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P. Sercombe Ethno-linguistic change among the Penan of ; Some initial observations

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 152 (1996), no: 2, Leiden, 257-274

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Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access PETER G. SERCOMBE Ethno-Linguistic Change among the Penan of Brunei Some Initial Observations*

Introduction Negara Brunei Darussalam (henceforth Brunei) is a small multi-ethnic, multilingual country. The is Brunei , and three other dialects of Malay are spoken as well as seven non-Malay isolects (Nothofer 1991:151); among this latter group Iban, Mukah and Penan are considered immigrant to Brunei. The Penan language spoken in Brunei is of the eastern variety1, used by those Penan who occur to the east of the Baram River in and within the Kenyah subgroup (Blust 1972:13).

Aim This paper aims to examine some non-Penan lexical and discourse features that have been noted in current language use in the Penan language of Brunei (henceforth Sukang Penan), and to compare these with a similar situation in Long Buang Penan in neighbouring Sarawak.2 The main concern here is to show the discrepancy between the position of discrete lexical items and the use of lexis in spontaneous discourse in Sukang. To my knowledge (and Langub's, personal communication) there presently exist no in-depth studies relating to the Penan language varieties of . To date there have been a number of wordlists published, most

* I wish to thank Kelly Donovan for producing the maps and both Peter Martin and Rodney Needham for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Any inaccuracies remain the sole responsibility of the author. 1 This is in contrast to the western variety, spoken by the Penan who live to the west of the Baram River in Sarawak, as distinguished by Needham (1972:171). 2 It forms part of a Universiti Brunei Darussalam project, 'Sukang Penan; A lexical description and comparison with adjacent varieties'.

PETER G. SERCOMBE is a lecturer in the Department of and Applied Linguistics at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Among his academic interests are: the culture and language of the Penan of Brunei and eastern Sarawak and the manner in which their language is being eroded due to external influences. His publications include 'The Penan of Brunei; Patterns of linguistic interaction', (with P.W. Martin) in: P.W. Martin (ed.), Shifting patterns of language use in Borneo, Williamsburg: Borneo Research Council, 1994, and An annotated bibliography of the Penan of Brunei, Brunei: Universiti Brunei Darussalam, in press. Mr. Sercombe's address is: DELAL, FASS, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, 2028 Brunei.

BKI 152-11 (1996) Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access -

BELAIT : :\AApak-Apak \

Key O = Dusun longhouse A = Iban longhouse D = Penanlonghouse • = = boundary - - • • = boundary in the = river SCALE 1 : 750,000 •.._ = international border

Map 1. in the Belait District of Brunei Darussalam.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access Ethno-Linguistic Change among the Penan of Brunei 259 amounting to fewer than 400 lexical items: Ray (1913), Andreini (1935), Urquhart (1955), Tuton (1965) and Nothofer (1991), with only Zainuddin (1986) focusing on the Penan language of Brunei. There has also been an introductory outline of the grammar (Asmah 1979) and a brief exploration of the extent to which 'Punan'3 languages constitute part of a homo- geneous linguistic heritage (Sellato 1994:59-64). There is also at the moment an ongoing study of focus in Eastern Penan (Clayre forthcoming). In addition, a recent paper by Martin and Sercombe (1994) provides a brief socio-linguistic account of the situation among the Penan Sukang, which to a large extent stands as a forerunner to the present article.

Background: The linguistic situations in Sukang and Long Buang The Penan of Sukang number just forty-nine people and inhabit a small longhouse on the left bank of the Belait River in Sukang village. The Penan longhouse constitutes one of seven native settlements4 in the relatively sparsely populated mukim5 of Sukang in the southern part of the Belait District of Brunei. Sukang village is presently only accessible via a two-hour private boat journey from Pengkalan Mau, itself about forty minutes by road from the coastal of , the administrative centre of the district. The Penan have been settled since 1962, when they were persuaded to relinquish their nomadic way of life by the Dusun (of Sukang), with whom they were barter trading at the time. The Penan live on the opposite bank of the Belait River from the Dusun, both groups otherwise surrounded by Iban settlements (in the surrounding area of this mukim). There is a certain amount of intermarriage among the Penan, with betrothal to Iban being more common than to Dusun. According to Nothofer (1991:157) and Martin and Sercombe (1994:170), Iban is the for Sukang village, and consequently for the whole mukim - a situation not wholly surprising, given the relatively high numbers and distribution of Iban who inhabit the area.6 As a further consequence, the Penan Sukang are at least bilingual, with Iban as their , besides a knowledge of Dusun and Malay7, and in some cases a little English (for those who have attended primary and possibly secondary school). While Iban is the

