WRITER : 0tto Steinmayer.DRAWING : Augustine Anggat Ganjing

Bio of the author:

tto Steinmayer was born in

Connecticut. USA. in 1956

and from high school on has

studied classical languages and

li terature. He recei 'r ed his

Ph,D. in classics from Yale Uni-

1985 and the next year took his first trip to

|alai |ako'Iban:A BasicGrammar

of theIban Language

of SarawakOtto Steinmayer

(-q,eDrawings by

Augustine Anggat GanjingX(XXXXXXXXXXrcKX

Klasik Publishing House,Kuching, Sarawak, 1999.

Published by:

KLASIK PUBLISHING HOUSEP. O. Box 37, Kuching.

First published 1999

Copyright @ 1999 Otto SteinmayerIllustrations copyright @ 1999 Agustine Anggat Ganjing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form orby any means, without the prior permission in writing ofthe author and of KLASIK PUBLISHING HOUSE

ISBN: 983-9234-06-8

Distributed by:STARCOMPANY30 Main Bazaar,93000 Kuching, Sarawak.

Printed by:

SEE HUA DAILY NEWS BHD.Lot 1125, Sectiorr 66,Jalan Kemajuary Pending lndushial Area,93450 Kuching,Sarawak, Malavsia.

Duotcarro to the memory of three people wholoved language and literature:

My late mother-in-law,

Hbi anak Muda,,

a poet and a lover of others' poetry a lover ofmusic and nafure, and herself an artist. She did not

know how to read or write and that did not matter atall in the fineness of her sensibility -

Henry Gana Ngadi,

as Iban an Iban man that ever was. His untimely andtragic death, just before he would have completed his

doctoral dissertatiory deprived the Iban people and theworld of a great scholar, and myself of a dear friend,

and-

fohn Herington

Professor of Greek at Yale University, my mentor andfriend, who proved in his life that if you have a heart,

deep and minute learning does not harm, but givegreater keenness and joy to the appreciation of

literarure.

dl,Bms dazs iOriry x<iv' e?a' itnb ygov'-

-Pindar

Thble of ContentsIntroductionAcknowledgernentsThe Iban LanguageLcaming the langaageThe sounds of Iban

VowelsConsomnts

Tbble of consonantsEverydny pronancialion and rapid speechThe Nature ofthe lban languageTwo intportant parametersCopulative senlences and the omissian of the verb 'tn be.'Another lban preference

Parts of Sp€echNouns

Possession, th€ possessive positionOne or manyGender?

Numerical classifiercA historical digressinn, the prcfixes ke- and ge-Agent and absftact nouns, the pref.x pe-AdjectivesMore on noun plus notun or adjective in the genilive positi.on.

CompoundsReduplicationPartial reduplicationAdverbsComparison of adiectivesThe prefir sa-lse-Body LanguagePronouns

Reflexive pronounsDemonstrative pmnouns'Some'Indefinite pronounsDistributive adjectivesVerbs

4

99

10l0ll12t415l720AE262626,,f

2831343536373739394l4243444547474E4E5050

Uerb-toots: transitive, intrsnsitive, and requiring cornplementThe active verb

The transitive yerbThe verb without object (intransitive)

The oreflx beJme-'Irregular' verbsThe prefix te-Tiansformations

The causative verb, sumx -fraTbansitive to intransitiveNouns and adjectives to verbsActive Verb to Causative VerbThe prefix De&e-The prefi.x bete-

Examples of transformations with Iz boh \all,The possiveThe 'sofi' passiveTense

Pr€sent tenseSimple pastFuture. the verb delra,PerfectPast progressiye, the ,irnperfect' tenseRelationship of tenses in contextFurther examples

Bisi': its use as an auxiliary and as efistentialNyau and JadilNyadi 'to become'/,is become'Other AuxilisriesVerb plus verb

Verb plus verb to describe mannerVerb plus verb to exprress pu{xtseVerb plus verb as the origin of Iban prepositionsThe verb which explains an adjectiyeThe yerb as nounThe mood of verbs

NegatiYesErula'NaduiUkai

515t

535!

56596162626464656666676770707l72737474

7576777778798080E182E28383E3u

Enggai, '.10n'lx'ant'AnangBedaulapin

Yes !QuestionsCommandsPrepositions

Bnggau. Prepositinns of Spate and motionUher prepositions

More on kena'Adverbs of position and direction

Co4iunctions and clauses'And'Simple and complex sentences

Coordinating conjunctionsSubordinating conjunctions

Relative clauses, lr' and &e'That': Reported speech

Nanative, thc verb ko'En i'('If') .. ConditionsWord orderOther adverbs, intensifiers, particl€s and interjectionsInterjectionsEllipsis, rleaving things out'How to address people

Wonls of rehtionshipBeing PoliteDirty wordsIban LiteratureBibliographyAppendix

. Tbble 1: NumemlsTable 2: T"rmeTitble 3: Weights and measuresTable 4: Grammatical Tbrms in English and lbanTA e 5: Things to EatIndex

8586868787E990909l9293949595969697100101lo21031M104to7r0810E109110ltz113115tl7tl111Et?,0t?,0lzl123

Introduction The one Iban grammar available today is a technical linguistic analysis, notvery useful to people who are not themselves professional linguists. Ihave put togettror this Jalai Jaka.' Iban 'the way of Iban speech,' to helpthe more seriously interested outsidei understand the basic gramniar of theIban language. The pages that follow ought to be sufficient to allow lheleamer quickly to get into the flow ofday-to-day speech. All tanguages aredeep; but people leam to speak as to swim by wading in at the shallow end.My aim is to hold the beginner's hand until he or she learns to float, andthen cast them offjoyfully to cavort in the sea of words.

Ib:rn oral literature-much ofit recorded in print and ready to be enjoyedby the modem silent reader---offers endless treasures to those who lovepoetry. Iban literary language is very difficult. I find it hard€r than Pindar(reputed the most ferociously difficult ancient Greek poet) because in thislate era, fewer and fewer people are still alive who feel at ease with theliterary and ritual language, and so far very Iban scholars have had theopportunity to edit and comment on the epics of their ancestors. Themeanings of many words of poetry are recorded only in the memories ofIban singers.

I am offering this present work, therefore, partly in the hope that someyoung person-Iban or foreign----of linguistic talent, love for literature,enthusiasm for Iban culture, and, above all, energy and determination, maybe aided to learn Iban and be inspired to give us the scholarly helpsnecessary to keep Iban literature alive, vigorous, and diverse into thefuture; and partly to encourage travellers to try to talk to the natives('native' has always been a good word in Sarawak) ih their own language.I also hope that lbans who want to leam more about tleir own language, orabout English, will find here a guide that makes the mechanics of grammareasy and pleasant.

Although the study of gammar, even at an elementary level, is not ascommon as it used to be, I am counting on the fact that most of the peoplewho pick up this book will understand the basic terms and conceits ofgrammar, for example, what's a subject, what an object, what an adverb is.If you're in doubt, any good English dictionary should give you themeaning of a term.

I have deliberately written this book as a grammar, not as a 'teach yourself'type course. I have not included passages for practice or exercises. Iassume that the person who wants to use this book is already in Sarawak,or will be coming here shortly. My main.object, Reader, is to give you theessentials, so that you can build a basic skill and then add to it by talkingwith the people around you'. For the same reason I have not tried to write a

ESCRIBING a language is like going into a large, energeticallylived-in house-since Iban is a Borneo language let's call it alonghouse-and pasting labels on eyerything in it, from the

jumble in the.radau (attic) to the food in the dapur (kjtchen) so that a sfiangcrcan come in and quickly find out how the owners operate their ,machine

for living.'

I've been in and out of Sarawak thirteen years and been three years settledhere, and though my wife is Iban, and my son is bilingual, l still haven'tgotten anywhere near the bottom of the place, and in particular, to thebottom of the language. Some old Brooke official said that Iban was theworld's easiest language to learn how to speak badly. Those Brooke officerswere unencumbered by visa requirements and some of them were in thecountry for decades. They knew that Iban was a rich and profoundlanguage, and so could speak ironically like this. In writing this grammar,I feel like an aeronautical engineer who knows how a plane works butsticks to flying kites.

Iban has a very large vocabulary, full of the most subtle shades ofmeaning.Its gramrnar appears simple to someone used to tle headaches of endlesstables of verb-forms and rules of syntax, but Iban grammar is no simplerthan that of ancient Greek. If leaming Greek requires you to memorizeeach verb in its 180 inflected forms; Iban asks somethins no less difficult.Where Greek, say, makes the grammar of any stateirent completelyexpticit in the forms the words take, the grammatical fullness of lban isrealized in the interaction between language and context, in the choice ofwords, in subtle shifts of emphasis and linguistic gesture.

Attention to context, gesture, and nuance is vital for the understandins ofany language. I am not making a hostile antithesis between spoken

-ald

written language. Iban also has a literary language. in prose as well asverse. However, Iban literary and spoken modes exist together much morecomfortably than in westem languages, for the reason that until the secondhalf of this century none of geat quantity of Iban literature was everwritten down. Iban was once wholly, and for the most part remains. an oraltradition. This means that on usage of words and grammar , there is noauthority apart from the people who actually speak lban. you have to asksomebody. Ard to ask somebody you haye to be there, so leaming Ibanmeans you learn and sympathize with Iban life and thought. In nryopinion, since we are all human beings, this is not asking too much ofsomeone who feels like making the attempt.

A

complctc grammar of the language; I stress that this is not a completelrcatment, nor do I claim it to be complete, nor even very methodical.

Thc most accurate way to describe Iban would be in Iban and on its owntcrms, even at the cost of importing technical words and of someawkwardness in expression. Since that is beyond me, I will explain muchabout Iban according to how it differs from English. Iban word order and,in great part, its syntax are so much like what English speakers consider'natural' that I have omitted any detailed explanation, which would get usinto fine points and away ftom the aim of getting you to talk. I havearranged my gmmmar thus: first I talk about the sounds and pronunciationof lban; then I discuss the nature of the Iban language and its 'parameters' ;then I proceed following the various categories of parts of speech, underwhich most points of syntax can be conveniently explained.

