Kata-kata Pujian
Dedikasi Yayasan Bahasa Kadazandusun yang berterusan dalam mengekalkan dan memelihara bahasa dan budaya Kadazandusun, memperkasakan perkembangan Bahasa ibunda dengan menjalankan kajian akademik, latihan guru dan penyusunan kamus, serta meningkatkan kesedaran masyarakat terhadap kepentingan pembelajaran bahasa ibunda, telah memberi kesan positif kepada usaha-usaha untuk mengekalkan kepelbagaian bahasa dan warisan budaya kaum minoriti.
Ucapan Penerima Anugerah
On behalf of the Board of Trustees and the Management of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation, KLF, I would like to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to the LLG Cultural Development Centre for awarding KLF with the Lim Lian Geok Spirit Award this year.
Mother tongue defines our cultural identity, it is a bridge of communication between the older and younger generations, it provides access to our cultural heritage, it connects us to our culture and roots.
However, in this era of modernization and globalization, ethnic communities are concerned about the decline in the use of the mother tongue, especially as more dominant languages enter its domain.
Due to this concern, I remember Tan Sri Bernard Dompok calling a few of us who later became the Pioneering Board of Trustees (Datuk Donald Mojuntin, Datuk Philip Lasimbang, Mr. Fred Moosom, Mr. Pius Jaua and I) for a meeting – to request for the Kadazan language to be taught in school, as this is one way to address the decline in the use of our mother tongue.
However, at that time, there was no provision to teach the mother tongue in public school. So, we had to start a pilot class to learn the mother tongue through a RM25.00 Enterprise license under “Kadazan Language Centre (KLC)”. We renovated an old office for KLC. Before the class began, in August 1994 I was requested to give training to potential teachers in a first-ever 2-day workshop on the linguistic aspect of our mother tongue; and I will always remember our participants saying: Oh, our language has a grammar! Soon after that, 15 children aged 7 – 14 years old started class at KLC. After completing 2 batches, we had then come up with a syllabus for teaching our mother tongue. By then, there was green light from the Ministry of Education to teach Kadazandusun in school. Our efforts paid off as the syllabus created at KLC was used and expanded by the Ministry of Education in the teaching and learning of Kadazandusun as an ethnic language.
We then proceeded to apply for a Declaration for a Trust in January 1995 and granted a Certificate of Incorporation under the name of: “The Registered Trustees of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation of Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan” on June 20, 1995. KLF office started operation in January 1996 with a vision to engage the Kadazan/Dusun community at large to fully embrace their ethnolinguistic and cultural heritage and take up their responsibility to actively participate in the preservation, promotion and development of their mother tongue—the embodiment of their linguistic and ethnic cultural identity.
Over the years, depending on available resources, KLF has endeavoured to faithfully carry out the objectives it was set up for. We stayed focused on our objectives, driven by our passion to preserve our mother tongue – our cultural identity. Hence we are able to persist with the task at hand, supporting mother-tongue education by providing trainings on the linguistics aspect of the Kadazandusun language to teachers, carrying out research and documentation of oral traditions, and being an avenue for the production of vernacular books as our heritage-in-print. Beyond the Kadazan/Dusun community, acting on the impetus to not leave anyone behind, KLF also endeavours to share expertise and to empower communities to write down their cultural heritage through cultural identity marker workshops.
Complementing our spirit in carrying out our mission, inspiring us to overcome all difficulties, challenges and to continue to march on are our families, our supporters and network partners. The honour of this award goes to all of them.
Kotohuadan au’ giigina’. Thank you.