Bahasa Remun di Negeri Sarawak: Kajian Perbandingan dengan Bahasa Iban (A Comparative Study of Remun and Iban in Sarawak)

Abstract

Bahasa Ibanik adalah cabang bahasa Melayik yang variasinya memaparkan inovasi *-an, *-ang dan *-ar kepada /-ay/. Cabang bahasa ini tersebar di Kalimantan Barat (Indonesia) dan Sarawak (Malaysia). Di Sarawak, hanya variasi bahasa Ibanik Iban sahaja yang dikenali umum. Bahasa Remun yang turut merupakan variasi Ibanik sebaliknya kurang mendapat perhatian sarjana. Melalui tinjauan kosa ilmu mendapati bahawa belum ada deskripsi linguistik intensif yang membincangkan hubungan antara bahasa Remun dan bahasa Iban. Kajian ini menerapkan pendekatan deskriptif untuk mencungkil persamaan dan perbezaan kedua-dua bahasa ini dengan berfokus kepada aspek leksikal dan fonologi. Daripada 150 sampel kosa kata yang dibandingkan, didapati kadar persamaan kosa kata untuk kedua-dua bahasa ini ialah 82%. Melalui analisis fonologi ke atas dua fonem, iaitu r dan s didapati bahawa fonem r wujud sebagai /ɣ/ dalam bahasa Remun manakala sebagai /r/ dalam bahasa Iban. Bagi fonem s, bunyi ini wujud sebagai /h/ pada posisi akhir kata Remun dan sebagai /s/ dalam bahasa Iban. Analisis fonologi ini telah memberi bukti tambahan bahawa bahasa Remun bukanlah sejenis dialek Iban walaupun memaparkan persamaan 85% kognat. Hasil kajian ini dapat meningkatkan kesedaran badan perancang bahasa Iban di Sarawak tentang wujudnya kelainan variasi dalam bahasa berkenaan. Justeru kerana bahasa Iban Standard turut diajar sebagai matapelajaran teras dalam pendidikan di Sarawak, kelainan-kelainan ini wajar diberi perhatian untuk melancarkan pembelajaran bahasa Iban.  

Kata kunci: Remun; Iban; Persamaan; Perbezaan; Leksikal; Fonem

ABSTRACT

Ibanic is a Malayic language subgroup that exhibited the innovations of *-an, *-ang and *-ar  to /-ay/. This language subgroup disperse in western Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia). In Sarawak, Iban is a well-known Ibanic language variety. Remun, which is also an Ibanic variety, on the other hand has been ignored by scholars. Based on literature reviews, so far there has been no in-depth description and investigation on the relationship between the Remun and Iban language. This study utilizes the descriptive approach to present the similarities and differences between these two languages. The descriptions are focused on lexical and phonology aspecst. The comparison between the lexical of Remun and Iban languages show that there are 82% of similarity within the 150 words compared. Based on the analysis on the phonemes of r and s, it is noticed that  r appeared as /ɣ/ in Remun but as /r/ in Iban language. For phomenes s, this study found that s appeared as /h/ in Remun and as /s/ in Iban. This phonological analysis indeed has presented additional evidence to prove that Remun is an Ibanic variety rather than a dialect of Iban although they share an 85% cognate. This study has able to present additional resources for the Iban Language Planning Unit in Sarawak and raise their awareness about the existence of Ibanic variations in this state. Since Iban language is taught as one of the core subjects in school, the awareness on  the differences between Remun and Iban are very important to facilitate the learning of Iban language.

Keywords: Remun; Iban; Similarity; differences; Lexical; Phoneme