My translations of the examples will often seem 'stilted.' I have beenpedantic quite deliberately in order to illustrate as clearly as possible howIban grammar worts by trying to imitate it with English words. However,I must wam you that though a stilted translation may lay bare the grammar,it can in no way convey the fitness and elegance of the Iban itself. Therough and pidgin-like quality of the English illustrations does nol implythat this is what Iban sounds like to an Iban speaker. Quite the opposite:it means that English lacks the gramrnatical resources peculiar to Iban thatIban uses so fruitfully, that English and Iban arc different.

Everyone who studies Iban should get a copy of Anthony Richards' AnIbqn-English Dictiozary, republished in paperback by Penerbit Fajar Bakti,Petaling Jaya. Not only is Richards very thorough and comprehensive, healso includes examples of the way each word is used, amounting in all tothousands, and his dictionary is in great part an encylopedia of things Iban.I owe him the greatest debt in my own acquisition of Iban and for help inwriting this. When I take a definition or example from Richards'dictionary, I mark it with the letter R.

A word on spelling. Several Iban scholars I have showtr this grammar to indraft have urged me to conform my spelling of Iban words to the systemproposed in l 995 by the Majlis Adat-Istiadat. After careful thought, I havebelieve it is best for me not to follow this advice. First of all, I have madeextensive use of Richards' Iban-English Dictionary in writing thisgrammar. I hope and expect that anyone using my grammar will rcferconstantly to Richards, and if I were to alter his spellings you, reader,would be left confused and hunting for words. Richards' dictionary isthc bcst available to the present, the only dictionary that gives grammaticalcxplanations and examples of usage. For this reason I consider his

6

dictionary, as a dictionary, to possess more authority than anything yetpublished. Second, while the revised spelling system may, when it isestablished, benefit native speakers of Iban, who know, for example, thatthe u prescribed by the new system at the ends of words is to be pronouncedsometimes [o] sometimes Io?], sometimes [u], and sometimes Iu?], (asin nmto, jale', tuju, paku'), the non-nxive speaker needs an explicit guideto the subtleties of Iban sounds.

It is a hard task to describe a language when you try not to leave too manygaping holes and ugly errors in thdt description. In one sense, my work hasbeen circular. In order to leam lban, I needed to leam its words; but inorder to leam the words, I needed to leam lban! As much effort as Richardsput into his dictionary, he did not get everything, and since I have rarelyfound someone who could explain a word to me without great struggles, Ihad to rely mainly on my own wit to divine rnany meanings. I found ituseful to try to shed some light on the grammar of Iban and work atlearning the langubge from the other side. Yet without the intimateknowledge of words and usage that comes from hearing a language frombirth, I can only get so far, and I have gotten there.

Therefbre I leave this grammar at the point I have brought it, and hope thatmy errors and over-simplifications will rouse Ibans who love theirlanguage to point out where I got it wrong. Praise is soothing to the ego,but criticism is what gets good work done. I welcome all comments on thiseffort, and if anyone can core.t me, he or she can be sure that additionsand conections will appear, with acknowledgiment, in the next edition, ifthis book is happy enough to be reprinted.

Acknowledgements

I wish to give the first place in my thanks to Mr Drahman bin Haji Amit,District Officer Lundu District at the time I began to write, for hiskindness, couriesy, and effectiveness in getting me a space in which I couldwork, without which I could have accomplished nothing. Equal Fatitudegoes to Uniyersiti Malaysia Sarawak (IJNIMAS) whose appointing me asHonourary Research Fellow with the Institute for East Asian Studieshas made it ynssible for me to live here. hof. Michael kigh, Directorof the IEAS, has been very generous with his support and advice.

Y.B. Jimmy Donald, Member of Parliament for Sri Aman, is Sarawak'smost learned, diligent and distinguished Iban man of letters. Y.B. Jimmyhas published many books of Iban poetry, and his English Keling of theRaised WorM is required reading for anyon€ who will enter the Iban mythic

t

world. He gave me comments and criticism whose value is far too sreat forme to estimate. I value equally dearly the constant attentlon andencouragement he gave me, the knowledge he shared with me sogenerously, and the enthusiasm he showed for this project.

Mr. Jimbun Tawai also performed me the kindncss of reading a draft andpointing out many things I should conect.

The man responsible for the illustrations to this book, Mr. Augustine AnggatGanjing, is not only one of Sarawak's best ariists and an author of a bookon Iban design, but also a leamed man of letters. He stands in the sreattradition. His father, Ganjing anak Ayu. of Ulu Simunjan, was alepamiang,or bard, and so were his father's three brothers, Mulok, Juing, and Bundan.Augustine read my draft minutely. Because of his sensiiivity to detailAugustine was able to point out very subde features of Iban grammar whichI would never otherwise picked up.

Dr. Jobn Kelsey loaned me important books and subjected my draft to closescrutiny. Dr. John Postill, Steven Hirsch, Bartholomew Nasip, Sidi andHeidi Munan, and Sim Kwang Yang also read drafts and ionributedpriceless knowledge that saved me from many a slip. Mr Looi Siew Teip,M.A., lecturer in English literature at Universiti Malaya, had books copiedfor me and shared his leaming on the fine points of phonology he knows sowell. hof. Alexander Adelaar kindly criticized a draft, although it was toolate to take full adiantage ofhis comments. Many others, Sarawakians andfriends abroad, communicated their comments and gave me many a goodword.

Ms. Victoria Encharang gets thanks for suggesting the title of this book.She had it in five seconds after I asked her when we met and talked inKuching.

Thanks to the staff of the Sarawak Museum Library for their generous helpto me over tlle years in many things besides this book, and for maintainingtheir collection, without which I would have been handicapped. I speak formany others whom they have helped .

Finally, special thanks to Miss Chu Mee Fah of the Star Co. Her shopappears to be a stationery shop like many others; but one who lookscarefully there will discover the love of literature that runs in the family.Her late brother, Mr. Chu Kah Chai, first encouraged me to write thisgrammar and submit it to him. May the gods of literiture prosper them.

Otto Steinmayer, Lundu; 4 July 1999

8

The Iban Language.

f BAN is spoken by over half a million people in the island of Bomeo.I^ Iban is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the greatAustronesian language family. Until the Spaniards and Portuguese beganto plant their colonies, Austronesian was the language family spread mostwidely over the world. Even now it stretches from Madagascar in the westto Hawai'i and Easter Island in the east, frorn Taiwan in the north to NewZealand in the south.

Compare:'coconut'- Iban nyiur Hawai' iatl. niu

All of the native languages in Bomeo are rclated to one another, andrelated also to Bahasa Malaysia, the national language of Malaysia, toBahasa lndonesia, and to the various local Malay dialects. Iban is a veryclose relative to Malay, although Iban is more closely related to theancestral language (which apparendy arose in Bomeor ) that developedinto both. If you know Malay, you can get a good many hints concemingIban, but you must remember that people who sPeak one cannotautomatically speak the other, and that the geniuses of the two languagesarc very different. Iban is also closely related to Selakau, spoken in thewest of Borneo, but less closely relaied to Bidayuh and Orang Ululanguages.

Lcarning the tangnge.

Bomeans are, in general, very good at leaming languages. Many Dayaksknow at least two, not only local dialects, but such languages as Chineseand English, which lie outside the Austronesian family. The reason thatIbans are such good linguists is not, well, it's not that they rczlly are srtchgood linguists; but they don't feel asharned at trying to communicate withsoniebody at a basiclevel, and as they practise, they get better. By all meansfeel no false shame about trying out your rudimentary Iban on the peopleyou me€!. You may have success that surprises you. Language is one of thebig topics of conversation in Sarawalc, and linguistic, as well as rhetoricaland poetic skill, is admired. People will be happy to correct your Iban, andoften they will volunteer to correct your Iban whether you like it or not!Even if they make no attempt, you'll pick up on the way peoplesubconsciously correct you as they converse with you, and if you payattention and practise, you'll get better. Speak and have fun. Ifpeople laugh,perhaps they're amused at some unexpected expressiYe turn you've given

I seeldet""., t995.

to their language.

And especially, listen. It's amazing the things a discreet person will leam.The tru€-test of knowing a language is not how well you can expressyourself, but how well you understand the nuances ofother peoples' speech.The sounds of Iban

Iban is written with the Roman alphabet. Not all the letters are used, butIbans leam them all in the usual orser.

Vowels

Iban uses the vowels a, e, i, o, u. (The letter e stands for two differenrvowels, as I chall explain.) These are all pronounced shon, and mostlypure, as in Italian. The exception is when vowels occur at the ends o1words and the correct pronuncidtion is obscured by a too-simple spelling.The diphthongs ai, au, oi, and ui are pmnounced as two short vowels putrapidly together, as in sungai'iver,' bau ,smell,' tanggoi .sunhat,' andJuit_'joist' as if they were sunga-i, ba-u, arld tanggo-i. The u and i of sr.rirhardly coalesce at all, and you can hear the two vowels very clearlv in bau.People will sometimes drag the word out for emphasis. , Ba-u!' ieans,,Itreally srnellsl' Or ar', 'yes,'can become A-r'.r 'yes indeed!.'

One combination, oa (also spelled ua) occurs rarely, and stands for twodifferent things, In nuan 'yol' and moa,face'the two vowels arepronounced rapidly but are still distinguishable; in nma .many' the voweldoften coalesce so that the word comes out sounding as if ama.'Th€ letter e stands most of the time for the very short vowel [a] (the schwa,called pepet inMalay), which is pronounced like a short .uh.' In older books,both in lban and other Malayic languages, this pepet is often printed 6. Thelefter e also stands for the sound [e], pronounced like the e in .red.,Example: -mCh (emphasizing suffix). The difference between the twovowels is illustrated by the two words terabai 'shield', pronounced as if'trabu' , and. t€rebai 'to fl:y'' pronounced as if ,terbai., In this last word. thefirst e is the longer, the second is the pepet. In this book I will use anaccented 6 to mark the longer vowel

.dt the beginnings of words also, a pepet will almost disapp ear, so ahat enti,'if' sounds hke 'nti', or endq' 'not' like ,nda. Be careful of e at thebeginnings of words where where it stands for the lonser 6 as analternative spelling of i. Endu'(usually spelled indu' .fimale.) is adifferent word from endu,' 'Miss.'

