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Talk on Kejaman language by UNIMAS

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Amee Joan showing her book entitled ‘The Kejaman Language’ at Pustaka Negeri Sarawak, Kuching.

KUCHING: The Sarawakiana Talk entitled ‘The Present and The Future Vitality of the Kejaman language in Sarawak’ which was organised by Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) was held at Pustaka Negeri here yesterday.

The talk was aimed at creating awareness on the importance of documenting ethnic languages in the State.

Amee Joan from UNIMAS’ Faculty of Language and Communication presented the talk on Kejaman language with her research on the Kejaman ethnic in Belaga since 2010 as true facts regarding the topic.

She focused on the Kejaman ethnic and the stages involved in documenting their language.

Kejaman is one of the smallest ethnic groups in the State and are currently residing in two prominent longhouses, namely Rumah Kejaman Datah Liten and Rumah Kejaman Ba’ Segaham, Belaga.

“I did a study regarding how many Kejaman speakers are there in Sarawak back in 2013 and the results showed that about 1,200 people use the Kejaman language but I have yet to keep up to date on the number of speakers this year,” she said.

She added that the Kejaman language should be preserved and documented to avoid the language from being extinct as the language has been threatened by Bahasa Melayu and English as the people were getting used to converse in these two languages apart from their native language.

She also produced the first Kejaman Language wordlist picture dictionary which has translations in Bahasa Melayu and English.

After the talk the Kejaman language, the head of Sarawakiana, Izaruddin Moss presented Amee with a token of appreciation.

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