Here today, not gone tomorrow!

On documenting the
linguistic and cultural diversity of Brunei Darussalam
Adrian Clynes, Hj Noor Azam OPKD Hj-Othman, Hj Ramlee
Tingkong, Hj Ramlee Tunggal, Hj Rusli Hj Murni

Un viellard qui
meurt, c’est une bibliothèque qui brûle’
‘When an old person
dies it is like a library burning down’
Anon. (Africa)
1. Introduction: the main problem
Each language expresses the unique culture, knowledge, and
worldview of the community which speaks it. And each
language is a unique expression of the human capacity for
communication. The loss of even one language represents a
tragic loss, culturally and scientifically. How even more tragic,
the loss of an entire language! It is indeed profoundly saddening
that we are living in a time of major extinctions, not just of
animal and plant species, but of entire human cultures and
languages. All over the world languages and cultures are
vanishing, at an alarming rate. It has been estimated that half of
the languages of the world are likely to disappear in the next 50
to 100 years, in what is indeed ‘a social, cultural and scientific
disaster’ of huge proportions (HRELP, index, 2007).
The languages most in danger are of course those
spoken by small minority groups. Minorities often come under
economic and cultural pressure to abandon their ancestors’
language for a larger language, usually the official language of
the nation state to which they belong. Not surprisingly, in Brunei
as elsewhere, the languages of the minority puak jati, and even
some varieties of local Malay are endangered. This has been
well documented by UBD researchers: for just some examples
see Martin 1995, 1996a, 1996b, Kershaw 1994, Poedjosoedarmo
1996, Hj Ramlee Tunggal 1995, 2005, Pudarno 2002, 2005, Noor
Azam OKMB Hj-Othman 2005, 2007, Clynes 2005, Noor Alipah
2005. Increasingly, younger Bruneians from minority language
backgrounds are shifting to Brunei Malay, and are not learning
their parents’ languages.
As a result, Brunei is changing from being a
multilingual country to one where, before very long, perhaps just
two or three languages will be in widespread use (cf Hj Noor
Azam, 2007). All the minority languages and dialects of Brunei
are endangered, including Tutong, Belait, Dusun, Bisaya, Lun
Bawang ('Murut'), and Kedayan - not to mention 'Balandih'
Brunei Malay and several other local minority languages. Some
of these may well be lost within a generation or two.

Responses to this problem There are at least 3 possible

responses to this problem: 1) language maintenance programmes,
2) language revival programmes, and 3) language documentation
programmes. This paper talks about the third of these,
documentation. Documentation is important in itself, as a record
for present and future generations. It is also a vital resource for
maintenance or revival programmes, if these are to be
undertaken.

2. The second problem: under-documentation

Language documentation programmes address a second major
problem facing endangered languages: in most cases, both in
Brunei and all around the world, minority languages are also
under-documented. There are often very few or no published
texts available in such languages, be they written or spoken texts.
Not surprisingly, already many languages have disappeared with
barely a trace.
Fortunately this has not always been the case. At UBD
for example some JBML lecturers have required that students
provide examples of (written) texts as appendices to their latihan
ilmiah. We therefore do have some written transcriptions of texts
for minority languages like Tutong, Dusun and Belait from these
sources, though no recorded ones. At UBD perhaps it has been
the Literature specialists and Folklorists of the Jabatan
Kesusasteraan Melayu, and their students in their latihan ilmiah,
who have best documented minority languages so far. This is not
surprising since texts, both oral and written, are a natural object
of their study. Collections like the Cerita Rakyat collections put
together by JKM teams lead by Palaniappan in the early 1990’s,
and the Folklor Kampong Aing and Kedayan (Maslin 2001)
collections are examples of extremely valuable initiatives.
Still, while these are a promising start much remains to
be done, particularly in terms of recorded oral texts, and
particularly for languages other than Brunei Malay. A rough idea
of the present state of documentation of the minority languages in
Brunei can be gained from a survey of UBD library resources.
Table 1 gives an estimate of the approximate number of both
written and recorded oral texts1 held in the Brunieana collection
at UBD, for four representative languages:

Language Written Texts* Oral texts, Recordings

Tutong to be supplied 0

Dusun to be supplied 1 cd**

Belait to be supplied 0

Lun to be supplied 0
Bawang

Table 1. Estimated number of a) Written* and b)

recorded Oral texts in the Bruneiana collection at UBD,
for four representative languages.
*data on written texts to be supplied during the seminar.

