Workers in the field of languages tread new territory

Jakarta, Indonesia
Workers in the field of languages tread new territory
November 06, 2007
Janika Gelinek, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20071105.R01&irec=0
Once upon a time, Ungan and Aw‚ decided not to go home after working in thefields. Instead, they stayed by a river and goofed around with a dog.They were sending the dog to and fro over the water when suddenly stone raincame down, turning them into stones. And their crime? They did not come homeand make fun of a dog.The story could have been lost had Italian linguist Antonia Soriente fromthe Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Jakarta not goneand documented Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit languages in Malinau and Bulunganregency in Eastern Kalimantan.Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit, in which the story above was narrated, are justtwo of the endangered languages in Indonesia, spoken only by a few thousandpeople in Malinau and Bulungan."When you look at what is happening around you, you see languages dying on alarge scale, especially in the eastern part of Indonesia such as Papua andthe Maluku islands," said Uri Tadmor of the Jakarta Field Station.Established in 1999 by Uri Tadmor and David Gil, the Jakarta Field Stationstarted off by collecting data on child language. In collaboration with theJakarta Atma Jaya Catholic University, it is currently hosting about 25researchers from Indonesia and abroad who are studying Indonesian languagesfrom the islands of West Sumatra all the way to Papua.Indonesia has around 700 languages, but the widespread use of BahasaIndonesia has pushed many of those languages to the brink of extinction,placing the national language on a par with English, Spanish and French as"killer" languages.According to Tadmor, there are many reasons why languages in the country arefacing extinction, including people's low level of respect for indigenouslanguages.the speakers themselves don't attach much importance to their ownlanguages," said Tadmor, adding that the children of inter-race couplestended to speak only Bahasa Indonesia."Indigenous languages are also not used in the education system, and thustheir survival is neither financially nor politically supported," Tadmorsaid.In theory, any indigenous language can be taught in a state elementaryschool. But in reality, schools usually offer only Javanese, Sundanese andBalinese, and rarely would these be the primary language of instruction."It is totally meaningless to the kids and the kids hate it," Tadmor said.According to Tadmor, there is not much hope the situation will be reversedas these languages are generally considered not worth keeping."It's a vicious circle. People who speak a small indigenous language come tolook down on their language, because there is no official recognition ofit," said Tadmor, adding that only non-nationals had come here to work withindigenous communities.The researchers at the field station are studying how languages cross,enrich and endanger each other, with many of them focusing on endangeredlanguages."Languages reflect a view of the world. They are an essential component ofthe living heritage of humanity, therefore they belong to the intangiblecultural heritage that needs to be safeguarded," Italian linguist AntoniaSoriente said."Languages are vehicles of value systems and of cultural expressions andthey constitute a determining factor in the identity of groups andindividuals. They transmit knowledge, values and collective memory and playan essential role in cultural vitality."A book Soriente carefully edited - Mencaleny & Usung Bayung Marang - acollection of Kenyah stories in Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit languagesis afirst in more than one sense. Not only have these stories never beentranslated into Indonesian or English, they have not even been writtendown.In order to give access to the Kenyah stories of Ungan and Aw‚ or the cleverMp‚ and her stupid husband Buzu, Soriente had to develop a new orthographicsystem for the entirely oral languages."Linguists are not really social workers. We are not activists who try to goto the field and say, hey, you need to speak your language. But we want toraise awareness of linguistic diversity and give something back to thecommunity and some tools with which, if they want to, they can help theirlanguage to survive", says Soriente.When the book was published last year it was first sent to the communitiesthat had been involved in the project."They were quite startled to see that something had emerged, that theirlanguage had been written down and that it was written next to BahasaIndonesia and English. They said, `Oh, now we can study English through ourlanguage!'"During Soriente's visit, the Malinau regent made for the very first time aspeech entirely in the local language of Lebu' Kulit and people alsostarted using the new orthographic system to send text messages."Suddenly they realized there is no law that says you