3 For further discussion of the terms 'Penan' and 'Punan' the reader is referred to Hoffman (1986:6-7), Needham (1953:27) and Rousseau (1988:8-9); for their par- ticular relevance to the Penan Sukang, see Martin and Sercombe (1994:173). 4 The others include the outlying Iban longhouses Apak-Apak, Buau, Dungun, Biadong Tengah, Biadong Ulu and the Dusun longhouse in the village of Sukang. 5 A mukim is an area under the leadership of a government-appointed headman or . 6 Exact numbers for the Iban are not known, but they are thought to comprise 79% of the population of mukim Sukang, which presently stands at around 430 individuals. 7 It has been remarked that Penan children have not had great success, to date, in their efforts to learn Malay at the Sukang village primary school (Bandang 1984).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access SOUTH CHINA SEA

• = Kay an longhouse D = Penan longhouse • = Town = district boundaries = Mukim Sukang boundary = river ... = international border

Map 2. Long Buang in Sarawak in relation to Sukang in Brunei Darussalam.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access Ethno-Linguistic Change among the Penan of Brunei 261 accepted medium of inter-ethnic communication, it has also begun to encroach on the home domain, as Martin and Sercombe (1994:171) have noted. Of further significance is the fact that some of the Penan have embraced . The nearest blood relatives of the Penan Sukang reside in the village of Long Buang, on the Apoh River, in neighbouring Sarawak.8 In contrast to the Penan Sukang, those in Long Buang (numbering more than two hundred people) comprise a more discrete linguistic entity, living as a single relatively homogeneous ethnic group, about fifteen minutes by river above the very large and prosperous Kayan village of Long Bemang (see map 2). There is less evidence of in Long Buang, although there are of course Penans who have married into other groups (Penan or otherwise) and who have mostly moved away from the village.9 Except when outsiders come to Long Buang, Penan is the sole medium of communication in the village (as one would assume), although there is a wide knowledge of both Kayan and Bazaar Malay. Data collection The reason for this paper arose during a visit to Sukang, when the author offered to bear messages and greetings to relatives in Long Buang in Sarawak, where he intended to collect lexis (based on an expanded version of the Swadesh list10) for comparison with vocabulary gathered in Sukang. While tape-recording spontaneous messages in Sukang, it became clear that Penan was not being used exclusively as the medium of inter- group communication. While this realization was not greatly in conflict with observations of intra-group discourse in Sukang village earlier described by Martin and Sercombe (1994:171), it jarred on two counts. Firstly, the Penan Sukang were addressing fellow-Penans (albeit not face- to-face) whom they had not seen for years, so that one might have expected them to empathize and convey 'Penanness' through the use of language: an unmarked choice of language would have shown an 'expected interpersonal relationship' (Myers-Scotton 1993a:75). Second- ly, there were occurrences of Iban and Malay for which there are suitable Penan equivalents for the discourse domains analysed. A similar phenom- enon was later noted in Long Buang in Sarawak. It thus became clear that the vocabulary I was collecting for lexicographic purposes did not always reflect the actual use of vocabulary in spontaneous speech." An exam- s Refer to Needham (1971:209) and Martin and Sercombe (1992:87) for further consideration of the consanguinity of these two groups. 9 Non-Penans (especially males) who marry into Penan groups tend not to live in Penan . 10 This was compiled by Peter Martin (in press) of Universiti Brunei Darussalam for his study of the Belait language. 11 Cf. McLellan (1994:198), in a discussion of language choice among speakers of the Bau-Jagoi isolect of Sarawak, in which he extols the virtues of analysing the