1
The term ‘texts’ does not include the single example sentences
found eg. in linguistic analyses.
 **A recording of Siram Ditaan, epic poetry, in a special
literary register, not always easily understood by
speakers of everyday Dusun (Pudarno 2002).
The figures for written texts in Table 1 will be supplied
in the presentation of this paper at the SETALING II seminar.
Nonetheless, the basic fact is clear: there are very few written
texts available for any of these languages.
What is even worse is, as Table 1 indicates, there are
apparently no oral recordings of most of the languages of Brunei
in the library, and presumably none publicly available anywhere.
Given the endangered status of minority languages in
Brunei, the situation is worrying. The need for more complete
documentation of these languages is both great and urgent.
Unless oral recordings are made and made available, there is a
real risk that many Bruneians of the future will be left to wonder
what the languages of their ancestors sounded like. More than
that, in these languages the only truly natural texts and genres are
oral, and oral recordings are required to reveal them authentically
(and through them the language), in all their expressiveness (cf
Pudarno 2002).

3. Why so few written texts? Why so few recordings?

There are several reasons for this under-documentation.
As in other countries, the minority languages of Brunei were
traditionally not written down: in languages like Tutong, Dusun,
Belait and Lun Bawang there were no written texts, only oral
texts. A related problem is that traditionally scholarship has been
developed using the standard languages of nation building. It has
in turn focussed on such standard, written languages, and tended
to ignore unwritten minority languages, which have have often
disappeared without a trace. An early example is the Cornish
language, which became extinct in Britain in the 18th century,
leaving few records.
 Even when oral cultures were studied, academics were
often content to present texts from such languages only in the
form of (written) translations into standard languages like
English and Malay. In oral cultures, texts are by definition oral
texts. Yet even today it is still common across the world for
books and dissertations on oral cultures to document oral texts in
imperfect (written) transcriptions only, with no accompanying
sound recordings. At UBD one outstanding exception we are
aware of is Pudarno Binchin’s MA thesis (2002), which as well
as providing a thoughtful discussion of Dusun oral literature, and
of broader issues relating to the study and preservation of oral
literature in Brunei, includes a CD with extensive recordings of
Dusun traditional texts. Hopefully the inclusion of such
recordings will become standard practice in the future, be it in
latihan ilmiah, higher dissertations, or other research.
Another reason for underdocumentation is a traditional
analytical bias in academic studies. Take for example linguists.
Their focus has been the analysis of languages as a system of
abstract elements, constructions, and rules. That has lead to a
focus on the micro levels, the sound, the word, the phrase, at
most the sentence. They (including, we confess, some of the
authors of this paper) have often failed to document the language
as it is used in real utterances and texts, as a vehicle of
knowledge and culture and human interaction.
Finally, some of the reasons for underdocumentation are
practical. To write down texts from a previously undescribed
language, the analyst faces the practical difficulty of devising an
acceptable spelling system. And with Oral texts until recently
there have been multiple technical difficulties involved in
recording storing, and using oral recordings.

4. Doing something about the situation

Should we do something about the situation? Clearly the answer
to this leading question is a resounding ‘yes’. For support for this
view we need look no further than His Majesty the Sultan’s
recent call for the preservation of Brunei's unique identity
(Borneo Bulletin 15November 2006). One important way of
doing this is to preserve the languages of the puak jati which play
a large part in conceptualising and expressing that identity. At an
academic level Dr Mataim Bakar, former dean of FASS and now
of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, has lamented the endangered
status of local languages and has urged that more be done to
preserve them. In fact in the past two decades all over the world
people have become increasingly concerned about the fate of
endangered languages and cultures and have undertaken various
initiatives to try to do something to help preserve them.