have to use onlyBahasa Indonesian", Soriente said.Her colleague Betty Litamahuputty has had similar experiences. Litamahuputtyparticipates in a team that has intensively studied the highly endangeredlanguages of the Maluku islands, among them Kouro, spoken only in fivevillages on the island of Seram. Together with linguists from Australia'sMonash University and the local communities, Litamahuputty developedstorybooks in Kouro. Teams were formed among the villagers and sent out toliterally document their language."We gave them some cameras and they had to figure out what kind of eventthey wanted to document. It was the clove-harvest season. They were takingpictures of what they thought was important about the harvest. And thenthey had to ask the village people or somebody who knew the language how tosay this or that in Kouro. And then they tried to write it down. In this waythey were able to make their own storybooks bilingual, in Malay and thelocal language. And that was to show that by very simple means they couldmake their own storybook, which they could use in school for instance. Justwith a notebook, a camera and a pen you can make a book about whatever youwant," said Litamahuputty.Furthermore a story in Malay has been developed by project leader MargaretFlorey about a family going in the woods and working there in a garden, the"garden story". This story has been "fed" with significant linguisticstructures to find out how speakers from different local communities onSeram island would translate the same story in their language.Additionally the linguists made vitality tests in order to see whether theinhabitants could still communicate in their language or only knew a fewwords. As expected it turned out that in many cases elderly people stillhad some knowledge of the language, but only a few people were actuallyable to have a conversation in it.Surprisingly the patterns were the same in Christian and Muslim villages,such as in Allang and Ruta."People always thought indigenous languages were more likely to be preservedin Muslim villages, but instead they had the same curve as the Christianvillages, where we already know that the language has died out," saidLitamahuputty.A workbook used in workshops with local communities will be published nextyear to demonstrate not only how to learn a language, but also how togather information from local speakers - how to make sentences, how tofigure out their structure and what the grammar might be like."Thus, local communities might take the survival of their language intotheir own hands," Litamahuputty said.
November 06, 2007
Janika Gelinek, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20071105.R01&irec=0
Once upon a time, Ungan and Aw‚ decided not to go home after working in thefields. Instead, they stayed by a river and goofed around with a dog.They were sending the dog to and fro over the water when suddenly stone raincame down, turning them into stones. And their crime? They did not come homeand make fun of a dog.The story could have been lost had Italian linguist Antonia Soriente fromthe Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Jakarta not goneand documented Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit languages in Malinau and Bulunganregency in Eastern Kalimantan.Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit, in which the story above was narrated, are justtwo of the endangered languages in Indonesia, spoken only by a few thousandpeople in Malinau and Bulungan."When you look at what is happening around you, you see languages dying on alarge scale, especially in the eastern part of Indonesia such as Papua andthe Maluku islands," said Uri Tadmor of the Jakarta Field Station.Established in 1999 by Uri Tadmor and David Gil, the Jakarta Field Stationstarted off by collecting data on child language. In collaboration with theJakarta Atma Jaya Catholic University, it is currently hosting about 25researchers from Indonesia and abroad who are studying Indonesian languagesfrom the islands of West Sumatra all the way to Papua.Indonesia has around 700 languages, but the widespread use of BahasaIndonesia has pushed many of those languages to the brink of extinction,placing the national language on a par with English, Spanish and French as"killer" languages.According to Tadmor, there are many reasons why languages in the country arefacing extinction, including people's low level of respect for indigenouslanguages.the speakers themselves don't attach much importance to their ownlanguages," said Tadmor, adding that the children of inter-race couplestended to speak only Bahasa Indonesia."Indigenous languages are also not used in the education system, and thustheir survival is neither financially nor politically supported," Tadmorsaid.In theory, any indigenous language can be taught in a state elementaryschool. But in reality, schools usually offer only Javanese, Sundanese andBalinese, and rarely would these be the primary language of instruction."It is totally meaningless to the kids and the kids hate