Dayak Bidayuh National Association

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to discuss  the  factors which may impede mother tongue education amongst the Bidayuhs  population in Sarawak.    Mother tongue means different thing to different people.  Fowler and Fowler (1993) define  mother tongue as "one's native language.'  According to the Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary (1993: 807), mother tongue means 'a language that one first learn to speak as a child'.   For the purpose of this paper  'mother tongue'  literally means  the native language  of the Bidayuh.   In the context of the Bidayuh community, the dialects  widely spoken by them are the  various Bidayuh dialects.

In addition, this paper will also discuss  the prospects or opportunities  the Bidayuh could seize in order to popularize  the use of  the Bidayuh dialects   as either a third language  to be implemented in the pre and junior primary schools in Sarawak or to be taught on a voluntary basis by  volunteers from the Dayak Bidayuh National Association (DBNA).

At the outset, it must stressed here that  none of the  Bidayuh dialects have ever been made or used  as a medium of instruction  or as a third language to be taught in any school in the Bidayuh Belt1 in the State of Sarawak.

Who are the Dayak Bidayuhs?
By virtue of Article  161A of the Malaysian Constitution, the term 'Dayak' refers to and consists of two native groups in Sarawak, namely the Ibans, who are often referred to as Sea Dayaks, and the Bidayuhs, also known as the Land Dayak. It was  James Brooke, the first Rajah of Sarawak, who used the term Sea Dayak to describe the wandering and seafaring  Ibans of Sarawak. On the other hand he used  'Land Dayak' to refer to the settled and more passive  groups of  Kuching, Serian and Bau Bidayuhs (Dundon, 1989).

Today, the Dayak Bidayuh or the Bidayuhs  as they prefer to be known live mainly in Kuching and Samarahan Divisions which comprise of the Districts of Serian, Kuching, Bau and Lundu, conveniently referred to as the Bidayuh Belt.   According to the  1997 estimates on the population of Sarawak  produced by the Department of Statistics, Sarawak  Branch, the Bidayuhs make up about 8.3  percent (158,700 people) of  the total 1.9 million population of Sarawak. Table 1 in  Appendix I shows the total population of Sarawak according to the various ethnic groups from 1993 to 1997.  In the context of  Malaysia, the Bidayuh  population  makes up only 0.0037  percent of  the total 21.67 million people in Malaysia.

Bidayuh Language and Dialects
Compared to any other ethnic groups in Malaysia, the Bidayuh group is a very  diverse  community because of the existence of the various dialects spoken.  There are  four  major dialects of the Bidayuh (Omar, 1984, Nais, 1989 and Dundon, 1989), the  dialects are: Bukar Sadong for the Bidayuh residing in Serian; Biatah for the Bidayuh  residing  in the Siburan and the Padawan Sub Districts; Bau-Jagoi for the Bidayuhs who reside within the Bau Districts; and Salako-Lara for the minority among the Bidayuh who live in the outskirt of Lundu District in the western part of  Sarawak (Nais, 1989;  Dundon, 1989).

However,  Omar (1984: 148) discovered that even among  the four major groups, there are dialects spoken by the subgroup.  Among  the Biatah dialects, the subgroups are; the Penyua dialect, Binah dialect, Bisitang dialect, Bipuruh dialect, Tebia dialect, and the Bebengoh dialect.  Apart from that the Bau-Jagoi dialects too  have their own subgroups which can be divided to the Bisinghai,  Biroih, Krokong and the Bijagoi dialects. The same subgroups is also found among the Serian Bukar-Sadong group.  The Bidayuhs residing  in the upper  tributaries of  the Sadong river  speak a slightly different dialect from those residing in the lower reaches  of the river and those Bidayuhs residing closer to the Sarawak/Kalimantan  border too speak different  dialects than those living along the  Kuching Serian Road.

The Bidayuh dialects are very unique because the root words are not derived from  any particular dialect. The Bidayuh of the western-most part of Penrissen area (Biatah dialectal boundary),  spoke only one dialect locally  known as  Puruh dialect, and they called themselves the Dayak Bipuruh (Nais, 1987: 369).