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ination of these tape-recorded messages and consideration of the extent of admixture or incorporated phenomena, as well as an attempt to account for their occurrence, were therefore deemed pertinent.12 Linguistic consider- ations have been juxtaposed with certain extra-linguistic information and an attempt has been made to hypothesize about the extent to which social processes might be held accountable for these variants in language use (Gal 1979:3) or about why actuation has taken place. Obviously no society or human group remains static, and while the incorporations de- scribed here are identified as novel, this is not to suggest that Penan is a closed or finite system, but rather that it shares tendencies with languages in other language contact situations, where adaptation is exemplified in the first instance by lexical change and evolution (since lexis is more susceptible to interference and adjustment than the phonology, syntax or morphology of a language). I acknowledge that these efforts to highlight apparent in Sukang may contribute little to our overall knowledge of the direction and extent of socio-linguistic change within the area being examined (cf. Lieberson 1980:11), given that this study is essentially synchronic. Other limitations include the limited length of the recorded passages of spontaneous speech examined and the fact that these are in the form of monologues. Perhaps the study would have gained greater validity if recorded dialogues had been available. Also, the sample was narrow, in that only the speech of adult males was examined. The use of a tape-recorder, the author's presence in the Penan longhouse, and his rather more passive than active knowledge of Penan may all have influenced the kind of language used, although to what extent this is so is hard to gauge until further studies of a comparable nature are carried out. (The recordings in both Long Buang and Sukang were made in the participants' own homes, however, so that the speech situation is not felt to have been overtly contrived or formal.) There is the possibility that the speech of the Sukang participants affected the responses of their Long Buang relatives, whose replies may have been cued by the kind of language they heard from the speakers in Sukang. Finally, there is the question of using lexical interference as a measure of language change without a more thorough consideration of phonology, syntax and morpho- logy (cf. Weinrich 1953:2).

Analysis of data: Methodology The findings presented here (table 1) are based on a close analysis of recordings of spoken messages by three adult male residents from Sukang and three from Long Buang: the majority of incorporations occurred in the spontaneous discourse of a language, over the collection of lexis, as a measure of its homogeneity. 12 The term 'incorporated phenomena' is used here to denote foreign items that indicate a deviation from the perceived linguistic norms of Penan.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access Ethno-Linguistic Change among the Penan of Brunei 263 form of code-mixing, taken here as being intrasentential, representing mostly single lexical items that were semantic rather than grammatical in nature. There also occurred code-switching, taken in the sense of inter- sentential incorporations for the purposes of this study.13 The data consist of: (a) non-Penan lexis embedded in the Penan matrix of discourse that are known to have Penan semantic equivalents that could have been employed in place of the interference phenomena; and (b) certain phrases that have no semantic Penan equivalents but seem to indicate a shift and/or expansion of the language corpus to accommodate the changing circum- stances of the Penan. Individual words that have no apparent Penan lexical equivalents, which could be considered as borrowings for new objects or concepts (termed 'cultural borrowed lexemes' (Myers-Scotton 1993b:5)), are not included, however, e.g., hormat (Malay: 'honour' or 'respect'), cuti (Malay: 'holiday(s)'), and the English 'committee'. No cognates14 (e.g., minggu (Malay: 'week') > migu (Penan); sendiri (Malay: 'oneself) > sediri (Penan)) are cited, or words that have become widely absorbed throughout the indigenous non-Malay isolects of Brunei and Sarawak (e.g., wang: 'money', and the caique orang putih: 'white man').15

Analysis: An overview of incorporations in the discourse of Sukang and Long Buang Most of the incorporations occurred as code-mixing, although there also occurred code-switching, which was always from Penan to lexemes of Malay origin. Speakers from Sukang tended to focus on village, family and personal matters; in Long Buang these topics were also addressed, but one individual in particular also spoke of other issues, especially the circum- stances of the Penan in relation to the world beyond the village, which necessarily included a description of social and material changes and the way in which Penans perceive themselves to be affected by these. I would tentatively postulate that these matters require the use of language pertinent to these changes and that Malay helped satisfy this requirement, particularly in relation to the instances of code-switching. In other words,

13 All the incorporations except three are considered as instances of mixed speech, as they appear to have been assimilated both phonologically and syntactically. 14 According to Nothofer (1991:158), on the basis of a comparison using the Swadesh 200-word wordlist, Penan is 29% with Peninsular Standard Malay (and up to 2% less cognate with the three other varieties of Malay in Brunei ). I would add that this percentage should not necessarily be generalized to Penan Malay cognation beyond the 200 items. Professor Needham (personal communication) calculated, on the basis of a comprehensive comparison using Southwell's (1980) dictionary of Kayan, that the Kayan language of Central Borneo is just 4% cognate with Standard Malay. 15 The division between borrowings from Malay and between Penan and Malay remains a blurred one without further research into the Penan language. Nevertheless, that does not affect the purpose or findings of this study, where Penan semantic equivalents have been identified for the non-Penan phenomena listed here.