it," Tadmor said.According to Tadmor, there is not much hope the situation will be reversedas these languages are generally considered not worth keeping."It's a vicious circle. People who speak a small indigenous language come tolook down on their language, because there is no official recognition ofit," said Tadmor, adding that only non-nationals had come here to work withindigenous communities.The researchers at the field station are studying how languages cross,enrich and endanger each other, with many of them focusing on endangeredlanguages."Languages reflect a view of the world. They are an essential component ofthe living heritage of humanity, therefore they belong to the intangiblecultural heritage that needs to be safeguarded," Italian linguist AntoniaSoriente said."Languages are vehicles of value systems and of cultural expressions andthey constitute a determining factor in the identity of groups andindividuals. They transmit knowledge, values and collective memory and playan essential role in cultural vitality."A book Soriente carefully edited - Mencaleny & Usung Bayung Marang - acollection of Kenyah stories in Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit languagesis afirst in more than one sense. Not only have these stories never beentranslated into Indonesian or English, they have not even been writtendown.In order to give access to the Kenyah stories of Ungan and Aw‚ or the cleverMp‚ and her stupid husband Buzu, Soriente had to develop a new orthographicsystem for the entirely oral languages."Linguists are not really social workers. We are not activists who try to goto the field and say, hey, you need to speak your language. But we want toraise awareness of linguistic diversity and give something back to thecommunity and some tools with which, if they want to, they can help theirlanguage to survive", says Soriente.When the book was published last year it was first sent to the communitiesthat had been involved in the project."They were quite startled to see that something had emerged, that theirlanguage had been written down and that it was written next to BahasaIndonesia and English. They said, `Oh, now we can study English through ourlanguage!'"During Soriente's visit, the Malinau regent made for the very first time aspeech entirely in the local language of Lebu' Kulit and people alsostarted using the new orthographic system to send text messages."Suddenly they realized there is no law that says you have to use onlyBahasa Indonesian", Soriente said.Her colleague Betty Litamahuputty has had similar experiences. Litamahuputtyparticipates in a team that has intensively studied the highly endangeredlanguages of the Maluku islands, among them Kouro, spoken only in fivevillages on the island of Seram. Together with linguists from Australia'sMonash University and the local communities, Litamahuputty developedstorybooks in Kouro. Teams were formed among the villagers and sent out toliterally document their language."We gave them some cameras and they had to figure out what kind of eventthey wanted to document. It was the clove-harvest season. They were takingpictures of what they thought was important about the harvest. And thenthey had to ask the village people or somebody who knew the language how tosay this or that in Kouro. And then they tried to write it down. In this waythey were able to make their own storybooks bilingual, in Malay and thelocal language. And that was to show that by very simple means they couldmake their own storybook, which they could use in school for instance. Justwith a notebook, a camera and a pen you can make a book about whatever youwant," said Litamahuputty.Furthermore a story in Malay has been developed by project leader MargaretFlorey about a family going in the woods and working there in a garden, the"garden story". This story has been "fed" with significant linguisticstructures to find out how speakers from different local communities onSeram island would translate the same story in their language.Additionally the linguists made vitality tests in order to see whether theinhabitants could still communicate in their language or only knew a fewwords. As expected it turned out that in many cases elderly people stillhad some knowledge of the language, but only a few people were actuallyable to have a conversation in it.Surprisingly the patterns were the same in Christian and Muslim villages,such as in Allang and Ruta."People always thought indigenous languages were more likely to be preservedin Muslim villages, but instead they had the same curve as the Christianvillages, where we already know that the language has died out," saidLitamahuputty.A workbook used in workshops with local communities will be published nextyear to demonstrate not only how to learn a language, but also how togather information from local speakers - how to make sentences, how tofigure out their structure and what the grammar might be like."Thus, local communities might take the survival of their language intotheir own hands," Litamahuputty said.