When should we do something? We must act

urgently, now, since time is running out. As each year goes by, it
becomes harder and harder to find fluent speakers of minority
languages, people who also retain knowledge of their traditions
and traditional culture. Pudarno (2005) has spoken graphically,
but realistically, of the ‘Race Against Time’ which must be run
here in Brunei, if we are to identify and record those with the
requisite traditional knowledge. Indeed, a concern for our own
Tutong language project, about which we will say more below
has also been – will we be able to find sufficient fluent speakers
of the language to make documentation feasible?

Can we do something about this? We can indeed.

The time is right, in many ways. Technically and practically it is
easier than ever before to document and archive spoken language
data, and it is getting easier all the time. The old bias in favour of
the written word is changing as people are now increasingly used
to creating, using and storing oral recordings and ‘e-texts’. High
quality digital sound recorders are becoming smaller, lighter and
cheaper, as are digital cameras, and laptop computers for
fieldwork. Storage of, and rapid access to, huge amounts of data
is now easy using DVD and other digital formats.

Institutional support for documentation

Academically there is now huge support for documentation.
Social scientists (linguists, folklorists, students of oral literature,
anthropologists, oral historians and others) have recognised the
need. New disciplines relating to language and culture
documentation have emerged. For example, within linguistics,
“[o]ne response to language endangerment has been the creation
of a new discipline […] called Language documentation (or
Linguistic documentation). It is often said to have been catalysed
by the Austronesian scholar Nikolaus Himmelmann, who wrote
in (1998, cited, http://www.hrelp.org/documentation/whatisit/):
‘The aim of a language documentation is to
provide a comprehensive record of the
linguistic practices characteristic of a given
speech community... This ... differs
fundamentally from... language description
[which] aims at the record of a language... as a
system of abstract elements, constructions, and
rules’”
In carrying out documentation projects, we will be able
to draw on many resources now becoming available.
Internationally, recently there have been important practical
initiatives devoted exclusively to helping preserve endangered
languages. One such is the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages
Project (HRELP, http://www.hrelp.org/ ) at SOAS, University of
London, which through a very large endowment supports
research, training, and archiving for endangered languages
throughout the world. Currently it supports dozens of
documentation projects, including one devoted to the Penan
language spoken in Brunei and Sarawak, run by a former UBD
staff member, Dr Peter Sercombe. The HRELP website is an
invaluable source of information for those wishing to undertake a
documentation project.
Similar is the US-based Endangered Language Fund,
http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/, which has funded 70
documentation projects in its 10 years’ existence, and the Dutch-
based DoBeS Programme, started by the The Volkswagen
Foundation in 2000. It also aims to document languages that are
potentially in danger of becoming extinct within a few years
time. Currently, 30 it funds teams are working on documentation
projects, and that number will increase
(http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES).
Another important initiative is Orel (Online Resources
For Endangered Languages), at
http://www.hrelp.org/languages/resources/orel/index.html. This
provides a library of more than 200 annotated and categorised
links to web resources for those revitalising or documenting
endangered languages, also web resources on technology,
hardware, software resources, ethical issues, funding.
Storing documents. It is no use recording texts if they
cannot be stored in a safe place where they are readily available
to the public. Again, relatively recently there have been important
intiatives in this area. For example there are now many online
archiving initiatives around the world, where language data can
be stored and downloaded from anywhere in the world. Such
sites include the HRELP and DoBeS sites, but also PARADISEC
in Australia. Much information, and links to the major
international online language archives can be found at the OLAC
(Open Language Archives Community) web pages, another
major intiatives linking universities and archives all over the
world.
While online resources for documentation and archiving
of languages are multiplying overseas, most importantly no doubt
for us here in UBD, is the Bruneiana Digital Collection, an
excellent new initiative of the UBD library, which will provide a
natural home for the deposit of all kinds of Brunei-related digital
texts, including sound recordings, digital photos, films, as well as
digitised written texts, books, theses and so on. We expect this to
become an increasingly important resource in the future.
5. What can we do?
Documentation can be done in many ways, on a small or a very
large scale. Researchers can now easily record oral data and then
make it available, for example on cd’s burnt and included as
appendices to dissertations and monographs, or as downloadable
online documents, stored on personal or institutional websites or,
best of all for the long-term viability of texts, at sites like those
discussed in the previous paragraphs. Students can be required to
provide texts in digitally recorded or transcribed form (preferably
both) as an obligatory part of latihan ilmiah. Such digital
documents can be archived and accessed easily at sites like the
UBD Bruneiana Digital collection. Increasingly, such
documentation should be a necessary part of research in the
social sciences.

