Don’t You What What Me!

Kadazandusun parents tend to speak to their children in a language other than their own. If they know how to speak English then the tendency is that they speak to their children in English. If they do not know English then Malay would be their choice. If they were educated in the Malay medium schools, then they would be using a reasonably standard spoken Malay when they speak to their children. If they do not have much or any formal schooling at all then they would use a sub-standard Malay, the colloquial version that they might have picked up all along their pathways of life, so to speak. Their sub-standard Malay is almost unintelligible to themselves because they would Kadazandusunised certain words of the Malay language that they don’t know. Any Malay words that they do not know or which they cannot remember at any particular point in time while speaking would be automatically replaced by a Kadazandusun word which, to them, has a similar meaning. For example, when a typical kampung Kadazandusun mother wants to call her young daughter to be still and to sit down near her grandmother, she would say, “Mali siini osong, diam-diam bo gia, duduk siini dakat Odu’ kau”. (Come here dear, behave yourself, sit down near your grandmother”). She could have said proudly using her own language, “Ka dohiiti Osong, tumoronong no bo gia, indikau hiiti’d doros di Odu’ nu.” Another mixture of words, or rather, language, typical of a Kadazandusun elder’s spoken Sonsog language to a minor is as such. “Oyo’, tulung dodu’ tutuk ini pinang”. (My dear, help grandmother pound this beetle nut”.

English educated Kadazandusun parents tend to use the English Language when they speak to their children. To them the ease of using the English language is so convenient so much so that English becomes an auxiliary language to them. But when they speak to each other, the father and the mother, they would normally be using their L1, otherwise they use the Malay language. Even if the English educated parents are of the same race, they would still be using English when they speak to their children. In another scenario, when the father is the one who knows only but a very limited English, he wouldn’t dare using English when he spoke to his children. He would use English only when he speaks to his wife and only when he has previously downed a few cans of beer. When that happens then the comparatively harsher language tend to come out first. If he is lost with words, an intended communication would end up something like, “Don’t you what what me!”, or, “You this arud!”

When it comes to the English Language, only the capable in the English language parents speak English to their children. The English limited parents could not to use English the way they adulterate the use of their spoken Malay when they speak to their children. When they have not learnt English and their living environments were not rich in English, then they would not play the fool with themselves.

Why is this tendency of using other languages apart from one’s own language so prevalent among the Kadazandusun people? Such a question has been asked not only a few times but so many times, so much so that no one expects it to get an immediate answer. The possible answers are in theories as no one really knows the real answer, not even the users themselves. It has been theorized that the parents are happy and proud that they know how to speak Malay or English. They want to further train themselves to speak Malay or English by making use of their children as their training tools. Could this be the real reason? Perhaps but quite unlikely for they speak, for example, English to their spouses only when they dare to do so.

Another theory is that they want to train their children to use Malay as a communication tool before they go to school. They know that their children will have to use Malay when they go to school. Could this be a reason? It is doubted. Even when there were no children around, their pets would be talked to in Malay, for the parents who are not proficient in English and in English for those who are at ease with the English language. The Malay they use is far from being the standard type used in schools. They are perhaps proud that they know how to speak a language other than their own. They could be of the opinion that when they speak Malay, or English, they are considered by others around them as people of some standing in society. How can such foolishness be still present in the mentality of the Kadazandusun people? What would the Kadazandusun Language become one thousand years from now?