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Table 1. Incorporations of non-Penan lexis in spontaneous Penan speech Sukang Long Buang Glosses

Speakers> I 11 in rv VI Penan English No. Lexis 1 jalan 2 4 l 4 lakau/tai go 11 2 awak 1 ka'au you 1 3 jako * 1 3 1 1 bara'/pane' say 6 4 bukan 2 l 1 be' not 4 5 bulan 1 laseh jah poioo December 1 duabelas dua 6 mahal 1 ma'an expensive 1 7 ka' • 1 3 1 kelo' want 5 8 ma'af 2 menyat apun apologize 2 9 semua 2 4 kekat all 6 10 hitam 1 1 padeng black 2 11 dan 2 ngan and 2 12terus 1 1 teneng directly 2 13 nusi # 1 be' no 1 14 lama 1 leveh long (time) 1 15 nadai * 1 be' no 1 16orang 2 irah person(s) 2 17 apa boleh 1 1 2 7 ineu omok what can one 11 buat? maneu? do? 18 Bad an 1 Weak body so 1 lemah can't do much, tidak berdaya, like a worm macam ulat dying on a leaf. inati di daun. 19 kuat 1 gahang strong 1 20 perlu 4 1 guneh need 5 21ada 1 pu'un have 1 22 tidak jauh 1 be' jooh not far 1 23 nak belajar 1 kelo' ajar iteu want to learn 1 ini this 24 ingat 1 1 nesen remember 2 25 jalan-jaian 1 lakau wander 1 26 melawat 2 lakau nepak visit 2 27 boleh 1 omok can/able 1 28 faham 1 jam understand 1 29 berapa 2 pina much 2 30 macam 1 barii' like/similar 1 31 senang 1 3 lumang easy 4 32 sama-sama 1 barii' like/similar 1 33 masa 1 4 avah time 5 34 ambil 1 1 alaa' take 2 35 boleh 1 omok may/can 1 36 patut 1 2 lekep proper 3

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37 ulih * 1 omok can/able 1 38 rasa 1 kenin feel 1 39 tiap-tiap 1 siget-siget each 1 40 satu 1 jah one 1 41 kawan 2 keruah/bakei friend 2 42 paksa 1 muhun have to 1

Items are of Malay origin except: *=Iban; #=Kayan.

THE SPEAKERS: BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS Sukang

I, Udhi anak Kutok Approximately 40 years old; unmarried. He has referred to himself as 'kitai Ivan' in conversation with the author's wife. Presently employed full-time by the Brunei forestry department to plant in a down-river area. He often resides with his brother (who is married to an Iban) either in an Iban longhouse or in an environment where Ibans are in the majority.

//. Luyah anak Kaling (headman of Penan Sukang) Approximately 55 years old. He farms a little; has a permanent job as a grass cutter in Sukang under the aegis of the government district office; is occasionally commissioned to cull stray dogs in coastal areas; necessarily comes into contact with the Malay-dominated bureaucracy in his role as headman. He occasionally wears a loincloth; he has long hair in the traditional style and pierced earlobes into which the teeth of a carnivorous animal might be slotted.

///. Umin anak Baying Approximately 33 years old. He farms almost exclusivley and is married with 7 children; he previously lived in Long Buang. He rarely travels down river; he has very occasional work for the district office in Sukang. He also sent a message to Long Buang in Iban, for the benefit of those who could understand, he said.

Long Buang They are all Evangelist Christians (nominally at least). They have occupied a permanent settlement on the Apoh River since 1928, although not always in the same spot.