Nais (1989) in his study on the Bidayuh culture  revealed that  there were  302 Bidayuh  villages  found in the various districts in the State of Sarawak.  Table 2 shows the number of villages in the respective districts in the Kuching and Samarahan Divisions where the majority of the Bidayuh population in Sarawak  are residing. As the State begins to develop, more and more Bidayuhs have migrated to other  towns  in Sarawak.  As a result,  the educated  and more adventurous Bidayuhs are now  found in the 'oil town'  of Miri and the 'gas town' of  Bintulu.

 Table  2:   Number of Villagers and Dialects spoken by the Bidayuh according to Districts
 

Name of District	No. of Villages	Dialect Spoken
Serian	126	Bukar-Sadong
Kuching	84	Biatah/Penyua/Bipuruh
Bau	43	Bau- Jagoi
Lundu	41	Salako Lara

  Source:  Nais  (1987)

Within each dialectal group, there are  variations.    Take the Bidayuh in  Kuching District, for example, they speak Biatah, but the subgroups mentioned earlier vis; Penyua,  Binah, Bipuruh, Bisitang, Tebia and Bebengoh have their own intonation and style of pronunciation. And so has the Bau-Jagoi groups and the Serian Bukar Sadong sub-groups.  In Bau alone for instance, rubber is called 'jotu' in the Jagoi dialect,  'daduo' in the Singgai and 'potok' in the Biroih and the Krokong dialect (Dundon, 1989).

Some words in one dialect  means different thing in the other dialects. For example 'bisaki'  in  the Biatah dialect means  'how' and in the Bukar-Sadong  it means  'making love' and   a shirt means 'jipo' in the Siburan and the Binah dialect, 'skinang' in the Bisitang, Bipuruh and the Penyua dialects.  Where as in the Bau-Jagoi 'jopua' means blanket or a lady's sarong.

Every village within a dialectal group has its own distinctive style and way of talking and pronouncing thing,  for example, 'I want to eat rice'
In Biatah  :   Aku an man tubi
In Bau-Jagoi  : Oku raan man tobi
In Bukar-Sadong :   Aku era maan sungkoi

The following are some of the words  selected to illustrate the  similarity and the differences between these dialects.
 

English	Bau-Jagoi Areas	Penrissen Padawan Areas	Tebekang/Bukar Sadong Areas
eat	man	man	ma'an
drink	nuok	mo-ok	nyihup
die	kobos	kebus	kabus
stand	mujog	mijog	mijok
father	sama	sama	amang
mother	sino	sindo	anduh
rise	mokat	mekat	makat
sleep	bo'os	be'us	bu'us
one	oni	ni	indi
rice	tobi	tubi	sungkoi

Source:  Dundon (1989: 412)

The problems posed by the existence of the dialectal sub-groups is enormous  and becomes  an issue that cannot  be solved overnight.

Education in the Bidayuh Belt
In the past,  education in most of the Bidayuh areas in  Sarawak came about  as the direct result of Christianity.   In the areas where the Bidayuhs community have  embraced Christianity, the Christian missions  opened up schools, and  at these  schools   Bidayuhs children were exposed  to education in which the medium of instruction was English.  In the early 1900s  the Anglican mission established St. James Chapel at Kampong Kuap in Kuching. With the establishment of St. James, the mission  consequently built  four class rooms  block where the earliest primary school with English as a medium of instruction was being  conducted by the Anglican mission.  Subsequently, the mission set up St. Michael  Primary School at Tiang Bukap in the Padawan area. and St. Paul Primary School at Segu  Bunuk in the Penrissen area  respectively, to meet the need for the  growing population from these two areas.
In the Bau district, the Roman Catholic Mission was instrumental in the development educational facilities in the rural areas.  The spread of Catholicism to Bau district in the early 1940s was primarily responsible for the setting up of a mission center (St. Stephen Mission) at Bau bazaar, which was then only known as a small gold mining settlement.  The first school in the district was set up at the mission center itself, and was named St. Stephenís Primary School.  By the 1950s, the mission had outreached further into the more remote areas of the district.

