"Tanak Dusun ka nga amu ih ma koilo do mimboros Dusun.
Tanak Dusun ka nga amu ih ma karati Dusun.
Tanak Dusun ka nga mibooros ih ma Malayu.
Tanak Dusun ka nga mimboros ih ma Nonggiris.
Osonong da do koilo ngai mimboros Dusun, Nonggiris, Malayu om suai ngai …
Nokuro gia molohing tokou tu amu minongubas dati mimboros Dusun di laid?
Nokuro gia molohing tokou tu minongubas dati Malayu kampung di laid?
Nokuro gia tu binarasan yati do ‘Saya saput kau!’ di laid?"
Quoted from J Martin's Blog
Translations for those who don't understand the above:
A Kadazandusun but couldn't speak their mother tongue.
A Kadazandusun but couldn't understand their mother tongue.
A Kadazandusun but prefers to speak Bahasa Melayu/Malay language.
A Kadazandusun but prefers to speak the English language.
Nevertheless, it is good if ones can speak Kadazandusun, English, Malay and other languages...
But why do our parents "drilled" us to speak Bahasa Melayu than our mother tongue?
But why do our parents "drilled" us to speak "Bahasa Melayu rojak (street language)" in the first place?
Why do we were told by our parents, "Saya saput kau!" when we were young.
* "Saya saput kau!" means "I'll smack/spank you!". Parents usually say this to their mischievous children.
***********************
Being raised in a modern-yet-conservative Kadazan family, I somehow felt backfired by the statement above. Why? As a Kadazan, I suppose to master my mother tongue which I obviously do not! But hey, at least I do understand most of the phrases in the Kadazandusun language. I know for a fact that some of the new generations are hardly able to speak nor understand the language. *Sigh*
Everytime I go back to kampung, I feel quite awkward communicating with the people there due to my limited vocabulary in the language. I know if I try to speak the language, I would sound very keras or very 'technical' if you know what I mean. I might also become the subject of laughter to some of them. Hence, all of a sudden, a bubbly person turned into a very timid boy. The worst thing is, people tend to perceive me as a snobbish person which I am not. Really.
My parents do speak Kadazan to me at home but not that much. Besides, living in a so-called 'melting pot' residential area where my neighbours are consisting of different ethnicities and even nationalities do not really help much. Only a handful of them that I know are Kadazans and I very seldom use my mother tongue to communicate with them. I usually use Bahasa Melayu and even English! Basically, I speak very little Kadazan as compared to my relatives and friends in kampung. Sometimes I feel envy to them because they Kadazan is like so sing-song. How I wish I could be like them.
The thing for sure, I am trying to improve my Kadazan. In baby steps of course!
it's gud that u knw how 2 speak sum words.
as for me.
i only understand my mother-tongue language.
speak?
nah~
Haha...gotta do something dude. Otherwise our identity will be vanished.
thanks for the link ... but actually that site is only a mirror site ... i seldom update it ...