IV. Avun anak Julong (headman of Long Buang) In his fifties. He has a large farm and employs other Penans from the village to farm for him, as well as cut wood for sale. He travels more than other Penans in the village through his business with the Kayans in Long Bemang and as a headman; he thus mixes widely with other native groups and the Malay-dominated bureaucracy. He has long hair in the traditional style and pierced earlobes into which the teeth of a carnivorous animal might be slotted.

V. Ayak anak Wing Around twenty-six years old, he has had three years of primary education. He is a farmer and has worked down river in Marudi on express boats, but disliked it. He is conscious of what he sees as the declining circumstances of the Penans, at the same time being proud of being one; he is a witty and articulate speaker, and when the headman has been absent, he has taken it upon himself to act as spokesman for the village.

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VI Melai anak Bali In his mid-twenties; he has had three years of primary education. He is a farmer and has worked down river in Marudi, but disliked it; he is also very conscious of the lack of material wealth among the Penan in Sarawak, in relation to other groups, and of what he perceives as the present disqualification of the Penan from being masters of their own circumstances.

Penan may well have been substituted by Malay in places because it did not sufficiently convey the required nuance of meaning for the circum- stances being described (cf. Kalantzis, Cope and Slade 1989:25; and Heller 1988:10).

Iban incorporations As one would expect, Iban occurred more often in the discourse of Sukang speakers than in that of Long Buang Penan. The difference in frequency is not surprising, given the number and proximity of Iban in the mukim of Sukang (in relation to the Penan) and the role of the language as a local lingua franca. The single anomaly was the occurrence of the Iban word ulihi6 (meaning 'able' or 'can') in Long Buang speech (rather than the Kayan deng, the Malay boleh, or the Penan equivalent omok). What is surprising is the relatively small number of intrusions of purely Iban origin as compared with those of Malay origin in the speech of Sukang residents. This is especially conspicuous when one considers that one woman sent a message in Iban to her relatives, giving the reason that, while she is and remains a Penan, she is more used to conversing in the (cf. Edwards 1984:304). Perhaps she chose Iban because she viewed it as the appropriately formal code for addressing people with whom she was relatively unfamiliar (Chambers and Trudgill 1980:98; cf. also Mougeon and Beniak 1991:227), besides its being the prestigious and predominant language variety of mukim Sukang, as well as because it signalled her pride in a perceived rise in status as a result of the use of this code. On another occasion one of the Sukang speakers moreover referred to himself as kitai Ivan (meaning 'I/we Iban') - an unquestionably conscious statement of identity. It was also noted that the Iban spoken by both these individuals was quite indistinguishable from that of a native speaker (personal communication, Rosline Sandai). Of interest here is the fact that the Iban and Penan in Brunei share certain socio-cultural features: both groups are regarded as immigrants to Brunei; they are not dissimilar in certain aspects of cultural organization, being traditionally acephalous and without social hierarchies, unlike many other native Bornean groups, perhaps allowing easier integration between them. One wonders, then, about the extent of cultural borrowing (cf. Hoffman 1986:20; Needham 1972:171), given the relatively small percentage of incorporations of purely Iban origin in the

16 While the utterance clearly bears the sound of the word 'ulih', there is the possibility that it occurred as an elided form of the Malay 'boleh'.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access Ethno-Linguistic Change among the Penan of Brunei 267 data offered here, if one goes on the assumption that language change tends to reflect social change. An alternative notion, although recently refuted in a study of language maintenance and shift among the Iban community in the urban coastal area of -Belait in Brunei (Rabinah 1993), is that Iban in the Brunei context could itself be undergoing a gradual shift towards Malay, and that the effects of this shift are being passed on to Penan, in a kind of domino effect.