What is a good documentation of a language?

Good language documentation has to be based on many
recordings as primary material (DoBeS website). Such
recordings, according to the DoBeS programme, should ideally
be made in their natural cultural settings, and presented in such a
way that:
• they are useful for linguistics, anthropology, history,
comparative literature, and other disciplines;
• they can be understood without prior knowledge of the
documented language;
• they can be used for language maintenance and
revitalization by the speech community.’
As well as audio recordings, DoBeS recommend that video
recordings be made to give information about the environment in
which languages are spoken and about non-verbal features of
communication (http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/dobesprogramme/).
The DoBeS project recommend that documentation, and
therefore any archive, should ideally contain the following types
of material:
 • annotated audio and video recordings
• recordings of diverse speech events
• transcriptions and translations of those recordings into
one or more major languages
• with morphosyntactic analysis and other comments on
content and linguistic phenomena
• photographs and drawings documenting processes such
as how to build a house
• music recordings and videos of cultural activities and
ceremonies
• a description of the language's genetic affiliation, its
socio-linguistic context, its phonetic and grammatical
features, and the circumstances of research, recording
and documentation
• keyword-based descriptions to facilitate the organization
and accessibility of documents in the archive
[DoBes]
http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/dobesprogramme/

6. Some Practical Issues

Clearly a great deal of work is involved in creating and
maintaining such an archive. Many practical issues must be
faced. For example, at UBD each relevant department needs an
adequate number of sound recorders, microphones, cameras, and
the minimal training needed to use this equipment.

