P. Sercombe Ethno-linguistic change among the Penan of Brunei; Some initial observations In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 152 (1996), no: 2, Leiden, 257-274 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl 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 official language is Brunei Malay, 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 Sarawak 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 Borneo. 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 English Language 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 SOUTH CHINA SEA - BELAIT : :\AApak-Apak \ Key O = Dusun longhouse A = Iban longhouse D = Penanlonghouse • = village = district boundary - - • • = mukim boundary in the Belait District = river SCALE 1 : 750,000 •.._ = international border Map 1. Mukim Sukang 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 town of Kuala Belait, 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 lingua franca 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 second language, 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 penghulu. 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 Islam. 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 miscegenation 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 villages. 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 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:20:37PM via free access 262 Peter G.