One of the strategies for christianizing of the local tribal communities, in particular the Jagoi, Singghai and Krokong Bidayuhs, was set up basic educational facilities in these communities.  As a result, St. Patrick Primary School was built at Krokong to cater for about five nearby villages (at that time) in the area while in St. John Primary School was built in the Singghai area.  Similarly in the Jagoi area St. Leoís Primary School was built at Kampong Serasot and St. Mark at Kampong Staas.  These schools were only a few of the numerous schools set up by the mission.  The medium of instruction was supposed to be English but for the first three years Bidayuh language was also used as a transition medium.  Most of the teachers at the early stages were missionaries or volunteers.  For the foreign missionaries and teachers of different races, teaching in these pioneer schools was also a place where they learn the local language.  Ability to master the local language and at the same time preaching Christian teachings and values enable these missionaries to spread Catholicism.  Catechism books and church hymns were the first written media available in the Jagoi Bidayuh dialect.

After Sarawak joined the Malaysian Federation  more schools were built as ìGovernment Schoolsî throughout the Bidayuh areas and the rest of Sarawak.  The introduction of Bahasa Malaysia (or merely known as 'Malay') in Bau beginning 1967 was not any easy.  To most Bidayuh communities, the Malay language was as strange as the English language.  Again the use of Bidayuh, albeit informal and normally not encouraged by school authorities, was used as a 'bridging' medium during the children's first few years of schooling.  Thus we can see that the Bidayuh dialect or language was widely used in the past not only as a spoken but written form as a medium of instruction.

For the Serian District, the three missions vis-a-vis the Roman Catholic, Anglican and the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA),  started primary school education at  three different localities.   The Catholic mission  focused their activities much further in the rural areas  of Bunan  Gega in the Tebakang Sub-District to serve Bidayuh villages within the area  and the out skirt of Mongkos sub-district.   The Anglican mission, on the other hand, established  the first school in the Serian District at Kampong Taie. Where as the SDA2 mission, having their head quarters  at  Sunny Hill Kuching set up a sister school at Ayer Manis along the Kuching Serian Road, and a primary school at Kampong Rabak Simboh to serve the Petag-Tuku area.

Since those schools were mission schools the medium of instruction was English, the respective Bidayuh dialects as discussed earlier,  were only taught as a 'vernacular' language.  Simultaneously, all   Bidayuhs students in the Kuching District had to study Biatah, while those in the  Serian District had to take  Bukar-Sadong  dialect and those in the Bau- Jagoi had to take the either the  Jagoi or the Bisinghai dialects.

A recent brief survey  on the schools in the Bidayuh  Belt revealed that there are altogether  ten government secondary schools, of which only three schools had Form Six classes3 . There are also  138 Primary Schools compared to 64 Pre-schools.  All the secondary schools are government secondary schools, while about 70  percent of the Primary Schools are government schools  and 30 percent are government aided schools. The number of primary schools has increased some 10 folds from that of the 1950s.  This suggests that virtually  the spread of Christianity in the Bidayuh Belt  have had  a significant influence in education amongst the Bidayuh.

The implementation of  the Razak Report and the Rahman Talip Report  witnessed the increase in number of primary  government schools  being built in the Bidayuh  Belt4 . The implementation of the policy  meant that the old education curriculum  which was used by the mission schools in the Bidayuh belt had to be ceased to accommodate for the curriculum  recommended by the Razak Report.  The direct consequences of the report were: the abolishment of the Common Entrance Examination,  and the mother-tongue language at the primary school level; the Sarawak Junior Examination (SJC), and the Overseas Senior Cambridge Examination(OSC) at the lower and upper secondary school level respectively.  During the transition period, SJC was replaced by Lower Certificate Examination (LCE), the OSC  was replaced by the Malaysian Certificate Education (MCE), while the HSC was maintained.