When the letter a occurs as the final sound of a word, with or without a

10

glottal stop after it (that is, for example, not 'ang' or -ah), it can- stand forone of two different sounds, the straight [a] as in 'father' when therc is noglottal stop, and also, when a glottal stop follows, for [c], like the vowel in;saw' but ihorter. Tlns dada'chest' and lada 'gppet' arc pronounced

ldadal and [ada] but sida''they' and lia' 'ginger' are pronouncedipproaching [sidc?] and [hc?] resPectively This difference in vowel qualityis subtle and sometirnes hard to pick up.

In final syllables of words that contain an 'i' or an 'o' vowel, however, whatone hears is not the pue vowel but something like [ia] and [oa]. Thus:ta,si& 'sea' is pronourced'lasi6k' dulok 'sit' is pronounced 'dudoek,' anddom (way of addressing a young man) 'do€m.' You can even hear peoplesay things like 'ora6ng,' spelled orang'person'' This is a.bit lnr4 andyou'll juit have to listen and imitate. Not every Iban speaks like this. Don'tLv to be 'standard.' There is no standard lban, although most of theuoooon""tt on the Radio-Television Malaysia (RTM) Iban service useSecond Division dialect. Stick to the accent you acquired where you firstfound your feet in Sarawak, and you will have a point of reference as wellas a conversation piece all the time you are there. z

When a pepet vowel occurs between a 'stop' consonant, such 1! k' g'-t, d'p, b, (also i, which is not a stop but a 'fricative') and the 'liquids' rtir l, thepepet ve.y nearly drops out in pronunciation, so that geli'ticklish'becom"s gl!, and

"rfipar 'rubber sandal' becomes slipar, which is of coune

'slipper.'

When a word ends in -oh or -uh, the spelling often varies, for example,tuboh 'body' canbe spelled tubuh. This variation in spelling indicates thatthe vowel here is something between [o] and [u]. A very few words beginwith o: the two most impofiana arc orqng 'human being, person/people'and apr's 'of6ce.' Somi oider books spell the word ulih 'lo get' olih ot evenolbh.The word ubat 'medicinet is often pronounced, and spelled, obat.

Consonan6

The consonants are shown in the following list. They are pronounced, again,pure, without the heavy h sounding puff of air that English speakers mix in;ith them. (To an Asian, when we say 'tea,'it sounds as if we're saying 't'heah.'

'he, she' with a y in the middle of it, iyc.

--..-----.._.---2 In such a basic book as rhis I cannot take account of all the many regional pronunciations'Be advised that you will come across some straige variants. where I live, in Lundu, Sebuyausp€akers say such things as lkuweryoh] for kt{1, 'cake' and [''/lryah] forclilt 'gel

11

Likewise, when a consonant like k, g, t, d, p, or b, ends a word, the Ibanspeaker uses the consonant to cut off the flow of sound. He do es ,ot rele(lsethe consonant and follow it with a puff of air. To Iban ears, when wepronounce the word 'cat' it sounds like ,kat'h-uh.'

Not all thc sounds ofEnglish are used in Iban. H is not pronounced exceptat the ends of words, although,ari 'day' is always, and,ati ,liver, or heart'is often spelled, by convention, with an h. In the case of iari this is todistinguish it from arl'from.' There is no f sound in Iban. If your name isPhilip, you will often hear people calling you .pilip.' Likewiie there is noz sound or sh sound, or-with one exception-v sound. The letter q is notused, except in the old-fashioned spelling of the name of the town euop(outside Kuching). The 'queenie' variety of mango is pronounced is rnEnglish but witten kuini. Nor is x used. .Taxi'iJwritten ,efsi. Enslishwords that are adopted into lban often have their sounds chaneed int6 thenearest acceptable Iban sound if the English is unpronouncabl;in the Ibansystem. '.Fashion' becomes pl'siz. However, tiyi .television' keeDs tocEnglish sound, to distinguish the word from trbj .tuberculosis..

Thble of consonants.

k: ftd&i,'foot, leg.'gi gagit,'enthusiastic'

ng: (not pronounced [ng] as in 'finger'but simply as [0] as in'sirytr\g.') ngingit 'cicada.' The combination [0g] lsspelled -ngg: e.g. pinggai 'plat'€.'

c: (always pronounced 'ch' as in ,church') cabi,,chjli,. Often spelled'ch' Kuching'KucIlng.'

j: jalai's0ef'tlgo

ny: ([Jr] as in 'canyon' or Spanish 'pifla') nyamai ,pleasant, easy, tasty't Eh'Ea. '

d: dudok'sit

a: nadai 'don't have'p: pisang'banana'

b: babi'pig'

m: may6u'cat'

y: yu', ikan ya..'shark. Almost no words are spelled with y at thebeginning. Ia' can be spelled ia'. In the middle ofwords, the soundexists but is usually not spelled out. Maioft ,many' is pronouncedmaiyoh, and often splled, mayoh. Iban people do like to spell ra,

t2

l :

w:

rumah,'ho.use.' The letter r is pronounced differently in differentareas. Ibans usually pronounce r witl a single flap of the tongue.In some areas people pronounce it like the French r, which ismade by vibrating the uvula, the little thing that dangles at theback of the palate. In Sebuyau dialect r becomes h. Berapa iko'orang di baroh rumah? 'Hout many people under the house?'becnmes Behapa ik'o'ohang di bahoh humah? However, the soundr is never trilled the way it is in Indonesian, except when peopleare trying to pronounce words exceptionally distinctly, as whenin front of a large audience. Another thing to watch out for, if youtravel among regions of Sarawak where Ibans have different waysof speaking, is the tendency for r to be converted to, or changeplaces with, l. Some Ibans say berari 'all the time,' (ftom icri'day') others say belarl some say ular ' snake,' others say zral.

l6l.ok 'tired'

wong, ai'wong 'rapids.'Thissoundcanexist in the middle ofwords without being spelled out; for example, beruang lberuwa\l'bear.' But compare bawang, 'onion.' Sometimes the w sound isspelled u at the beginnings of words. Uap, 'vapo stgam.'

sungai 'iver.' In some dialects s at the ends of words can bepronounced [h] : p?dis 'painful' becomes pedih

This sound does not occur at the beginnings or in the middles ofwords, even if spelle(l there (for example tn hari 'day' ot sahari'all day') but only at the ends oJ words, where it signifies aprolongation ofthe vowel into a rough breathy sound, as in tilr'tea' or mai.oh 'much/many.' This h at the ends of words isimportant. The pa tree is different from the pauh nee.

Iban also has one consonant that appears in English but is notrecognized in the standard language. Thi s is the glotnl stop l7l, asound made by suddenly cutting off the wind at the very back ofthe tbroat. The glottal stop is what you hear when an Englishmanfrom the north ofhis country says a littl€ bottk: 'ali'lbo'l...' lnIban the glonal stop is very important at the ends of words. Oftwo words that look the sarne, one may have it, one may not, andthe two will have different meanings. For example, there are thewords paya,'pattem,' paya" swamp,' and payah'fio\ble", di''you'(sing.) is different from di 'at.'

IJ

Augustine Anggat told me an amusing piece of riddling word-play thatillustrates the importance of the glottal stop:

Baka' Bakn baka baks' aku: 'Baka's betel-basket [is] Iike mybetel-basket.'

I have followed Richards' practice in his dictionary and indicated theglottal stop by an apostrophe (') after the last vowel. There has been muchargument about how the glottal stop should be marked, but the apostropheseems to me (and to some other worthy folks) to be the most elegantarrangement. Even so, only a few Ibans mark the glottal stop when writingtheir language.

example: ai' 'water.'

Everydoy pronunciation and rqid speech

Native speakers of any language, when they talking in an informalsituation, take liberties with pronunciation, so that what comes out of theirmouth is not pedantically correct and, as it were, precisely chiselled, buthere and there shortened, clipped, and slurred. Ibans do this as much asEnglish speakers. A sentence like Nadc i bisi'mandi aku sqheri tu' 'lhaven'tbathedtoday' often comes out as'ad.q,i isi' mand.i'ku san ra'. The Sebuyauarc notorious for beingmalas nulut 'lazytututhed.' One day some yearsago I met one of my wife's cousins in Lundu. He asked me whether I hadcome to town 'ngabas,' so I thought I heard, to check something out.'Puzzled, I replied A ku nadai ngabas barang nama' 'I'm not looking afteranything', and he laughed and replied, carefully tbis ime.'ngena' bas!'What he had said was 'Did you come down using the bus?'

The only remedy for this confusion is to keep lislening to people speakuntil your ears can connect tlle actual sounds of talk with the ideal words ofthe language as conceived in the mind. Unstressed vowels tend to fall out,adjacent vowels are squeezed together, or whole syllables are 'swallowed.'This habit of speech has consequences for Iban grammar. The word for'male'is commonly pronounced and writteh /rfri. However, the collectform is lelati. The beginning syllable Ie is called a partial reduplication. lfyou listen very very carefirlly, you can hear that the le is still in someghostly fashion 'there' ; the tongue rests.rjn the roof of the mouth when thesound starts, and this is what stands i0ffr the whole syllable. One mightwdte the result as ,/afi or perhaps 'ldkr'. I will talk more about this in thesection on reduplication below. Meantinie, throughout this gammar I usethe form of Uellati and other such words as Richards gives them in hisdictionary. In this case the entry is for laki.

t4

The Naturc of the Iban Languoge

These are exciting days for linguistics. The study of language has come along wav in the past fiw decades, pnd new discoveries are being made alltheii-". The mbst widely accepted Yiew ofthe nature of language owesan enonnous atnount to the work of Noam Chomsky. His 'generative' or'transformational' grammar has the repu.tation ofbeing fearsomely arcaneand difficult. True, tlte details, like those of any science, are numerous andinvolved, but the main points of the new linguistics are very easy tounderstand. and in fact tend to confirm the common-sense notions that mostpeople have about language. 3 Most imPortant To( our purposes herc is toitati the point that all languages arise from the same basic structure,common ti all human minds. Languages differ, though; fint, as everybodyknows, in their sounds, and also iir various 'Parameters,' options among arange that each language sets by convention. We have discussed thevari-'ous sounds of lban. What follows is a list of some of the principalparameters of the Iban language.

. Word order is tlrc most importaot way Iban uses to indicategramrnatical relationships. Iban places the words of a sentence ini fairly strict order of Subject,.verb, Object.

