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The Management and Implementation of a Language Revitalization Project in Malaysia and Indonesia

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The Management and Implementation of a Language Revitalization Project in Malaysia and Indonesia International Journal of Management (IJM) Volume 11, Issue 9, September 2020, pp. 990-998, Article ID: IJM_11_09_093 Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=9 ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510 DOI: 10.34218/IJM.11.9.2020.093 © IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed THE MANAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A LANGUAGE REVITALIZATION PROJECT IN MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA James T. Collins Distinguished Professor, Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), The National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia Chong Shin* Associate Professor, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA), The National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia Jamil Patty Lecturer, Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan Gotong Royong, Masohi, Central Maluku, Indonesia. Ajas Tihurua Research Assistant, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA), The National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia *Correspondence Author ABSTRACT There is now a complex generational rift reflected in attitudes towards language choice and language use due to the rapid expansion of schools, communication networks and new roads in both Malaysia and Indonesia. In the last 20-30 years, many communities have shifted from their traditional languages to dialects of the national languages of these two countries. This paper outlines the management and the implementation of a language revitalization project funded by the Toyota Foundation (Japan) in different villages, i.e. Tellian village (Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia), Desa Pagal (West Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia) and Sepa (Seram, Maluku, Indonesia). The objective of the project was to survey the rift in language choice among the oldest generation, their children and youth under the age of 25 at these three villages. Then, the research team worked with villagers to find ways to bridge the intergenerational gap. The activities organized in this language revitalization project were: sponsoring local language contests, encouraging local language teaching in pre-school, meeting with villagers as well as government officials, distributing t-shirts with slogans in the local languages of the project, distributing captioned videos through YouTube and other electronic media. Through http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 990 [email protected] The Management and Implementation of a Language Revitalization Project in Malaysia and Indonesia the in situ interactions with the local communities, it was learned that the loss of minority languages is an ongoing and critical phenomenon. Through these experiences and strategies, the team members realized that the path towards ensuring language maintenance is the commitment of the language community is to the transmission of its heritage language to the youngest generation by using it and by making it a valuable part of day-to-day life. Key words: Language Documentation, Revitalization, Endangered languages. Cite this Article: James T. Collins, Chong Shin, Jamil Patty and Ajas Tihurua, The Management and Implementation of a Language Revitalization Project in Malaysia and Indonesia, International Journal of Management, 11(9), 2020, pp. 990-998. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJM?Volume=11&Issue=9 1. INTRODUCTION In the last twenty years, the documentation of endangered languages has emerged as a new subfield of linguistics with its own contemporary priorities and procedures. Twentieth century documentation, while based on data collection working with indigenous speakers to build a corpus of the language under study, was focused on producing grammars and lexicons, perhaps with some exemplary texts. The documentation of languages in this century produced a large quantity of language materials. However, many scholars would say that this documentation was simply language description and that today the focus needs to be on the data collected, the narratives, the texts, not on the linguistic analyses (see Himmelmann 1998). Twenty-first century documentation is markedly different from twentieth century documentation. There are several features of language documentation that merit highlighting. First, contemporary documentation emphasizes close collaboration with language communities. Second, documentation consists chiefly of making high-quality audio and video recordings. Third, the diversity of the registers and varieties of a language must be reflected by working with a variety of speakers in the language community. The intense interest in language documentation that has emerged in this century is not an unforeseen result of technological advances in multimedia and big data corpora. Today’s language documentation certainly draws on those technologies and resources but the impetus remains a sociological fact: language obsolescence and language death. The imminent loss of half of the world’s languages, precisely those languages that have been overlooked or understudied, is viewed as a depletion or diminishment of empirical resources for linguists. In other words, language documentation is for linguists and perhaps useful for a language community’s efforts to revitalize their language. Apparently, language revitalization is merely a second thought or a spin-off of the language documentation movement! Language revitalization is different from language documentation. While we definitely support language documentation, we must explore language revitalization as a separate enterprise, an enterprise in which revitalization comes first and documentation is a secondary product. In the following pages, a brief description of the plans and strategies for a language revitalization project in selected area in Malaysia and Indonesia is sketched out. 2. PROJECT INTRODUCTION This language revitalization project funded in late 2016 by the Toyota Foundation International Grant Program (Japan). Project D16-N-0074 (II-2018-003), entitled Attitudes Towards Language Choice and Ethnicity: Multigenerational Divergence and Rapprochement, is an international endeavor involving research sites in two Asian countries, Indonesia and http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 991 [email protected] James T. Collins, Chong Shin, Jamil Patty and Ajas Tihurua Malaysia, under the direction of Dr. Chong Shin of the National University of Malaysia. The research plan was based on contemporary issues faced by heritage language communities in the region. Clearly, the rapid expansion of schools, communication networks and new roads in both Malaysia and Indonesia has impacted local communities. There is now a complex generational rift reflected in attitudes towards language choice and language use. In the last 20-30 years, many communities have shifted from their traditional languages to dialects of the national languages of these two countries. This endeavor can be considered a very focused micro-project conducted in three different villages but with the same procedures and aims. The three sites are: Tellian village in Mukah, Sarawak (Malaysia), Desa Pagal in Kalimantan Barat (Indonesia) and Sepa in Seram, Maluku (Indonesia). See Map 1 for an overview of the three research sites. Figure 1 The three sites of the Toyota project (2016-2018) Each of these villages speaks a different Austronesian language. In Tellian, the Melanau language is the heritage language (see Chou 2002). Melanau with about 30,000 speakers is spoken in and around Tellian but in limited domains; the youngest generation in Tellian is unlikely to speak Melanau in public spaces. Pagal is a village located a 2-3 hour drive south of Kalimantan Barat’s second largest city, Sintang. The traditional language of the village is Desa, a language related to Iban and spoken by perhaps 40,000 people in Kalimantan Barat; see Herpanus (2009). Enhanced education and communication infrastructure as well as the presence of recently established hamlets of non-indigenous neighbors have had a negative impact on the use of the Desa language; many younger Pagal villagers (perhaps 60% of the total Desa population in the village) are not fluent speakers of their ancestral language. Much further to the east, the village of Sepa is located on the south coast of Seram. The Sepa language is spoken in a number of villages eastward along the south coast of Seram, albeit with different names and in different dialects (Collins 1983). In Sepa village, the language is spoken widely by villagers aged 25 and above; but only some of the villagers aged 25 or below can communicate in their heritage language. 3. OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT The objective of the project was to survey the rift in language choice among the oldest generation, their children and youth under 25 in three disparate villages in two different countries: Maluku (Indonesia), Indonesian Borneo and Malaysian Borneo. Then, working http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJM 992 [email protected] The Management and Implementation of a Language Revitalization Project in Malaysia and Indonesia with villagers the plan was aimed at finding ways to bridge the intergenerational gap. There were four immediate goals. First, practitioners need to understand the extent of the problem. Minority languages are becoming obsolescent and face extinction across these two countries. This is not a localized problem in their village or region. The distance between Sarawak and Maluku exceeds 2000 km. In between there are many, maybe, hundreds of threatened languages. By meeting and teaching each other about their areas and their situations they can understand the breadth and depth of the problem. Second, this issue can be addressed with collaboration and discussion
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