Malay incorporations The first thing to note was the marked presence of items of Malay origin in both sets of discourse. Besides this, there was the slightly higher occurrence of Malay in the speech examples of Long Buang. In the case of Sukang, the presence of both Iban and Malay (although more of the latter) may represent an on-going shift in language, and subsequently ethnic identity, illustrated in this instance by either a conscious or an unconscious desire to show 'Bruneianness' as well as 'Ibanness' and 'Penanness' to Sarawakian neighbours. Of considerable significance here is the fact that three Penan families in Sukang have embraced Islam (an integral part of the Malay identity), although there remain as yet few outward manifestations of this.17 Shifts in cultural alignment are common enough in minority groups and, besides religious effects, which perhaps still remain to be fully felt among the Penan of Sukang, changes in language use in the group may be due to the economic and material opportunities that are available to them (cf. Edwards 1984:304).1!t One wonders not if, but for how long the Penan will maintain their limited cultural boundary, given the construction of a road to Sukang from the coast. A probable result of this will be linguistic diffusion, proceeding from urban areas to the previously isolated interior (Weinrich 1953:96), and a gradual movement of Penan to coastal areas, where they are likely to become absorbed into coastal culture. One interesting fact to emerge from this study is that the headmen of both Long Buang and Sukang show a higher proportion of mixed speech in comparison with other participants. I would suggest a number of factors to account for this phenomenon. Despite their advanced age, both are more mobile by virtue of their designated positions, moving on occasion in

17 Cf. Martin's study (in press) of the Belait of Brunei. He found that this group's contact with coastal Brunei and the influence of this contact had had a major influence on the erosion of their language, such that Belait no longer has symbolic value for the younger members of this group. In contrast to this are Maxwell's findings (1980) on the and their long-standing contact with Brunei Malays. These groups speak cognate dialects; the Kedayan variety has been maintained, perhaps, because of considerable cultural and religious similarities between the groups. For the Kedayan, their language variety seems to have remained a mark of ethnic distinction. 18 A number of the Penan men in Sukang work as labourers for the government, and thus there is relatively easy access to wage income.

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wider, less cohesive social networks, and consequently being more influenced by mainstream societal values. In addition, each may perceive his identity through his hierarchical (rather than ethnic) position, a position that traditionally would have been little more than nominal but which now carries status through influence passed on from the Malay-dominated governing groups in both and Brunei. They also represent to some extent the vanguard, which is 'a progressive disintegration of the solidarity of the traditional Penan group by new contractual relationships outside it and outside Penan society' (Needham 1963:71).l9 In contrast are two speech samples from younger men - one from Sukang and the other from Long Buang - which each shows a minimum of incorporations from other languages. They are of interest as anomalies in the perceived pattern of language shift. Perhaps code-switching was not an option, since it was seen to make claims on co-membership which neither felt desirable. For these two individuals, Penan identity for the present remains predominant through apparent loyalty to the language. Significant features of the data with particular reference to Sukang 1. Apa boleh buat ('what can one do?') occurred eleven times as a formulaic expression. In nearly all cases it was used in a discussion or description of factors that one could regard as being 'marked' in the lives of the Penan; for example, in Sukang speech it was used in reference to holidays from employment, not a notion that one normally associates with Penans: Akeu be' pu'un (Penan) cuti. Apa boleh buat? (Malay) I don't have any holidays. What can (I) do? In the discourse contexts of Long Buang, in which the same expression occurred, I suggest that it may have been used for pejorative reasons (cf. Weinrich 1953:60), in which case its use stands as a symbol of negative association, such that the item of language serves to illustrate a conflict of sorts, relating to circumstances to which the Penan have had difficulty adapting. Kalau be' pu'un (Penan) wang, apa boleh buat? (Malay) If (one) has no money, what can (one) do? These circumstances include having less forest for hunting and gathering, and thus being forced to farm more consistently and intensively, plus the difficulty of acquiring cash now that sought-after jungle products such as aloe wood and bezoar stones are less available.

19 Professor Needham (personal communication) mentioned that on the Upper Baram those Penan who wished to show superior status 'would introduce Malay or Malay-like words into their speech. I noted this also when Western Penan at a trading meeting emphasised their superior attitude to Eastern Penan by doing so.'