. When two Iban words come together, the second word modifies thefirst. The easiest way to understand this is to look at how adjertivesalways follow the noun they rnodtfy:. bunga mirah 'red flowet'However either of the two words can belong to any

-part of speech

except piepositions. This gives rise to a large variety of corstructions'which will be explained as we go along.

. Iban is a 'head-first' language, tlat is, in building phrases' the maintopic of the phrnse (the 'head') comes first' and other words that

. modify the head folow in order of decreasing importance'

mirah 'red'mirah iambu 'red lofl jambu-fruit' (= 'pink')mirah-jambu tuai 'red [ofljambu-ftuit, old' (= 'dark pink')mirah iambu tuai mrztt 'slighdy dark pink' a

. Because Iban is head-first, it uses prepositions, that is words of nomeaning in thernselves that arc placed in front of another word to

. indicate how that word relates to the rest of the sentenc€'

3 A stimulating and entertaining intsoduction is Stephen Piiker's me ltn$uo|c Inslincl'

P€nguin,1995.4 Compae the way military English describ€s things, e.g' 'hat, sun, hot wcather' typg II '

/A

r5

Except for the verb, Ib anhas no inflections, ftat is. no Iban word chanpesrts torm !o indicate its grammatical function. The verb in Iban rs infec6d-it changes shape. bur the kinds of things this inflection indicates aretotally different from what the English virb indicates by its chanles.Iban has no true verb 'to be,' although there are verbs that take oversome of to be's functions, and thi concept can be expressed inother ways without a verb.

Iban words do not take any particular form to show what part ofspeech (hey are. unlike in English, where the _ly endins

-of sav.

'quickly' (-/y added to quickl shows that the whole *oia i, inadverb.

There. is no agreement in lban. Iban nouns have to gender (ttEuropg:an languages this means most commonly the dist"inction ofmasculine. feminire, and neuter) or number lsingular and plural).lnrs meatrs ahat there are no special forms of the noun that requirea special form of the verb, if the noun is a subject 1e.g. in Engtish, ,Afish swims'as opposed ro ,Birds fly'); it also meani tta.?3""tiu"ido not have to take a special form depending on th. n;; til;modlty. (As in French. where vou m sf .tierino;ich h.r..^-- ,- n--:,modify. (As in French, you must distinguiph between /e beanJ()U r ust utsunguljin Detween /e aeQlg-arcon 'the handsome boy'and la belle nadtihoiselle .(he pretty

Note: The aim of the above list is not to make you think that Iban rsradically different from English, or that is is an 'exotic' language. As wewill see in the examples throughout this book, English can do many ofthings Iban can do, and does.

Tw o irnport4nt Wrame t e rs

Iban grammar differs from English in two parameters so much that theyshould be explained at the very first. These are 1) the way in which Ibandistinguishes between determined and undetermined nouns, and 2) the wayIban omits the verb 'to be' in sentences.

1) Human beings habitually think of things in terms of both the generaland the particular, and this difference is expressed in the language theyirse, in the way nouns arc determined ot undetennined. A noun isdetermined when you're speaking of something specific, somethingthbt is what it is and quite definitely not something else. A noun isundetermined when you're spefing of things in general, or when thequestion of specificity is, at least for the time. irreleiant.

The concept is simple enough, and eaih one ofus automatically makes thesubtle logical calculations about which variety of noun to use when wetalk. It may rot, however, appear clear at first, and so let me explain theway English handles it.

Fully correct English uses arricles ('the' 'a') to mark det and undet-let meuse some abbreviations her€-nouns. But you don't need articles toshow the difference between det and undet. Imagine you're in a workshopwith a person who does not use perfectly correct English. He says:

'Cive me screwdriver'

You pick up the first thing you see on the bench, and he opens a can of parntwith it. Then he says:

'Give me big yellow phillips screwdriver.'

You hunt around until you find the particular tool, which has a quarter-inchblade and the brigtrt handle that is the trademark of the Stanley Co., and hesets a screw that was not quite tight.

Most of the time English distinguishes between det and undet by means ofarticles, of wytl,ch tberc are, obviously, two, the inLertnitu Nticle, and thedcrtnite article. Tlrc indefnite qrticle is 'a' or @ ('zero,' that is, no mark, 6nothing): 'a dog,' 'dogs,' 'medicine.' The indefinite article preceeds anoun whenyou are talking about something as a class, ot as someunsoecified member or members of a class.

girl'. )

Iban is a language in which classrfers mus{ b€ used with all nounswhen the number of things is imponant. E.g. Both Iban and Enslishsay liga kong r &rras 'three cups of rice., but in lban you have tJ savenam batang pinsil 'six sncts [ofl pencils.' This wi be explained latei.Iban nouns can be determined or undetermined, but lban uses noarticle.

Ilban leavesmany grammatical features of a sentence_such as tense,the time when something takes place. and mood, which includeswhether .somebody thinks an action is actual, possible. or merelyhypothetical-to be understood from context, wirere nngtsh mate"sthem explicit in the language.

Iban, re..eulq[ uses reduplication. .doubling,' to make compound

words that differ in meaning from the undoubled word.

' trorg is a bonowing from Chinese. Ibans feel quite happy to appropriate to their ownlanguage any word they find useful.

t.

t1

li'A dog is a boy's best friend.''Medicine is a fine subject of study.''Dogs wag their tails when happy.'

The dertnite araicle is 'the:' 'the dog,' 'the dogs,' 'the medicine.'

'The dog (or 'the dogs') got into the garbage.''The medicine of the middle ages could not cure much.'

To make the distinction as to how the articles are used a little clearer,consider that it sounds more natural to say 'Shoo the dog (or, 'dogs') offthe porch' than 'Shoo a dog off the porch.'The latter can be said only whenyou have a bunch of nameless curs on the veranda and for some rcason vouneed one on the ground, and as for 'Shoo dogs off the porch'-when mightvou sav that? /

Another function of the undeVdet relationship, made explicit by the articlein English, is to mark information as 'new'' introduced for the first time, or'old,' already introduced. For example, a story might begin:

'A man stood waiting on a corner on a sfeet in a city.'

Compare the effect if you change each 'a' to 'th€:'

'The man stood waiting on the comer on the street in the city.,

In the fitst sentence the curtain comes up and we patiently await for thestory to unfold. In the second, the 'the's'give us the feeling that we oughtto know this man, corner, street, city, that we ought to realize somethinghds been going on before the scene was revealed to us.

Enough of English. Iban has no articles, but ir has ways of distinguishingdet and undet nouns. One common way resembles tie 'incorrect' Englishscrewdriver example above, except that in Iban it is perfectly correct andetegant.

Orang dani. '[A] person is coming.'Orang SESCO dani. '[The] person [from] SESCO is coming.' 8

Of course an undet noun need not have a mark, but in Iban it is not

necessary even for a det noun to carry any mark at all. Context oftendecides whether a noun is undet or det.

Aku ka' malcai bubur lenmi tu'. 'I want to eat porridge [undet] thisevening.'

A: Ni bubur? B: Dalam periok di dapur A: 'W[ere's [the] porridge?'B: 'In [the] pot in [the] kitchen.'

If you're at home, you can hardly mistake what specific porridge and pot Bis referring to.

A noun modified by a pronoun showing the person to whom it belongs willof course be det.

Kulit iya lembut. 'His skin is smooth.'

In place of articles, Ib an uses demonstatives to mark nouns as determined.The two demonstratives most commonly used thi&{Es.are tu' 'this,' andnya' 'that.' Tu 'is strong; it refers to what is right at hand. Nya'is a weak'that,' indicating that the thing in question is Just over there,' and henceoften jt is comes to be a pretty good equivalent in feeling for English'the.'Y

Orang nya' bisi' dafai. 'The person has come.'

Iban also has ways of indicating whether information is new or alreadyintroduced. You are travelling in Sarawak for the first tirne, and your Ibanfriend points to a rambling wobden structure the likes of which you havenever seen before and says:

Tu'rutnah panjai. 'This [is a] longhouse.'

Several years later you are traveling with the same friend in the upriverarea 3nd you arrive at a landing. He points and says:

Tu' rumah panjai nya ' 'This [is] the longhouse' .

In fact, the one you have been talking about on board the boat. Thus is thefeeling of the indefinite and definite article expressed.

When several words are put together to make arutun phrase, the nyd' marksthe end of the phrase:

orang Inki besai tuai getnu' nya' 'The big, old, fat man.'

9 English 'tlrc' began its life as a alemonstrttive, whose neuter singllar folm survives in thedemonsFative 'tba!'.

o 'Mark' in grammar means that a gradmatical function is explicitly indicated by a sign.Thus in 'ships,' the fact tlat it is plural is marked with the sign -s; in .sheep' the plural rsunmarled.7 Perhaps when a longhouse mother is being bothered by her five year old boy and tells him rodo something useful out there insiead of whining in the rilit .longhouse apartm€nt.'8 SESCO: 'Sarawa} Electdc Supply Company.'

l8 l9

,11

Iban, like many languages, does not ofien bother to mark the indefinitefeeling. However, if the thing that is being iniroduced is one thing, and thatfact matters, Iban wil l specify the fact that it is one, by using theappropiate numefical classifier fsee below I pl us the prefi x .lu -, which means'one.'

Orang siko' datai. 'A person is coming.' l0

Bisi' rumah panjai siti' di sungai tu.' 'There is a krnghouse on thisriver.'

This sentence could equally well be translated: 'There is one longhouse onthis river,'although a speaker will usually be more explicit and say siti'aja''one only.' The English 'a' also originally meant 'one.' | | '

The relative pronoun ti' or ke can also act as a kind of article. See thesection on relative clauses below.

Copulttive sentences and the omhsion of the verb 'to be,'

No verb 'to be'exists in lban. You may find this strange, but as you willsee, the Iban language is not in the least hampered by the lack of such aYerb.

All languages make copulative settences. 'Copulative' here has nothing todo with sex, but refers simply to the connecting of two concepts.Schematically a copulative sentence takes the form ofa simple equation a= b, where a is a noun or pronoun, and b is another noun, br an adjective orsomething that acts like an adjective. The a portion is what the sentence isall about and called the subjea in grammar. The subject of a CS (we areabbreviating again) as of any sentence is always a noun. l2 The equal-signplus the b portion is what you say about the subject and is called thepredicate. ('Predicate' means, 'what you say about something'-Latinpraedicare.) In English, the equal-sign is represented by a form of the verb'to be,' which /xrJt be there; it cannot be left out.