With the introduction of Bahasa Melayu as the medium of introduction in  school throughout Sarawak,   the Bidayuh language which was once taught as a vernacular language in most Bidayuh  schools had to be abandoned.  The obvious reason was, students were assigned with  the new task of acquiring  both Bahasa Melayu and English  while they were at  the Primary school.  The above scenarios explicitly describe why the mother tongue of the Bidayuh community in Sarawak  became less prominent in  our Malaysian Schools particularly in Sarawak.
 

Problems 
The problems posed by mother tongue education in the Bidayuh dialects are plenty.  The problem posed by the dialect itself is  one. The Bidayuh dialects  vis; Bau-Jagoi, Biatah, Bukar-Sadong, and Salako-Lara  are dialects  of the minority of the people in Malaysia and in Sarawak in particular..   The Bidayuh dialects is not the language of all areas of activity indulged by  its speakers.  Because of this reason, the Bidayuh dialects are excluded from the formal spheres such as education, administration  and the mass media. As it is  now, the usage of the  Bidayuh dialects are  confined to home and religious activities.

In addition, the existence of the dominant language, Bahasa Melayu  which is being used as the medium of instruction in the education system and official purposes has impeded the use of the Bidayuh dialects. Couple with this problem is,  the Bidayuh dialects  may lack areas of vocabulary found in other language like Iban and Bahasa Melayu. As it is today,  some of the Bidayuhs vocabulary  are being  influenced by that of the dominant language to the extent  of accepting  and borrowing the vocabulary  where native terms do not exist. For example, there is no word in any of the Bidayuh dialects for  'thank you'  or  'good bye'. But as fellow Bidayuhs  socialize with the other ethnic groups,  they begin to say and accept the term 'terima kasih'  to mean thank you, and 'bye-bye' for good bye.

In the context of the Bidayuh dialects, there is no one standard dialect which would represent the Bidayuh  totality. If the  Bidayuh language is to be taught at both pre-school as well at the lower primary school level, the problem which will be with respect to the selection of one dialect to adopt.   At this juncture, the answer is of course, the  mother tongue of the  area.  Hence for a Pre-Schools and Primary  Schools in the Serian District  the obvious choice is the  Bukar Sadong dialect,  Biatah for schools in Kuching District,  Bau-Jagoi or  Bisinghai for schools in Bau and the Jagoi  and Salako-Lara dialect for schools in the  Lundu Districts.

In view of the constraints imposed by the  National Education Policy (NEP), the prospect   of Bidayuh dialects being accorded as a mother tongue  in the  schools within the Bidayuh belt is  bleak.  Even if  the Education Department allows minority languages apart from Mandarin,  Tamil and Iban, there will also be problem in implementing the policy. The problem can be summed as follows.

 Firstly,  the problem of which of the four major dialects do we choose, and from where do we start. If the Bukar-Sadong   is chosen, will the Bukar Sadong dialect be taught at other schools outside the Serian region. What about the other Bidayuh dialect vis: Biatah, Bau-Jagoi and the Bisinghai dialect, and the Salako-Lara dialect in the Lundu area.  Hence, the problem of  standard Bidayuh language or Bahasa Bidayuh  will remained yet to be resolved.

Secondly, there will be the problem of qualified teachers to teach the dialects. Based on my recent observation, there are about  138 Primary Schools and 64 Pre Schools in the Bidayuh Belt with a total number of about 3,500 school teachers.  Although about 80 percent of the 3,500 teachers are Bidayuhs,  none of them has  any form of formal training in teaching  any of the Bidayuh dialects.  In addition,  teacher training colleges in  Sarawak do not  conduct any form of training  to  teach any of the four Bidayuh dialects except for  Bahasa Melayu and English.

Thirdly,  there is no book  or text book written in the Bidayuh dialects.  In the past there were  prayer books or hymns  written in the various dialects by the missionaries   for their use while preaching Christianity  in the Bidayuh villages. In addition to  that, there were story books written in Bidayuh, the famous one written in the Biatah dialect was a story called 'Syun Nyamba Nang,'  but as the Bidayuh community began to be integrated into the education mainstream as demanded by the NEP, such books  are now no longer familiar to  the younger  Bidayuhs  generation.