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2. Nearly two thirds of the cases of noted in the Sukang discourse involve verbals, relating to actions rather than states; noticeably common are jalan ('go' or 'set off) and ka' ( Iban: 'want'). There is the possibility that the quality of the actions referred to in the speech samples or the speakers' attitudes towards them are novel and thus require pioneering linguistic means of representation. There could also be a need for synonyms to achieve a stylistic effect - a device that is available to the speakers as a consequence of their trilingualism. The lexeme jalan occurred seven times as a verbal form in Sukang discourse, as an alternative to the Penan equivalent lakau, and in all cases was used to denote going to an alien environment, for Sukang speakers, to a place where many have never been (and in the case of Long Buang speakers, to a place where none have previously been).20 In most instances, jalan is used with reference to an outsider - the author - travelling elsewhere, and possibly this provides the principal reason for the use of the Malay word rather than the Penan equivalent. Peter jalan ngan temu . . . Peter goes and meets ... 'lya jalan Long Buang temu . . . He goes (to) Long Buang to meet.. . A foreign word may be more suitable for describing unfamiliar events beyond the normal range of their experience - a kind of metaphorical code-switching. It may also be that semantic extension is desirable 'to signal changes in the different aspects of context which they wish to foreground' (Heller 1988:10), in other words: to denote perhaps the unfamiliarity of the journey, or the alien status of the individual mentioned, without explicitly stating either of these. 3. The second most common class of lexical intrusions comprises modifying words. Examples include substitution of the Penan lumang ('easy') and tekep ('proper' or 'fitting') with the words senang and patut respectively. According to Weinrich (1953:58), lexical innovation can result from the liability of affective words to become deprived of their descriptive power, and so there may well arise a need for new words to express incipient notions or shades of meaning among the Penan Sukang in their continually evolving circumstances. The Malay semua ('all') in one instance was conjoined with kekat (Penan: 'all'): Utok pane' ngan semua (Malay), kekat (Penan) uleu .. . Utok spoke and all, all of us ... Being a quantitative used to express a high degree, it would seem amenable to extension for purposes of emphasis, which seems to be the

20 Penan and Malay share jalan as a cognate for the nominal 'way' or 'path', but not as a verbal form.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access 270 Peter G. Sercombe function for which it is used here, although that doesn't necessarily explain its presence. The Penan negative be' ('no' or 'not') in different utterances in the Sukang discourse samples was replaced by a variety of alternatives: . .. bukan (Malay) ja 'au ...... not big ...... mole' nusi (Kayan) lama...... return-not-long ...... not long returned .. . Sakit akeu nadai (Iban). . . sick-I-not... I'm not sick ... It is not as if the Penan equivalent be' did not occur; rather, it was used in an apparently freely interchangeable manner with the above-mentioned lexical items. Each was used by separate individuals, indicating perhaps a stylistic preference. In addition there was one occurrence of the Malay numeral dua belas ('twelve'), which the same speaker in Sukang alternated (in the same item of speech) with the Penan equivalent jah poloo dua. Interestingly, however, there were no occurrences of non- Penan possessive adjectives, for which constraints exist where they do not for other lexical fields. 4. Apart from the Malay/Iban form bulan ('month' or 'moon') for the Penan laseh, the only other noun types included orang for Penan irah, which was used once with reference to Long Buang residents by those in Sukang: Orang (Malay) Long Buang aveh siteu .. . People-Long Buang-arrive-here .. . The people of Long Buang can/should/may arrive here . . . They further included the reduplicated form orang-orang, normally used to imply a variety of people, which was the only example of noted by the author. According to Asmah (1979:93), reduplicated forms generally exist in Penan only in that form, or the reduplicated form has a different meaning from the unreduplicated component. Penan irah, standing for 'person', 'people', or 'variety of people', does not appear to be reduplicated, and therefore orang-orang seems to offer a more specific means for expressing the notion to be conveyed; in this case the incorporated item has acquired a specialization in use (Weinrich 1953:58) in Penan. The Iban jako' ('to speak', 'language', 'speech' or 'word') occurs as a noun in alternation with the Penan semantic equivalents bara' ox pane': Jako' inija'au . . . Talk-this-big ... This big talk/speech ...

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I noted that bara' and pane' were used as verbal forms, while jako' only occurred as a noun. Here the unintended formality of the event was perhaps comparable to the formality and semi-formality of Iban speeches addressed by the penghulu to the inhabitants of Sukang village, and might well have called for the most appropriate (i.e., formal) term of reference and perhaps the one most familiar to the speakers in Sukang, hence the use of the Iban jako'.