One of the most important practical issues is the choice of

software formats and media used to store digital recordings for
the long term. Over the last few decades rapid changes in
technology have meant rapid changes in storage media: from
punch cards in the 1970’s, to reels of magnetic tape, through
cassettes, 5” floppy disks in the 80’s, then 3½” floppy disks, then
cd’s, dvd’s, flash memory and so on. Data stored on 5” floppy
disks in the 1980’s cannot be read with present day equipment.
A famous exemplary case is the Domesday project in
the UK. This was a large-scale government-funded project in the
mid-1980’s, which collected information from all over present-
day Britain, and involved input from thousands of people and
stored using what was at the time the latest digital media
technology. By the late 90’s the project could no longer be
accessed, as the laser-disc technology used to store it was no
longer maintained. Where the original Domesday book of 1086
had survived for 1000 years, its 20th century counterpart was
accessible for just 15 years or so.
What is good storage? To avoid problems like those
encountered by the Domesday project, the online archiving
projects recommend that digital material be stored in formats and
media which guarantee their long-term accessibility. Most online
archives specify a limited number of recommended Open Source
(non-proprietary) formats for digital files. HRELP for example
recommends the following preferred formats:
• sound files - WAV (NB MP3 format is not preferred, as
it results in loss of features of the original recording.)
• images - BMP, TIFF, JPEG
• videos - MPEG2
• documents - plain text, PDF or postscript
• structured text - XML, other markup (with description
of markup system)
Note that HRELP like other online archiving projects
doesn’t recommend proprietary software formats like Microsoft
Word / Office files. Fortunately, given their widespread use,
HRELP will accept data in Office formats, and then convert them
to archive-suitable formats. For more information see the
HRELP web site at http://www.hrelp.org/.
7. Two projects.
Below we briefly mention two documentation projects now in the
planning stage, which will hopefully help towards the fuller
documentation of two of Brunei’s minority languages.
7a. The Tutong documentation project:
The Tutong language, like all the languages of the minority puak
jati in Brunei, is endangered. There is therefore a pressing need
for a corpus of necessarily oral texts, plus transcriptions, to be
collected and archived in a systematic way. The authors of this
paper have applied for research funding with this aim in mind.
Such a corpus would help provide a valuable and much-needed
record of Tutong language and culture, as part of the national
cultural heritage. It would be available for the use of both
Bruneian and international researchers, of the public, and of
future generations of Bruneians. The aims of this project are
then:
1) To collect the first part of a representative
collection of oral texts in the Tutong language.
2) To publish the texts in two forms:
1. As sound recordings, and video recordings
published in digital format,
linked to text file transcriptions, all on DVD or
similar digital formats
2. As a book of transcriptions, with translations,
background notes and analysis
3) Text types would ideally include a wide range of
genres, ideally including folklore, folktales, aspects
of oral history, oral traditions, and interviews /
conversations, all in the Tutong language. Ideally
texts would sample as many discourse types as
possible – narrative, expository / decriptions, ritual,
language games, proverbs, and so on.
4) Geographical coverage: The initial aim is to collect
some sample texts from each Tutong-speaking
 village in Brunei, to represent the major
geographical dialects of Bahasa Tutong.
5) Age range of informants: the primary focus would
be on the speech of older speakers, those considered
to speak the ‘purest’ Tutong. However data will
also be collected from confident younger speakers,
to give some indication of the state of the language
across the generations.
6) Storage: as well the publication formats above, it is
hoped that such texts could be stored in online
archives, at the UBD Bruneiana Digital Collection,
and perhaps internationally.

We hope that this would be stage 1 of a larger project, to

document the Tutong language as it is used in Brunei
Darussalam, through the compilation of a very large corpus of
texts. Texts will ideally be collected in their natural cultural
settings, or in interviews with Informants in their homes /
villages. Interviews will be conducted in Bhs Tutong wherever
possible.

7b. Belait Oral History & Oral tradition project, Kiudang

village, Tutong
This project, in the early planning stages, is to be undertaken by a
team including Dr Adrian Clynes, Hjh Asiyah az-Zahra bt
Ahmad Kumpoh (History Dept, FASS) and other team members
still to be identified. The broad aims of this project are very
similar to those of the Tutong project, however the focus will be
on just one village / mukim, that of Kiudang village in Tutong,
with an attempt made to document at once both the language -
the Metteng and Boong dialects of Belait still spoken in that
village - and through that language, and no doubt other local
languages, some of the Oral History and Oral traditions of the
Kiudang area.
8. Conclusion This paper has discussed the urgent need to more
completely document the languages (and cultures) of Brunei,
while there are still fluent speakers of them, by compiling sound
and video recordings of each. We have also also mentioned some
recent initiatives for the documentation and archiving of data on
endangered languages, some methodological issues in collecting
and storing such documents. Finally we mentioned two
documentation projects currently in the planning stage, one on
bahasa Tutong, and another on bahasa Belait.
Future generations of Bruneians will ask questions like ‘What
does Bahasa Tutong sound like?’, ‘Where can I listen to
recordings of it?’, ‘Can we listen to the old stories told in, say,
Bahasa Belait, Bahasa Dusun, Lun Bawang, or Bahasa
Belandih?’ Hopefully, the answers to such questions will be
positive ones and the relevant recordings easily to find and
consult. In the immediate future, the kind of documentation
programmes we hope to be involved in will surely be rewarding
and even exciting for all concerned, for researchers and their
students, and particularly for those in the community who
contribute their knowledge at this crucial stage. The ‘race against
time’ will surely be close, but let us run it as best as we can!
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