'Grass is green.''The watermelon is rioe.'

10 srio'is sa- + iko' 'tail' numerical classifer tbr animals.11 In German today the indefinite article remains 'one' ein. Es gibt ein Langhaus an einemFl4, 'There is a longhouse on a iiver.'12 To avoid difficulty and skip long explanations of things like 'noun phrascs' I'll adapt anold joke: Ifit waddles like a noun, and quacks like a noun, and eals bugs lik€ o noun and layseggs like noun, thed it's probably a noun. So, 'eating dce,' the subject of the sentence .Eatingrice is good,'is a noun.

20

'Chickens are birds.''We are Sebuyau.'

Copulative sentences can do one of two things, they can describe a qualityof their subject, or they can assign the subject to a category. Both types ofCS can be either general or specific assertions.

1. 'Grass is green.' quality/general2. 'The watermelon is ripe.' quality/specific3. 'Chickens are birds.' category/general4. 'We are Sebuyau.' category/specific .\

Two things diff. er in the way Iban, as opposed to English, treats Cs. First,Iban, since it has no articles, is more careful about explicitly distinguishingleneral and specific assertions, and second, Iban omits the 'equal-sign.'

l. Ijau rumput-2. Semangkn nya' mansau.3. Manok sabansa burong.

- 4. Kami orang Sebuyau.

Yet, it's not enough to say that 'to be' is omifted: these four expressions aregenuine Iban sentences and they must each have a verb. 'To be'is verymuch here, except strangely it does not appear as an explicit word. Youmight say that in Iban 'to be' is unmarked [see note 6], or that its form is'zero,'that is, nothing. However, it is better to say that 'to be' in Iban isrepresented by what linguists call a 'trace.' A trace is something that takespan in the grammatical lo-gic of thought before speech, but which is notrealized in speech itself. rr

The concepts of equating, or associating with a quality or category that 'tobe' represents are so basic to our thought that many other languages as wellas lban have never felt th€ need to make the use of the verb mandatory inthe spoken language. We can do the same in English, although now itsounds poetic:

'And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha.' ta

But in casual speech we can, while waiting for a bus in the rain, for

13 To -ak"

drc idea of tr""e clearer, I'll give an example of a type I have often heard fromIbans speating English: :This is the rice which I bought it yesterday.' If a native speaker ofBnglish were to say this, he would not add ihe 'it,' which is a trace in the way he mentallyprocesses his language. The Iban speaker, influenced by the way he processes thought intospeech, males the trace explicit.14 T.S.F]h<* Fou, guarter& 'East coker' trI

I2l

example, tum to a friend and say 'Terrible weather,' and be sure she knowswe mean 'The weather is terrible.'

Traces are not entirely 'nothing.' The space where something is left out inspeech but meant to be understood is indicated by the subdest of featuresor gestures, which can be changes in intonation or word order or choice ofwords. Let us look at how these work in the the four examples above.

l) Ijau mntput. Here the normal word order of subject first isreversed. This is to signal that these two words are a complete sentence,since the predicate is in the stmng place at the beginning; but merelyto reverse the word order is not enough. Remember that one general ruleof Iban is that when two words come together, the second modifies thefirst. Thus, ijau rumput, allby itself, seems to mean 'green [as] grass.iHowever, if you pronounce thes€ words with extra stress of the voice oniaa and Folong the second syllable 1ca slightly, or pause for a fraction ofa instant, then let your voice fall saying runput, you have anunmistakeable sentence.

Ijart, rumput.

comparc: Nyanat, angin. "Brceze [is] pleasant,' and dngin nyqmai'[a] pleasant bieeze.'

Emphasis will also allow a speaker to make a quality/general CS with thewords in 'normal' order, subject ftst. (Imagine tiat someone is correctingyour confusion at the fish-market.)

Patin besai! Seluang mit! 'Catfish larel Drgl Minnows [are] szafl/ 15

However, the comrnonest way Iban points to the trace of 'to be' in quality/general CSs is to insert an adverb between the predicate, which comes first,and the subject:

I amail

Nyamai { amat I angin. 'Breeze lisl truly pleasant.'

lendnr)

Tttro things to note here: first, these adverbs are ofthe kind that give strengthto an assertion; therefore they go with the invisible 'to be' as much as withthe adjective. Second, the adverb comes between the adjective and the noun,and so these two words cannot make a phnse, they have to be interpretedas predicate and subject respectively.

15 Comparc the slogan from Ceorge Orwell's Arinal Fam 'Four legs good, two legs bad.

22

L

2) Semangka tu'mansar. The subject of a quality/specific CS like thisone will always be a determined noun, because the assertion is about oneparticular thing. Since the subject is followed by a determiner, such astu' or nya', it comes fiIst. The predicate adjective is separated from itand so there is no danger of the words being associated together as aphrase. The only alternative then is to understand the words as a sentence,in which case the spirit of 'to be' will be there.

Angin tu' nyarnai. 'This breeze [is] pleasant.Ruttwh kanxi mit. 'Our house [is] small.'

Or, if you want to put more emphasis on the 'pleasant' or 'small' part of it,you can put these sentences again into the reversed word order.

'Nyamai qngin tu'. Mit rumah kani.

Again, the determiner following the noun means you have to take it and thenoun together; the noun cannot form a phrase with the adjective. Forcomparison, consider what would happen to Eliot's sentence 'Dark the sun'if we left out the 'the;' the result would be a phrase 'dark sun.'

3) Manok sabansa burong 'Chickens[are] a type lofl bird,' and 4) Kamiorang Sebuyau 'We [are] Sebuyau people.' You will see that when anIban speaker makes a CS of either the general or' specific variety whichassigns the subj€ct to some category he or she is careful to specify the kindof category as well as whdt that category contains. There are severalreasons for this. The simplest is that, as inthe first two kinds ofCS, youhave to avoid bringing the subject aDd predicate into dircct contact. becauseof the 'following word modifies' parameter. Hence you cannot say either*Manok burong16 or +Burong mtnok 7f yott are going to make themmean 'Chickens are birds.' Manok burong means 'the chicken of a bird'a:nd burong manok means 'the bird of a chicken". kami Sebuyau means'we Sebuyau' and Sebuyau kami means 'our Sebuyau.'

The second reason is that Iban likes to make it clear that a logicalrelationship is being discussed. A word of category-which is also often anumerical classifer as well [see below]---comes at the head of its phrase:sabarna burong, orang Sebuyau. Therefore the words split into two neatparcels, easily interpretable as subject and predicate, with the face 'to be'between them. The very presence of a word of category means that theseassertions are classifications.

16 when an asterisk appears in front of a word or phmse in a linguistic work, it means that thatword or phrase is not found o! not permitted in the language, or is a hypotheticalreconstruction,

23

The care that Iban takes with making the logical nature ofCs clear is bestillustrated with a sample syllogism:

Uging anak mensia siko'.Semoa' arutkmensia enda' mu' enda' parai dudi hari,Nya' alai Uging enda' tau' enda' parai dudi hari.

'Socrates is a man. All men are mortal, Therefore Socrates is mortal.'

While English speakers often use copulative sentences, Iban likes toexpress the same ideas more colorfully. In English we might say, 'Mybreakfast is always a piece of toast, an orange, and tea,' an Iban would sayTiap pagi aku makai asi' enggau ikan pusu mimi4 lalu aka ngirup segelaskopi: 'Every moming I eat rice with a little dried fish and drink a cup ofcoffee.'

Without getting into knotty talk about logic and semantics, you can easilysee that they operate as well in Iban as in any other language. Thus, youcan say ljart, rumput 'Grass is green,' but not *Mansa , semangka,'Watermelon is ripe.' This makes no sense as an assertion aboutwatermelons as a whole, and cannot refer as it stands to a specificwatermelon.

Another lban prelerenc e

Discussion of breakfast brings up another point Iban where likes thingsother than what English likes. English, broadly speaking, likes to expressthings with nouns. Iban, on the other hand, is very fond of expressing asmuch as possible through verbs. For example, in English we would say'We went up the river that way with our children.' In Iban this goes: Kamimenyanak mudik kin. Here menyanak can be analyzed as a verb formed asfollows: anat means 'child', sa-, is a prefix that means 'same' or 'with,'(by the rules of rasalization-seebelow-sa- becomes rya-; the a meldswith the following a) and me- makes the whole thing into an intransitiveverb. Mrdit on the other hand, is a verb whose special meaning is 'to go ina boat up river.' Iban is here often more colbrful than English. We say 'Wehav€ a dog.'Ibans say Kani nupi asu' slto''We raise a dog.' 'To wear ashirt' is expressed by bebajufrom baju'shirt;' 'to live,' as in 'we live acrossthe river' is expressedby berunmh 'to have a house' (rrrrnai 'house).' Inthe same way, where English likes to use adjectives, Iban likes to use verbs.

Asi'nya'udah beban 'The [sc. leftover] rice is already smelly.'Ular nya' rruu.jai batang kayu!. 'The snake was as long as atree-trunk ! '...iya ke ngimbai aku... 'the person who is next to me'

Parts of Sp€ech

Though in English we tend to believe that words are rigidly assigned to thecategory of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., many words can operate inseveral categories. 'Red' can be a oun or an adjective; 'run' can be a verbor a noun. Iban words have still more freedom to roam and changefunctions. As I hzive said, in Iban tlere are no features in the form of a wordthat mark it at first glance as any specific part of speech.

Nouns can become verbi easily, 17 either with no change, or with one of afew slight changes which we shall get to. For example- .

jalai'rotf' ) bejalai 'go, walk' [In casual speech often just 'Jalai.], cinsqw 'chainsaw' -> nydnscut'he chainsaws/they chainsaw'

Adjectives can become verbs:

besai 'bi,g' i Batu hya' mesai rumah. 'That rock is as big as a house.'(as if 'That rock bigs a house.')tinggi 'hlgh, tal[' Tai'mayau ninggi solaz. 'Cat poop [as] high [as]the attic.'(from a children's rhyme) 16kamah' &rty,' nganmh' dirnes'

A preposition too can becorne something like a verb-

enggau 'with' ).lya enggau aku. 'He [is coming] with me.'

