carried out simultaneously with the Iban language."UPSI is now recruiting lecturers for the purpose where we need at least seven people for each language," he added.

The teaching of Kadazandusun was introduced in 1997 in 15 primary schools in Sabah. The language was made one of the subjects in the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination for the first time this year.

My Say:
This should be a reminder to Kadazandusun parents to speak in their own langauge with their children at home. When these 20 trainee teachers graduated, we will have non-Kadazandusun teaching Kadazandusun to Kadazandusun students.