Metaphorically speaking- body parts

By now when a member of the community says a sundait (riddle) that conjures up an erotic image, I no longer blush. Being much older (and wiser? :)), I decided that I can take it. But long time ago when I was a growing child, one of the most awkward moments was to hear people say such sundaits. Nowadays, I can appreciate the clever ways of language play using body parts that the Dusun people use in their riddles.

I suddenly came across some of them as I was reading a book called Warisan Budaya Sabah: Etnisiti dan Masyarakat, and feel compelled to share them here. Mind you, if you are used to people using polite language all the time, you might experience a minor shock attack as you read some of these!

Sundait 1-

Wangkangonku gakod nu, posuangonku watangku, osonong opurimanan.
(I spread your legs, I enter my log, oh how wonderful)
Answer: Spectacles

Sundait 2-

Kitundu-undu o tulu-
(There's a heart on top of the head)
Answer: Banana blossom

Sundait 3-
Aiso kabang aiso busul
(No mouth, no anus)
Answer: Leech

Sundait 4-
Osodu ko po om rubaon ko do tulang
(From a distance, bone meets you)
Answer: Teeth

Sundait 5-
Milapus-lapus kito, mitirung-tirung kito, au kopikito nga kopilapus
(We penetrate each other, we hide from each other, unable to see (each other) but still able to penetrate each other)
Answer: Ears

Sundait 6-
Iso tulu, onom hakod, kombit-kombiton yi odu-odu yi aki-aki
(One head, six legs, strummed by the grandmothers and the grandfathers)
Answer: Tongkungon (a musical instrument)

Sundait 7:
"Tik" ka llo mantik, panakalamou poo
("Tik", the 'mantik' slides on the thigh)
Answer: Matches

Sundait 8:
Monguni susu di odu
(Grandmother's breast produces sound)
Answer: Sompoton (a type of musical instrument)

Sundait 9:
Iduon garung, okito hulu. Iduon hulu, okito tonsi. Iduon tonsi, okito puun.
(Take off the clothes, the hair is seen. Remove the hair, the flesh is seen. Remove the flesh, the stem is seen)
Answer: Corn

Sundait 10:
Poingundul o tonsilot.
(The clitoris is erected)
Answer: Tobacco chew

(These sundaits are courtesy of Mr Lokman Abdul Samad, a colleague at UMS-translation, my own and the mistakes are all mine!)

If you ask me if I am good at this kind of language, I'd have to humbly admit that I don't. (Once, the hubby said "you are supposed to be good at this" but how can I when I did not grow up in that environment?) I wish I am. As most aspects of the culture slip through my fingers, the only thing I can do now is to appreciate and keep what little I know...

the colour white

Looking at Maia the car this morning, I decided that her wash is well overdue. Well she's white and the muddy road condition since the past few days of rain had ensured that she looked messy. So I took her to the car wash a few blocks away from home. It wasn't opened yet but the lady who sells kuih at a stall nearby told me to just park the car there and give the key to the man wearing a white shirt sitting under the tree.

So off I went in search of a man in white under the tree. There were two men, one wearing a blue shirt, and the other, pale grey. I looked at them and it occured to me that probably the lady means grey when she said white. After all she is obviously a Dusun, judging from her accent when she speaks Malay. I remember that my late grandmother would call any pale colour 'white'. And there's even a type of chilli that to me is pale-yellow, that the Dusuns call lado do topurak "white chilli". I asked them if any of them happens to be the owner of the car wash, and true enough, the man in grey is!

(my lado'd topurak, after two weeks in the fridge!)

on 'unsikou' (grateful)

My little brother (well, he is 19 :)) suddenly realized this morning that the Dusun's 'pounsikou' (used to mean 'thank you') actually has the root 'unsikou' which more or less refers to 'grateful feeling'. Excitedly he told me that in some of the Dusun dialects he knows, people use 'kounsikou' to say 'thank you'. And that people say 'nounsikou' when somebody made them grateful. Well done, brother...you are finally having a Dusun language awareness. It is indeed interesting that just from one root word a lot of meanings can be expressed:

1. munsikou (being grateful)
2. minunsikou (was grateful)
3. ounsikou (is happy, grateful, thankful)
4. nounsikou (is made happy, grateful, thankful- often unexpectedly)
5. pounsikou/kounsikou (thank you)
6. unsikoho (be thankful- normally used in command)
7. mongunsikou (thanking someone)
8. mingunsikou (thanking someone over and over again)

...and so on and so forth.

Dusun is a rich language I have to say...

The sound of home

I've only recently discovered Sabah's very own latest online radio station here:

http://sabahan.fm/listen.pls

and the community that keeps it alive here:

http://www.sabahan.net/

A few days of listening to the DJs' entertaining chats and music had me arrived to this conclusion: that Sabahan.FM is truly home. It reflects the community that I know and grew up in. One that celebrates unity in diversity in the real sense of the words. In the past few days, I've probably listened to more songs in English, Malay, Hindi, Kadazan, Dusun, Chinese, Bajau, Murut, Filipino and almost every other minority ethnic group in Sabah than I ever had before. Amazing!

Home might be merely a small corner in Malaysia, but the internet has made it possible for the sound of home to reach far-flung places, places where Sabahans away from home might feel extremely homesick.