An intenogative pronoun can tum into a verb-

sapa? 'who?' nyapa 'calls out from afar.'

And an interogative adverb can, by a process that takes it though beinga quasi-verb, into an positive adverb-

kapa'? 'why?' ngapa' 'invai'.n.'

How a word behaves mostly depends on how or where it's used in thephmse and sentence. A major pripciple of Iban grammar is, as we havesaid, that when one word follows another, the second word modifies thefirst. The nature of the first word determines what part of speech thesecond word is to be interpreted as. For example, adverbs look no differentfrom adjectives-

Iengkas'quick' I lengkas 'gu'iclrJy'

I In ihe case of rjdn 'rain', it's hard to say whether it's a noun or a verb in sentences such asHai ujan'Day n;n' and Hai ka' ujan'Day willtain.'18 As verbs, zesai and manJ?i are used only in comparisons.

L

25

Anak iya badas enggau orang tuai 'Her child is nice witlr olderp@ple.' I Main bola.r.t 'Play nicely ! '

A word can be thought of either as an adjective or as a noun depending onryhethel it takes the first or second place in a phrase-

anak laki 'male child,boy.' But, laki atnk iya meli beras,'Her child'smalc [='husband'] is buying rice.'

Noans

The noun in Iban looks the same however it is used in a sentence. Thismakes it different from English nouns, which change their appearance tomake clear whether what you're talking about is one (the singular form) ormany (the plural form), as in 'cat'and 'cats.' The English noun can alsotake a form, usually by adding -'s, to show that the nouns 'owns'something, as in 'the cat's food,' or 'the boys' ball.' Iban nouns do notchange in this way, or in any other way. Bujang is 'bachelor' 19 and also'bachelors.'

Possession, the poss€ssive position

Generally, if two words are put together the second modifies the first. Whenyou want to put two nouns in a relationship where one 'owns' the othe!you show that by putting the word of the thing owned first, then follow itwith the noun that is the 'owner.'

Gamal bujang 'bachelor's figure'bala bujang 'bachelors' group'

Naturally, these two examples can also be translated 'the figure of thebachelor' and 'the group of bachelors.'When the noun that possessesfollows the noun that is possessed, it is said to be in the possessr'w (org?niiv?) position

More examples: Tu' mannk aftz. 'This [is] my chicken/the chicken [ofl I.'Ni ndong tajau nya'l 'Where [is] the lid [ofl the jar?'

One or many

The plain unaccompanied Iban noun can denote one thing (although youcan add words to specify the oneness if that's important) or many things.Whether one or many depends on context. If I say to you Ambi'pinsil'Pick up pencil' I probably mean one pencil. IfI say Manok rnkni sayur'Chicken eat vegetable' I pmbably mean that a bunch of chickens are

19 Better ye! 'unattached youth,' one of the stages of life. The female e4u ivalent is daru.

26

eating'a bunch of yegetables. In order explicidy to show that you aretalking about more than one thing, you must place a quantifying wordbefore the noun, such as-

nmioh,'n4rry' 'much:' nnioh bujcng 'many bachelors'' mimit l:few' 'ahftle: nimit anak few children.'

I choose the word 'quantifier'for a redson. {n other languages, words suchas 'many' and 'few' are treated strictly as adectives: yet you can see that inIban, because these words te placei.d before the noun they modiry whenthey'speci$ 'alot' or 'a little.' Meanrtme maibh and zimit can be used asplain adjectives: Dttit iya naioh tang penemu iya mit'His money is a lor,but his intelligence is litfle.' 20 The explanation of what on the surfacese€m a puzzle is this: nabh and.mimit te indeed adjectives, but when theyquantify a word they become a kind of quasi-noun. This noun is thenfollowed by the noun of the thing quantified in the possessive position. .Thegrammar here is exacdy parallel to the English expressions 'a lot o/ and 'alittle al', This will become clearer in the section on numerical classifiers.

Numbers, ofcourse, with the appropriate numerical classifier tell you howrnany of a thing there are. Numbers also come before the noun.

Gender?

The grammatical term 'gender' has nothing to,do with the supposed sei,much less sexual preference, of a thing, but refers to the way nouns arearranged into classes. Some languages have seven genders, or even more.In most European languages (even English to a very small.extent) nounswill look, generally, one way br another dependixg on whether the wordbelongs to a grammatical category of 'masculine,' 'feminine,' or 'neuter.'Gender does not exist as a constantly displayed grammatical concept inIban: there is nothins about an lban noun that makes it look 'male' or'female.' The pronorin iya,means both.'hei and 'stre,' 21 the word. orangmeans 'person.' Likewise ana& means 'child,' and if yo\r're going to,say'son' or 'daughter' you must attach the proper adjective: anak indu''female chlld,' snrl,klaki'malecblld.' However, ihere are regular pairs likeapai/indai 'father/mother,' aki'littif 'gandfather/grandmothel' ,&c. If itreally matl€rs, then 'duck' is itit indu'and 'drake' is itl /4ti, but usuallyducks are iust 'ducks' idr.

20 Thbre is aldo atea-fisli called ikan'maioh'the ^-lot

fish.' a hevallv 1'lre narne comes ftomlhe g€at amount of fesh it has.21 Isnt iyd a dream-pronoun for Oe politically correct? What influeice gender-neutrality inlanguage has oD equality in Iban society I'll let you judge.

27

However, Iban does make a silent gender-distinction between things thatare animate and inanimate objects. We shall leam more about this later.

Numeri.cal chssifiers

In the section on copulative sentences, we saw that Iban likes to have thelogical framework of a statement clear, whether you are talking aboutsomething as class, or as a specific thing. We English-speakers are happyto say 'two watermelons' whether we mean that in the sense of 'two fruitsof watermelon' or of 'two kinds of watermelon,' but in Iban you cannot say+d.ua semangka. It's not enough and the phrase doesn't mean anything.The correct way of saying it would be in the first case dua igi' buahsenangka. alnd, in the second, dua bansa semangka,

In lban, if you want to say how many of a thing there are, you must alwaysuse what is called a numerical classifier in connection with the noun tiat isbeing counted. We do the same thing in English, but much less regularly. InEnglish, we use numerical classifiers when the thing we're talking about isby nature something that doesn't come in pieces that can be counted. Forexample:

'Give me two teaspoons of sugar in my coffee.'

Sugar can't be counted, except grain by grain, so we put a word in front tospecify how we ale to measure it. We don't do this in English with wor{s ofthings that we can count. Thus we say 'There are twelve people in theroom.'

Iban uses numerical classifiers like English, to specify how uncountablethings are to be measured.

Aku deka' meli dua gantang beras wangi nya'.'I want to buy two pecks of the fragrant rice.'

And Iban also uses numerical classiners in front of nouns of thines whichwe thinft countable.

Bisi'd.uabelns iko'orang di baroh rumah.

'There are twelve tairs [it.] of people under the house.' 22

Beri dua banng rokok.'Give two sticks of cigarette.'

Just as we say: 'I need three she€ts ofpaper.'This feature of Iban can make

22 'Under the house?' Iban houses, whether longhouses or single, are usually built high offthe ground on pos6.

28

sense to an English speaker. All things in this world come in quanta, wheth€rnatural, tails of people, or artifcial, sfteetr of Paper. Iban makes the natureof these quanta clear rather than, like English, just assuming it.

Notice that the noun that is being quantified or measured comes in thepossessive position after the numerical classifier. Here Iban works in thesame way as English genitive ('of') construction

'I saw three bowls of soup on the table.'

That is, the soup itself is thought of as being a lot of liquid in a pot, and thenyou take three bowls out of it.

Kami meda'tigq iko'orang sida' iya. 'We saw three there of them.'

lit 'We saw three tails of people of them there.]'

Ari samua sida,' tiga iko' aja' niki ka ruai kami. 'Olut of all of them,only three climbed up to our veranda.'

The same with simple words meaning 'many/much 'or 'fedless.'

Enggai aku ngirup maioh tuak diqtu'. 'I'd rather not drink a lot ofrice-wine now.'

lri' mimit qja' ai' nwia nuan deka' ngerebus undang. 'Pour [in] just alittle bit of water when you want to boil prawns.'

' Simpan semoa nyc '. 'Put away all of them.'

In westem languages we call this constructi:on t|].e partative Senitive.

In the most elaborate style of Iban, there exists a sp€cific numerical classiferfor almost each and every noun, rather as we say 'a gaggle of geese,' 'apride of lions,'etc. But from day to day, people use a small number ofgeneral-purpose classifiers. Here is a table:

Classifier Examole

tgr'('seed') sekru sigi"one *rew'iti'('piece') duaiti'bup'twotl'l,oks'

Type of thing

small roundish thingshandleable size things,usually flatstick-like things

largish rounded things

batang ('stick')

bunh ('truit')

people and animalsiko' ('tarl') lima iko' orang

tiga batqng paip-'three pipes'enpat buah moto'four cars''five people' 23

As in English, many phrases come with the classifier 'built in,' so to speak,

29

I

for example duit lima puloh ringgit'cashfifty dollats,' tiga kayu' rambutan'thrce rambutan tees' (more elegantly, ti ga pun kayu' rambutqn: pun 'frUmkof tree)'. Any noun signifying a container or unit of measure, such asp in ggai' plzte,' rnangkok' cnp,' tong' t in,' garlang'rice-measure,'grni 'gunny-sack,' m'rcr'mete\' or paun 'po}nd,' will function as anumerical classifier To designate single items, put the pre6x sa- (or se-) infront of the classifier-noun that gives you the unit of measure: secangkirtih' a cup of tea,' satin ikan sadin' a can of sardines.' Sakati dagin babi,'akati (Chinese pound) of pork.' Sa- means 'one,' which English 'a' alsomeant originally.

