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INTRODUCTION 1. The Penan language and people Eastern Penan belongs to the Bornean branch of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken by the Penan population of the Baram and Limbang drainages. The author has obtained language data from Penan of three different areas -- the Upper Baram River, the Tutoh River (the Tutoh is a major tributary of the Baram), and the Upper Limbang. The speech of these areas does not differ phonologically or morphologically, and in fact only a relatively small number of vocabulary items distinguish them. In Sarawak, the language most closely related to Eastern Penan is Western Penan, spoken in the Silat River drainage and elsewhere. This latter language, itself divided into a number of different dialects, differs to a modest degree from Eastern Penan in its phonology, and this, along with the high proportion of distinct vocabulary (perhaps something on the order of 20%), renders the two languages mutually unintelligible. Almost alone among the peoples of Borneo, the Penan have no history of sedentary rice farming. They are traditionally nomadic, and were the only permanent inhabitants of the vast virgin rainforest that covered northeastern Borneo until very recently. 2. A new kind of dictionary This is a new kind of dictionary, incorporating as it does principles of the Explanatory-Combinatorial lexicographic model . Conventional dictionaries are interpretation dictionaries; they enable one to decipher texts in the language in question, but provide little or no information on how to create new texts. This dictionary aims to be a production dictionary; that is, in principle, even a person with little knowledge of the language should be able to use it (in conjunction with an appropriate grammar) to produce well-formed Penan texts. A completed Explanatory-Combinatorial Dictionary (ECD) of Eastern Penan, along with a complete grammar, would, in principle, constitute a complete written record of the language. Since I have no reason to suppose that Penan is less lexically rich than any of the world's other contemporary spoken languages, a complete dictionary of Penan would probably contain between two and three hundred thousand entries. Although the ten thousand entries I have so far assembled cover the most commonly used vocabulary, it is clear that what I have accomplished so far is just a fragment of a complete linguistic description. The work is also fragmentary in terms of encyclopaedic information. In principle, an ECD entry avoids encyclopaedic information except "to the extent to which it is vital for the correct use of the entry lexeme". (Mel'cuk & Zholkovsky 1984, pg 61). In the case of an ECD of a European language intended for a reader familiar with European culture, not much encyclopaedic information is in fact necessary for this purpose. But such is not the case for a language spoken by hunter gatherers in central Borneo. In the Penan dictionary there are numerous entries that deal with concepts utterly alien to the western mind. Here is one example of such an entry: § tekenah v. § -- X nekenah Y / Y tekenah / nvp tekenah = 'X causes Y to become sick because of a potent balei (spirit) that is with X, that affects Y if Y approaches X closely' This definition, were it written in Penan, would be entirely adequate for any native speaker of that language; for belief in tekenah is still current. This definition might also likely be adequate for a speaker of Kelabit, or Kayan, or Berawan, or any of the other peoples living in close proximity to the Penan. But for an American or a European, this definition is quite inadequate to ensure "the correct use of the entry lexeme". What is needed, then, is an encyclopaedic explanation of tekenah. One already exists, in preliminary form; it is a page long, and as my research into the subtelties of this belief continue, the explanation is likely to grow longer. The question is, should such encyclopaedic explanations be included in the dictionary proper? I have already collected a large number of Penan texts that are purely encyclopaedic in nature; and most such texts illuminate, in one way or another, different words or expressions of the Penan language. But I have decided not to include them in the dictionary proper, for two reasons. First, this would increase the size of an already unwieldy volume by perhaps fifty percent; and second, much of this ethnographic material is still being collected, corrected, and expanded; and all of it is original material that ought to be published in its own right prior to incorporation into an encyclopaedic dictionary. Therefore, the encylopaedic information that remains in the current dictionary is only the most essential. 3. History and methodology of the project This dictionary began with my first Penan word list, collected in 1993. I have returned to Sarawak once or twice every year thereafter, and at this point my cumulative time in the field is more than two years. In the beginning I had two language sources: first, word lists that I made by questioning native speakers in the medium of Malay, and second, texts from a Penan translation of parts of the Old Testament, done by a missionary in the 1970's. (Some fragments of these texts survive in the example zones of the present dictionary.) In 1995 I met Komeok, who almost immediately became my primary informant. He is a man in his forties who has a high school education, speaks good Malay, passable Iban, and has a knowledge of English sufficient to communicate with foreigners. From the beginning, our interaction has always been exclusively in Penan. Jokim lives in a city, and has access to electricity; this allows me to input data directly into my computer, as he sits next to me, answering barrages of questions. The work has often lasted all day, and well into the evening. He has been very skillful, not to mention patient, at helping me explore the meaning of different lexical items, and of generating texts exemplifying them. He is the author of a large number of the examples in the present work. Eight years ago I met Galang, who has gradually become my most important ethnographic informant. He is in his early fifties, and has six years of schooling. He speaks Malay and Kelabit in addition to his native Penan. My interaction with him has always been exclusively in the latter language. When I met him, he was living in a nomadic style house, and still prefers to spend his days in that style of shelter, even though he and his family own a permanent plank house. Until recently there was no electricity, and all my notes were necessarily in longhand. (Now I have installed solar panels and a tiny generator, which allows me to type much of the information on a laptop computer, with a considerable increase in speed and efficiency.) Over the years he has dictated thousands of pages of Penan texts; myths, oral histories, botanical information, religious beliefs, and various other kinds of information. These texts are a rich source of linguistic material, and citations from them make up a large percentage of the examples in this volume. He is also as skillful as Komeok at explaining meanings of lexical items, and authoring strings that exemplify them. Most of the entries of this dictionary are based on, and illustrated by, texts in the Penan language. These texts, found in the example zone of each entry, are (or were) collected in the ways just mentioned. No string, however short and simple, finds its way into the dictionary without the approval of an informant. I would like to finish by reminding my readers that this is a work in progress, and still highly provisional in nature. Much of what I have recorded will be inaccurate to one degree or another. My own mastery of the language is far from complete, and as excellent as my principal informants are, the limitations of time and the vastness of the enterprise will have led to many blunders. Furthermore, a careful reader is bound to encounter many errors of a trivial nature, stemming from carelessness of one kind or another. My priority has always been to spend my time adding data of a substantial nature, rather than to worry about small details of data that have already been recorded. Even a systematic proofreading of such a massive manuscript is a daunting task. Ian Mackenzie February 2010 | |