Anyway, one of the songs I have listened to over and over again is called 'sayang itu masa' (the time is wasted). Here goes some of the lyrics:

"sayang itu masa
kalau ditinggal-tinggal
...sudah nokopitunang
bagus makan belanja"

(the time is wasted
if it is left (not used)
...already engaged
why not have the wedding reception"

or something like that.

It is so 'Sabah', and yet one gets the feeling that one is listening to a Dusun song. Well maybe it's the injection of Dusun words like 'nokopitunang'. Or could it be the use of Dusun style expressions in Malay? Words like 'ditinggal-tinggal', or 'makan belanja' that are typical of Dusun expressions? Or could it be the music that is typical sumazau beat? I supposed it a combination of all those.

Speaking of which, is becoming more and more of a trend in the Dusun music industry. Songs like 'Tinggi tinggi Gunung Kinabalu' (As high as the Kinabalu Mountain), 'Nasihat buaya pencen' (advice of a retired 'crocodile') and the like are some examples. (I remember that this started some time in the early 90s, a phenomenon that was interesting enough to have caused me to do a mini research for one of my Malay Letters undergraduate courses then.)

Now I understand that this too is a reflection of the language change that is gradually taking place in Dusun. I won't be surprised if in the future a Dusun song will mean a song with full Sabah Malay lyrics, albeit with Dusun cultural music. In fact the days for that seem to be fast approaching.

The cultural centrality of 'ginao/ginawo'

Literally translates "liver", 'ginao (ginawo)' in Dusun has a cultural centrality in the linguistic expressions of the Dusun people. This is hardly surprising, as across the societies in Southeast Asia (as Robert Blust writes in his book "The Austronesian languages"), 'liver words' are really significant. As regards the 'liver words' in Dusun and Malay (in which is 'hati'), some meanings are quite synonymous, but others are simply opposites that even a bilingual speaker can easily get confused. In a way, liver is synonym to 'heart', the locus of emotions. Here are some expressions that I can think of:

Dusun
1. Agayo (o) ginao ('o' is often dropped in rapid speech) "big liver" = happy, open to a suggestion, an idea etc.
2. Okoto (o) ginao "small liver" = angry, irritated
3. Araat (o) ginao "bad liver" = hurt, offended, angry, worried
4. Osusa (o) ginao "difficult liver" = sad
5. Oruol (o) ginao "sick liver" = 1)angry, annoyed 2)pity (thanks to Kombura for pointing this out)
6. Osoriba (o) ginao "low liver" = humble
7. Mongongoi (do) ginao "fetching the liver" = to win someone's affection

Some of these expressions coincide with the Malay ones, given as follows:
Malay
1. Besar hati "big liver" = 1) happy, 2) presumptuous
2. Kecil hati "small liver" = bear a grudge
3. Busuk hati "rotten liver" = ill-nature, malice, 'dirty-feeling'
4. Bakar hati "burn liver" = angry emotion
5. Sakit hati "sick heart" = resentment, annoyance, anger, ill-will
6. Putih hati "white liver" = sincere, pure-hearted
7. Ambil hati "fetch the liver" = 1) win someone's affection, 2)feel insulted/sulky
(It looks like Malay has a way of using the same expression for two contrasting meanings like in 1. and 7. How interesting!)

Now I am wondering whether there is the expression 'rendah hati' = "low liver" in Malay that means "humble", just as the Dusun one. Hmm...talk about being confused.

By the way, there is one 'heart word' (of course heart is related to liver :-)) that Malay has that Dusun doesn't have- 'jantung pisang', meaning "the heart of banana" i.e this one here:

The rice people

They say the Eskimos have over 20 words for snow. Well the Dusuns don't have any, not surprisingly, them being land people. But the Dusuns have various words to refer to rice. It shows how important rice is to them huh? Here are some of the rice referents:

1. takano 'cooked rice'
2. wagas 'uncooked, husked rice'
3. parai 'unhusked rice or riceplant'
4. bukid 'hill rice'
5. tadong 'black/purple rice'
6. tompurion 'unripe rice grains'
7. rinolok 'rice seedlings'
8. tomot 'the rice that have been harvested'
9. tomoton 'the rice being harvested'
10. parai wagu 'fresh rice grains, normally have just been harvested in the last month or so'
11.pulut 'sticky rice' (though I'm not sure whether this one is borrowed from Malay)
12. kuruluh 'dried rice stalks'

and I believe the long list goes on. It is very true indeed that language mirrors the community.

Talking about world view- Men are 'dynamic', women are 'non-dynamic'?

At least that's how it is based on marriage language. In Bundu Dusun there are two prefixes (among others) that indicate ability/accidental action:

1. ko - that refers to the ability/accidental action of the person DOING the action
2. o- that refers to the ability/accidental action of a person to whom the action is BEING DONE

When you refer to the action in the past tense they are:
1. noko- 2. no-

(depending on the words, can realize as ka-, a-, naka-, na-)

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a language lesson but a thought of something I encountered while listening to my recorded conversation with an elderly lady. She kept refering to the women she talked about as 'nasao' (no + sao) = having been weded by...', and the men as 'nakasao' (noko + sao) , "having had married ...".

It shows that men who do the marrying are 'dynamic', while women who are being married off to are 'non-dynamic' :-) It is interesting how the language really reflects the culture.