Occasionally the noun of the thing count€d will be placed at the head of thephrase, and the numerical classifier will follow:

Ind.ai Jarwu ngaga' tuak dua igi'tojau. 'Mother-of-Janau [has] maderice-wine twojars,' 24

Some other numerical classifiers

things shared out, such as fish and vegetablesrows (Malay baris is also used)planted gound, applied n amai 'farlr.,' kebun 'garden,' redas'kitchen plot'items of jewelerythings spread oul esp. of landblades and knivesthings that are tom, such a pieces of leaf, cloth, or papera 'portion' of food, or tlle contents of a containera sentence or portion of speech; a stanza of poetry'notch'; step in a ladder or stairthings in rolls. string, matsbundle; things tied (iftat) togetherthings in long lengths or bars, longhousessheet, of rubbercut length or piece, morselcompact mass, cakeflat things: planls, plywood, rubber-sheetsshe€t: skirts (&cin), cloth, leavesbig piece of a thing: wood, meatrounded hollow things, gongs, fish-traps

23 'One penon' is si&o' [ =sa + iko'] orang. Note: Malays final using 'tail' in connection l^]itlrhuman beings distastelll.U BI3 , p. 37 . F- th. ,*aning of abbreviations, see rhe bibliography.

30

lekilumponglungkanglungkitmatapasangpqtmgpintu

small discrete things, often roundthings in lengths, logs, loincloths, etc.lump, segment of fruit, slicesingle s€ed, esp. of durianliterally 'eye';various; see Richards sub voc.Pairtwig'door,'classifier for apartments in a longhouse or houses, shops,etc. rn a row.

pucok long pointed things, spears, letterspun 'stand,' of treesraban set of people or thingsrepik thin split piecesruas joint, space between nodes in a bambooslngkap small rigid things, plates and shinglestandan cluster, bunch of fruit e.g. bananastelian one of a series, a stanza of poetrytunpk goup; lump

A historical digression, the prefixes ke' arul ge'

While I am not attempting to write a historical grammar of Iban, certain ofthe language's features can be understood only by explaining their historyand what their original purpose was. Among these features are the prefixes

ke- and ge--

Many Iban words begin with the syllable ke or ge. In many of these wordsthese syllables have been an integral part of the word from as far back aswe can see; it is merely part of the word's sound.

Example'. kebun' g?Ided Setah' ftee-l^t€x'

You cannot separate these words out into *ke + bunor *ge + talr. However,many other words appear to have been formed in very ancient times byputting a special ft€- or g€- in front of another syllable or syllables

All languages employ the device of onomatopoeia in rnaking words Anonomatopoeia is a word made up in imitation of a sound, like English'swoosh.'25 In Iban, as well as in other Austronesian languages, a soundlike cah isjust a sound. However, te- can be prefixed to a onomatopoeia tomake it into an actual word. There are many such formations in lban. Amrtnga few are:

cah (+ ke-\ -> kecah' chatler' lverbal form engkecahlrukap (+ ge-) -s geratcp 'squeal, squeak'

agihqrisbelah

bentokbidnngbilahcebikemprunSenteran

gulongikatkayu'kelapiskeratkipi'kipinglambarlampanglebuen

Balinese contains a large variety of words formed from onomatopoeias:

Balinese: geblag 'the sound of a door banged shut'keplak 'the sotnd of a firecracker blowing up'

The names of the most ancient musical instruments in the classicallavanese gamelan orchesha are so formed:

Javanese: ketuk 'the thing that goes "tuk" 'kenong 'the thing that goes "nong" 'kempul 'the thingthat goes "pul" '

and of course gong itself, which is an instrument of such dignity that itssound is a good enough name without a grammatical fixture. Another wordcommon to both Iban and Malay is gendang, the term for drum or formusic with drums, which can be analyzed ge-n-dang-

This use ofte- and ge-, being so widespread, is very old. My beliefis thatthe use of fte- and ge- to form words from onomatopoeias shows mostclearly the prefixes' basic function, which is to converfnotions into wordsor to convert words from one category to another. 26 Iban also uses/.e- and ge- to form words that have more to with feeling or action than withsound. The idea is that people described something in terms of a vocalsound they made.up, as ifto say 'this is what it would sound like if it had asound.' the result can be either a noun or an adiective. or a verb-root.

kebap 'flap of wings.' 27

kebut 'mo\e, budge'kecit'squirl'kedap 'ptslse of hean'kenyit'stmled'kenyut'throb'gerit'nibble'gegar'shake, shiver'

It is likely that many of the Iban words beginning with ke and georiginated this way, but the investigation is outside the range of this book.While /re- is easily recognized as a prefix in nouns made out ofonomatopoeias, in these examples I have listed above the [e- is aninseparable part of the word. One does not use /ryil in the sense of'startled,' or gar in the sense of 'shake.'With most Iban nouns or verb-rootsthat begin with ke-, this syllable should be considered an integral andinseparabte part of the word. 28

Ke- as a separable prefix is still used. When it attached to a number, itmakes an ordinal:

dua'two', kedua'second' ; lapan'eight' kelapan'eighth.'

Likewise, when te- comesbefore terubah'at first' it makes feterubah'first,'and when it comes before diri, the reflexive pronoun 'self,' the result iskediri 'alone, by oneself/itseli'

Prefaced to a reduplicated numeral, f€- makes a word that stands for'all(however many) of X':

Ketiqa-tiga pun lensat aku bebuah magang. 'All three of my lensattrees are fruitins.' 29

A good example, though, of how understanding the old function of &e- (orge-) might be useful is the etymology of the word kemudi 'stern of boat 'This word can be analyzed and found to contain the root udi 'after, behind,'which we also see in dudi. Kemudi, then, is udi made into a noun by having/re- prefixed to it. The -zr- comes in the middle to make the transitionbetween the two vowels. Then tlere is a type of large wasp with a painfulsting called a kerawoi. The bright yellow band around its abdomenresembles the gidle or brass of silver rings called rawai, wom by women.This inSect then is 'the thing with the rawai.'

We can use this method to discover the etymology of words whose originsare forgotten, such as kenyalang 'rhir,oceros hombill,' (the most magnificentof the hornbills and a bird very significant in Iban religion). I propose thatkenyalang can be analyzed as follows: ke-nya-lang. As we saw with thcword menyanak above, the -ttya- portion derives from sa- 'with-/together'

28 ln Malay, Iban's closest relative, the prefix te- is widely used to make abstracl nou,rs o l ol-rcots or other nouns. The combination te- plus root is always followed by thc suliix rtrtExamples: /aJd 'king' kemjaan'government' , sihat'healthy' kesihah hcalth.' lbrn docs noluse the suffix -dn, with the single exceplion of the word t ruflar, 'anccstry, desccnt.'29 str2 o.26.

25 Onomatopoeia is, however, not just a kind of word-play, but one of the impoftant means bywhich words are created. For example, the word for'goose'in the American Indian languag€Naragansett was ,,ort English :goose' itself go€s back to the same source as of the Sansknrword,aiisa The main sound ofthis word, [h5], is very close to ,honk.' W]atcouldbe morenatural? The Sanskit is also the ancestor of the Iban word for goose, an ra. English and lbanhave each yet another word that shares a common origin in Sanskit. Ibanpdla,,head' dedvesirom Sanskit kapAia 'pot'; the same ancesfal root shows up in English as .gab]€.'

26It may be possible that in this function the preiix &e- is related to the relative pronoun lg,but this needs a deeper look.

-' Always used in reduplicated form: kebap-kebap.

by naselization. l.cng is the name of another bird, the Brahminy kite, thebiggest raptor in Sarawak and the bird that tops the list of the sacred Ibanomen-birds. I believe that the hombill's name, Kenyaldn8, means 'the birdequal to, or together with Lang, the eagle.' The hornbill may not be anomen-bird, but it as important in Iban religion as Lang is. Likewise,gelinggam'paint' and, belinggam'sophisticated' may ultimately go back toSatstrit linggam 'mark, sign.'

Although its role in nouns was fixed long ago, the prenx &e- does play arole in the formation of some verbs where it can be analvzed as a seoarablepiece of grammatical plumbing. We will talk more at iength about theseuses of ke- in the section on verbs ahead.

Agent and abstract noan$ the preftx pe-

The prefix pe- put onto the beginning of a verb makes an agent-noun, thatis, the word for somebody who does a particular action, or the name of athing that does something, or an abstract noun.

When pe- is used before some words beginning in b the prctix can appearas pem:,

berita' news' pemberita' newspaper'berani'btave' pemberani' courage'

This way of making words is a handy one, because you can improvisc withit and make complex words from simpler words to express all sorts ofconcepts. If nakni means 'to eat,' what should pemakai mean? 'Frxrd,'naturally. And if irup means'to drink'(hint: esp. alcohol), what shouldpengirup mean? Modem Iban uses pe- to create new words for new things:szran'line, groove,' penyuran'ruler, straightedge,'

Since Iban can make abstact nouns, it can often express things in the same'sophisticated' way we use in English. Instead of saying sirnply Maiohorang! Peda-mih! 'Lots ofpeople, look!' you can say Peda-mdh pemaiohmensia nya'! 'Look at the quantity of humanity!' As in English, theseabstract nouns often have a very specific meaning; one possibility is fixed,and others are excluded. To giye the answer to my question just above,pengirup does not mean 'something to drink' but'drunkardi' penyengok(from jengok'peek') means 'window' and nothing else.

Adjectives

The purpose of an adjective is to describe some attribute or quality of anoun. In a phrase suchas atak besai'abig child' we say that the adjective,besai, modifies the nolurr, annk. Adjectives in Iban always follow the nounthey modify, according to the general rule about the relationship of twowords one after another.

Aka meda' anak besal nyc' 'I see the big child.'

When an adjective follows the noun like this it is said to be in theanrib ive position-

The other way an adjective can be used is to make an assertion aboutsomething; as we said above in the section on the omission of 'to be,' anadjective can be apredicate. Aprej'icats adjective in a copulative sentencecan precede the noun that is the subject of the sentence,

Badas jako'nuan. 'Your speech [is] fine.'

This word order puts more stress on the predicate. Or the adjective canfollow the noun.

Jako' nuan badas.

However, an adjective when used as a predicate this way, unlike the way it

ajar,'teach'pe gai 'ltold'buka"open'kat 'to hook'

pengajar 'teacher'p e m e g a i' holder, handle.'pemuka' 'opel:]et'pengait 'hook'

i

mansang 'go forward' pemansang 'progress'

Note that the verb has to be converted from the root form to the nasalizedform. Nasalization will be explained in the section on verbs below.

The begininning sound of a noon or an adjective also must be nasalizedbefore pe- can be prefixed to it, except when that sound is nr, whichremains lhe same.

