KUCHING, May 8 — Ba’Kelalan state assemblyman Baru Bian today urged the Sarawak government to establish a dedicated task force for the preservation and maintenance of languages and cultures indigenous to the state.
He said the task force should be entrusted with creating an official inventory of ethnicities, including all sub-ethnic groups, and languages spoken within the state.
“The task force should also be entrusted with developing and proposing a Sarawak language policy that will promote linguistic diversity and multilingualism as integral components of Sarawak’s cultural heritage,” he said during the debate on the opening of the Sarawak Legislative Assembly by the Governor Tun Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
He suggested that the task force should establish guidelines for the preservation, revitalisation, and promotion of indigenous languages, dialects, and cultures.
Baru also said the time had come to enact a Sarawak Languages Ordinance to provide for the integration of indigenous languages and cultural content into formal education curricula at all levels, ensuring the transmission of cultural knowledge and traditions to future generations.
“Sarawak has its own and separate identity as a land with many native communities co-existing in harmony, and we should do everything possible to ensure that none of our communities and their languages are forgotten, to one day becoming extinct,” he stressed.
He said he has spoken on several occasions about the need to preserve and teach native languages to the younger generations.
“We learn our culture and tradition through language and to preserve our culture, we must preserve and teach our native languages,” he said.
He said according to the Sarawak Government’s official portal, there are 27 distinct indigenous ethnic groups that speak at least 45 different languages and dialects in Sarawak.
He noted that Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka in 2023 listed four native languages — Seru, Pegu, Bliun and Lelak — as extinct, while noting that several others had few speakers left, such as the Lahanan language (350 speakers in 1981), Berawan (3,600 speakers in 2010) and Tring (550 speakers in 2000).