Lastly, the intra-dialectal and inter-ethnic  marriage or mix-marriage in the Bidayuh communities also contributed to  the decline in the usage of  the Bidayuh  dialects.  For example, a Bidayuh man who hails from  Bau who marries another Bidayuh lady from Serian, their children may end up either speaking Bahasa Melayu or English.  If their parents are educated in English, there is a tendency that their children may speak English. And, if their parent are the by-product of the Bahasa Melayu medium of instruction, their children  will ultimately speak Bahasa Malaysia,  the language their parents used to communicate with them at home. This same case can also be applied to children of a mix-marriage couple. The children of a  Bidayuh man,  for example, who marries   a Chinese wife  may  neither speak any of the Bidayuh dialect  nor  the Chinese dialect, but the language  both mother  and  father speak  at home.  Here,  it could be English or Bahasa Malaysia.  This same problem  could be also applied to  the other  Bidayuhs who marry the other races.

Prospects 
From the problems discussed above, and the constraints imposed  by the National Education Policy, a question worth asking here is, "Is  There Future for Mother Tongue Education in Bidayuh?"  To be pessimistic it seemed that the Bidayuh dialects cannot and will never be a language to be used  in  the  Malaysian education system.  With the shift of emphasis  in the medium of instruction from  English to Bahasa Melayu in the  middle of the 1980s,   teachers in the Bidayuh Belt  have become more competent in teaching  subjects in  Bahasa Melayu.  However, there seems to be some prospect  in introducing the Bidayuh dialects as a third language in the education curriculum especially in Sarawak.

If Bidayuh dialects is to be used a 'vernacular language'  or as a third language in our Malaysian Education, for the  start at least DBNA through the Sarawak Dayak Foundation (SDF) should make submissions to the Ministry of Education on the importance of  Bidayuh dialects as a mother tongue in the pre-schools/primary schools in the Bidayuh Belt.  If this fail, then the next course of action  available  is for the  Bidayuh  representatives both at the State and the Federal level  to lobby to the governments  at both levels to have the Bidayuh language  recognized and taught as a third language.  Bidayuh should be introduced at  pre-school and the junior primary school level.

Another alternative which I feel is more feasible is for DBNA  through its branches and units to conduct  sessions at their respective branches  and  units. At these sessions  Bidayuh students  will be  taught their mother tongue not in school but by DBNA volunteers.  Through this way, more and more younger Bidayuhs generation  would have the opportunity to learn their mother tongue.

The learning of mother tongue should not only be emphasized  in the  education system alone.  The educated Bidayuh parents, especially   inter-marriage couples, should  make it a point  to teach their children how to read and write in  Bidayuh.  Through this way they are able to impart their mother tongue to the  next generation of Bidayuhs.

The effort to promote the use of Bidayuh dialects  amongst the Bidayuh communities in Sarawak  which  was mooted   by Encik Stephen Jussem Dundon, the Deputy President of DBNA in his working paper presented at the first Dayak Bidayuh Cultural Seminar in 1989 could also be  implemented  up by the DBNA, if it wants to popularized the use of the mother tongue in education.  Among  other things,  Dundon  (1989) recommended that  DBNA should set up:

* Language Bureau which will look into various aspects of Bidayuh language and dialects. The Bureau should  collaborate with the Majlis Adat Istiadat, Department of Information, RTM, Department of Education and Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka  to promote the use of the Bidayuh language;

* Adult  Education Committee - which should organize Bidayuh language/dialect classes in towns and kampongs or essay writing competition to be written in the Bidayuhs dialects; and

* Research Committee - which will be responsible for the planning and development of the Bidayuh mother tongue.

While the above recommendations  can  be implemented  by  DBNA, the association, except for  conducting two  adult classes at Kampong Quop in Kuching District and Kampong Kakei in the Serian District respectively, DBNA has not been successful in implementing  the rest of the recommendations (see Dreba, 1997).