Linguistic innovations and ethnological adaptation While much of the above linguistic enquiry is cursory, it does attempt to throw light on some apparent innovations in the Penan isolect of Sukang. An insightful, and, I feel, relevant comment concerning culture-specific vocabulary in Eastern was made by Chlenov. 'Isoglosses of certain roots for particular notions indicate not so much the boundaries between language groups as the spread of the elements of culture themselves. On the other hand, their possible relation to particular linguistic groups may also have certain implications as regards particulars of the cultural and economic development of the area' (Chlenov 1981:429). This supports the notion that linguistic innovation is a potential indicator of socio-cultural dispersion. So in conjunction with linguistic modification, then, it seems pertinent to consider some of the indications of ethnological adaptation. The observation has been made that there is inexorable mutability among the Penans of Borneo, to the extent that 'it is probable the Penan will eventually vanish as a distinct people' (Needham 1972:177). Needham has also suggested (although not actually listed as such) a number of criteria against which one could cautiously measure the extent of cultural unity, or alternatively, cultural innovation, among Penan groups.21 With these in mind, the Penan Sukang can be said still to conform to the notion of Penan identity in the following respects: firstly, they classify themselves as Penan and are not at present ashamed to do so (although outwardly they identify strongly with the local Iban); secondly, they still share wild game. In addition, the Penan still produce blowpipes (albeit in limited numbers), and a majority of the group continue to believe in their own

21 Needham (1963:58-77) mentioned a number of features which he felt reflected the degree to which a group of Penans maintained their 'Penanness': (a) integrity of the Penan language; (b) men wear loincloths; () men have distended earlobes; (d) mats are made; (e) the use of death names; (f) men have long hair; (g) are isolated from other groups; (h) have plucked eyelashes and brows; (i) are not ashamed of being Penan; () still hunt; (k) share wild game; (1) do not consume alcohol; (m) wear traditional Penan rattan jewellery; (n) use the penis-pin; (o) exchange small gifts of food between families; (p) live in huts rather than longhouses. This list is not definitive, nor is it necessarily arranged in order of importance, but it represents an attempt to highlight some significant features. 1 would tentatively add a further two criteria: the manufacture of blowpipes and the retention of traditional spiritual beliefs.

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spirit world. Moreover, if language is one of the more distinct expressions of identity, the Penan Sukang definitely continue to maintain some distinction, although, as Edwards remarks about ethnic group minorities, in the long term they tend to be assimilationist rather than pluralistic (Edwards 1984:280). There is no doubt, though, that the Penan of Sukang bear little resemblance to the image of a people who previously manifested the features described by Needham (1963:58-77), and that, as time moves on, even those few that remain will fade.

Concluding remarks In this paper I have attempted to explain the presence of certain novel lexical features in the discourse of Sukang Penan, making an only superficial comparison with data collected in Long Buang in Sarawak. In fact, both Penan groups are influenced by the Malay-dominated culture at the national level, in part disseminated through the media.22 Perhaps the variation in the degree of both code-mixing and code-switching referred to here is a reminder that each speaker has a number of identities, each of which is related to each of the languages concerned (cf. Myers-Scotton 1993a:7). The occurrence or use of new lexis is a symptom of a widening world and the incorporation of new and different concepts. What distinguishes the Penan Sukang is that they appear at present to be succumbing to two different influences concurrently: Iban at the local level besides Malay at the national level. Martin and Sercombe (1994:165-78) tentatively predicted a total shift to Iban within the next generation. In this trilingual situation, given both the nature and rapidity of social change, I am inclined to view the affiliation with Iban culture and language as temporary, however, before a shift of allegiance to and culture occurs, which will take place more quickly and overtly when the road from the coast currently being constructed is opened. Further conversion to Islam, especially among the younger generation, along with out-migration, leads me to agree with an earlier tentative forecast that Penan will no longer exist as a separate linguistic entity in Brunei within a generation (cf. Martin and Sercombe 1994:165-78). In the meantime, Iban will remain the medium of inter-ethnic communication in Sukang, while an eroded form of Penan will continue to be the medium of intra-ethnic communication, with notable incorporations from both Malay and Iban. With such a clear process of ethno-linguistic transition underway, there is an urgent need to study the use of language among the Penan Sukang at all levels. I would suggest the following areas in particular as being most important: language use among children at home as well as in a school situation (cf. Kulick 1992:122); language attitudes among the Penan, useful insights into which could also be provided by an age-related and gender-

22 There are currently three television sets in the Penan longhouse at Sukang and one in Long Buang.

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