DBNA should also encourage the educated Bidayuhs who had the opportunity to learn their mother tongue  to  start thinking of writing  books in Bidayuh which later  on could be adapted in the pre-school and junior primary school curriculum.  This could be done by giving 'seed money' or grants to those who are interested so that they could start  writing.

Conclusion
To recapitulate,  the Dayak  Bidayuhs are a very diverse community not only in term of culture but also the dialects they speak, such  diversity  may impede  any attempt  to teach the Bidayuhs younger generation the  mother tongue.   Apart from that, the constraints form the National Education Policy and the existence of the majority languages such as Bahasa Melayu and English, too further restrict the use of Bidayuh dialects both in schools and officially. Nevertheless,  given the prospects that I have outlined earlier,  Bidayuh dialects could still be learned by the younger generation.

Reference:

Dandot, B. Willson. 1993. 'Promoting Bidayuh Participation in the Modern Market
Economy' paper presented in the Bidayuh Cultural Seminar held on 10th - 13th July at Rajah Court, Kuching.

Department of Statistics. 1997.   Monthly Statistical Bulletin Sarawak.  Kuching:
Department of Statistics, Sarawak Branch.
 

Dreba, Anna. 1997. 'Features on Development: Making Them Read' in  Suara
DBNA. Vol. 3. p. 9. Kuching: DBNA.

Dundon, J. Stephen. 1989. 'Bidayuh Language and Dialects' in Sarawak Museum
Journal, Vol. XL. p. 408-413.

Fowler, H. W. and  Fowler F.G.  (Ed). 1993.  The Concise Dictionary of Current
English.  Oxford:  Clarendon Press.

Grijpstra, B. J. 1976.  Common Efforts in the Development of Rural Sarawak,
Malaysia. Amsterdam: Van Gorcum.

Hussian, Ahmad Atory.  1990.  Politik dan Dasar Awam  Malaysia.  Kuala Lumpur:
Utusan  Publications & Distributors Sdn. Bhd.

Nais, William. 1989. 'Overview of the Bidayuh Culture' in The Sarawak Museum
Journal, Vol. XL.  p.367-371.

Noweg, T. Gabriel, Alexander. A. T. &  Peter, P. Songan. 'Rethinking and
Strengthening Educational Emphasis for Bidayuh Students to Meet Future
Challenges' a paper presented at the Bidayuh Forum on April 20, 1997, at
Pen View  Hotel, Kuching.
 
Noweg, T. Gabriel. 1995. 'Education:  Key Towards Achieving Vision 2020 - The
Bidayuh Context' in  Challenges of Vision 2020 - Bidayuh's Perspective.
Kuching:  Dayak Bidayuh Association (DBNA) (Ed)

Omar, H.  Asmah. 1987. 'Bahasa-Bahasa  Bumiputera di  Sarawak' in the Sarawak
Museum  Journal. Vol. 47. p.145-158.

Ridu, J. Robert. 1989. 'The Custom, Traditions and Practices of the Dayak Bidayuh
and  Their Future' in The Sarawak Museum Journal, Vol. XL.  p.376-390.

Appendix 1
Table 1:  Mid-Year Population Estimates in Sarawak,  by Ethnic Groups and Year.
 

Ethnic Groups	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
Malay	379,000	388,700	398,700	407,600	416,600
Iban	525,600	534,800	544.200	552,100	559,800
Bidayuh	147,000	150,100	153,400	156.600	158,700
Melanau	101,400	103,400	105,500	107,700	109,000
Other Indigenous*	108,100	109,900	115,500	112,900	114,000
Chinese	496,600	505,400	514,200	521,600	529,300
Other **	16,100	16,600	17,000	17,500	17,800
Non - Malaysian Citizens	27,200	33.200	40,000	44,400	48,600
Total	1,801,000	1,842,100	1,885,200	1,919,300	1,954,300

*The other indigenous population includes the Orang Ulu (Kayan, Kenyahs,  Kelabits and  the  Lun Bawangs, Punans, Bisayas, Muruts, Penan, Ukits, Selayan and etc.)

**Includes Indians and Eurasians

Source:  Department of Statistics, Sarawak Branch, 1997

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