2zrnas 'sunshine' pemanas 'heat' , also (by metaphor),'angrytemper'

kemas'neat cleaf pengemas'neatness, cleanliness.'maioh'many lmuch' pemaioh' qnantity'berdt'hea\y' pemerat'weight'menah'bea\tifitJ' pemanah'beauty'

Before words that begin in I or r, the syllable -zge- is inserted after thepe- and before the word to be converted.

lama' old, long' pengelama'peiod. of time'rami 'lots ofpeople, crowded' pengerami 'a thronging, a gathering'rindu' 'tolove' pengeindu' 'loye'

34

l35

is used to mark an attribute, is always separated from the noun. In the lastexample, if you took away tbe nuan 'yo]u', then you would hav e jako, badas.The feeling of a sent€nce would be desnoyed and you'd be left with aphrase meaning merely 'fine speech.'

On the other hand, if the predicate adjective shows the result of the actiondone to something, it follows the noun.

Iya ngecqt prau iya kuning. 'He painted, his boat yellow.,

More on noun plus noun or adjective in the genitive position.

The genitive positioning of two words, noun or adjective, has a range ofuses in Iban which extend beyond simply indicating possession. A nouncan follow another noun and be understood, as the object of an action thefirst noun performs on it.

pemuka' botol 'an opener of a bottle' 'a bottle-opener'

A noun in the genitive position can be the thing for whose beneft thefirst exists.

rumqh manok'thehouse of [for] the chickens' .chicken-house'

ubat bedil'chemical [lit. 'medicine'] of [for] the gun' ,gunpowder'

baja sayur 'fertilizer of [for] vegetables' 'vegetable-fertiliier,

And a noun in the genitive position can indicate from where the firstcomes, or of where it is characteristic.

orang Amerika 'a person of [in, from] America, ,American,

ikan sungqi 'a fish of [in, out of] the river' ,river-fish,

beras umai 'uncooked rice of [from] the farm' ,farm-rice.,

Poetic Iban extends this last use of the genitive position to express .like' or'as' without having to use a preposition. In this example the noun followsa verb:

buloh baoh ngelanggai bayan 'the tall bamboo curving-erect [like] aparakeeC [i.e. with its long, pointy leaves growing out like the tail feathersof a parakeetl. ru

Ar adjective can be followed by a noun to show in what respect the qualityof the adjectiye is shown:

lontang ati 'easy at heart' = 'happy'berqt tulang 'heavy of bone' = 'lazy'

30 Masing, Coming of the Gods ,v.2, p.5

36

I- [

Buloh baoh ngelanggai bayan

ij au rumput' glass- gra,en -'

The normal way these phrases are pronounced, with no brcak between thetwo words and a slight stress on the second element, shows they are phrasesand not clipped sentences.

Or a noun can follow an adjective to show what the adjective's quality ischaracteristic of, to show 'like' or'as':

berani babi'braveflike al pig' i.e. 'wants to do something but has noskill'

angat tai' mano^k'hot [as] chicken droppings' i.e. 'enthusiastic for amoment only.' rr

Nouns and adjectives, etc., can be put together in the genitive andattributive positions to make long compounds. The elaborate praise-namesof heroes and gods in Iban epic in poetry can consist of many elements.

Cornpounds

An exception to the general rule about two words in a row is the creating ofcoErpounds. Iban is fond of putting two words together to makecompounds that express the pairing of things or concePts commonlyassociated. The compound can be understood as a single word.

Nol!'ns: asu' mayau'dogs-cats'; ru]nok itit' chickens-ducks' i.e.'poultry;'paku' -tubu'fems-bamboo shoots' i.e.'vegetables.'

Adjectives: c€lap angot'cold-hot' [ofmalaria: satit 'sickness' cilap angat].

Adverbs: kin kin' 'thither-hither,' iaras kebaroh 'up-down' siang malam'daylight-nighf [i.e. a period of 24 hours]

\erbs: pilai rwnsang 'retum-go out' nurun niki 'go down-go up'

Or a mixture: maioh-macqm 'many-type/like, as' (adjective plus nour/preposition) i.e. a variety of things:

Reduplication

A feature of Iban, and of all other Austronesian languages, is reduplication.Reduplication means 'doubling by repetition' which about explains it. In avery ancient stage ofAustronesian, people used reduplication to make wordsout of onomatopoeias. A good example is *cucu, formed from a suckingnoise like tsya. ihis proto--word evolved into the Iban word last 'breast '3f

3l These examples arc "rrrprnajd&o'

'proverbs' taken from the collection of Christy DuitlTanggl.

L

In modern Iban the result of reduplication is a special type ofcompound oftwo members, both members the same. The compound has a differentmeaning from that of the single word otrt of which it is tbrmed.

Nouns can be reduplicated.

qnek 'child' : arutk-an&k.

This compound could be taken to stand for a simple plural 'children,'except that there is a different feel to it. Anak-anak can be thought of as'children in general with their variety.'

Iban uses reduplication more sparingly than some other Austronesianlanguages, such as Polynesian, and some words that were once used, itseems, with a futl reduplication have been reduced to a partialreduplication. Certain Iban words usually appear in fully reduplicated form,for example, kebap-&ebop (describing the beating of a bird's wings), andligauJigau'short-sighted, confused,' mucai-mucai, 33'sad-faced, readyto cry.'People will often 'swallow' the last syllable ofthe first element, sothe first two words come out sounding keba-kebap, liga-ligau.

Adjectives are often reduplicated. Reduplication gives them a feeling ofintensity or of generality

mit-rzit 'small-small': 'very small';34 mirah-mirah 'red-red': 'veryred,' 'reddish,' 'generally red.'

Verbs when reduplicated express repeated action, or continuous prolongedaction, or intense action, or all three together.

Ukoi nya' nyalak-nyalzk 'The dog barks [and] barks.'

In the case of intransitive verbs (see below), it is the root that isreduplicated, and then the result takes the prefix be-.

Iya belawa-lawa. 'He runs [and] runs.'

But when the whole verb is reduplicated, the result gives the feeling ofsomething happening habitually, but not continuously:

lya belawa-belawa 'He is running around often.'

Many adverbs are formed by reduplication to express that something is

32 Dahl, eustronesian p. to.33 Not found in Richards.34 Co^pare mit-mit'ftny' wilh tuimit'few.' ln mim, two words have fused into another new

38

happening during the whole of a Period.

Sahari-hari aku ngereia tanah. Aku tindok semalam-malam. 'The

whole day I worked the grounds. I slept all night.'

Partial reduplication

Certain Iban words show a partial reduplication at their beginnings. Thesewords usually start with d, g, j, k, I, but there are examples beginning withother consonants. Sometimes the loot word can be used in fullyreduplicated form as well as partially reduplicated; other times there is nofully reduplicated form: originally the root may have been doubled but inthe course of time the li$t element has been reduced to a single syllablede-, ge-, je-, ke-, le-, etc. prefixed to the root word.

dedanga' : root dunga" sittdr,E idlY'gegiau'qriveing' : root giau 'tall and thin'

jejabong : rootiabong'hair decorating a parang-handle'kekesut'gvsl' : root kesut 'blow lofwind]'lelingkok : root lingkok 'bent'tetengok : rcot tenSok 'crave for'

We saw with the example laki it the section on Pronunciation thatoriginally the word was always used in fully reduplicated form; in Malay'male' is still lqki-laki. Later on Iban (and Malay) replaced the firstelement with the abbreviated le-, and thewordbeoame lelaki; yet today thisle- is so 'swallowed' that there is almost nothing left of it.Nonetheless, it's important to remember that the reduplication is stillthere in some spiritual sense, and will be realized when speech movesfrom a casual, colloquial level to a high, formal plane.

Partial reduplication conveys the same senses and emphases as fullreduplication, a little more compactly.

Do not confuse the syllables be, ge, ke, and te, when they occur as the firstelement of a partial reduplication with the lttre-fixes be-, qe-lke-, a\d te-.

Adverbs

Adverbs often don't look any different from adjectives. r<uat is both 'strong'and 'strongly.'Lik€ adjectives, adverbs follow the word they modify. 1yajampqt bejak)' 'She is quick [at] talking.' Iya ka' datqi iampat 'She willarrive quickly.' Amat jako' nuan. 'Your words are lr\e' Kayu tu' beratamat. 'This wood is truly heaYy.' Tepung kopi abis 'The coffee-powder is

finished'; Blq nya' abis di-baca aftu'The book was read completely byme.' But there are words that are never used except as adverbs, such as

39

J

selalu 'alvrays,' suah'often,' jarany ,rarcly,' aja',merely,' ngapa'in vain, to no point.' The test to distinguish between the two tinds iJ thatadjective-adverbs can modif both nouns and verbs, while true adverbscan modify only verbs. Do not be misled by sentences such as thefollowing:

Hari suah angat di Sarawak. 'The weather [is] often hot in Sarawak'because the adverb saaft is modif ing the verb ,to be' omitted in speech.'PerhapVmaybe' can be expressed in two ways. Ezgta is placed within thesentence, lik€ Jki&. Another word, tini, stands uallv at the end of thesentence or ph-rase:

Iya udah nurun ka unmi kini. 'Perbaps she's already gone to the farm. ,

TVo Iban adverbs deserve spe€ial note because tley often express ideas forwhich English uses adjectives. These are magang ajrrd. abii. Both meanapprodmately 'all,' but differ in nuanc.e. Magang has the force of .eachand every one' while aDrb gives the sense of Tnished, and thus .comDletelv.enti-rely.'

Sida' Sebandi mindah kn Batang Kayan magang. ,Ttre Sehandrpeople all moved to the Batang Kayan [river].'Kami nyual buah rian kami abis. 'We sold all of our durians.'

Adjectives used as adverbs can be made more adverbial in feel bvreduplication. Aki' ngukir papan mdja tu' lubah-lubaft ,Grandfather iicarving that board for the table slowly [='carefuily]., Sometimes the ideaof an.adverb is expressed by adding another verb:

lya makni asi'iya beguai-guai. 'He eatshis rice hurriedly.,

!,gip ny.a' di-jual bebatang-batang.,Those pipes are sold by the piecellit: 'stick by stick'l

Ari katia' turun-menurun kami bwnai dira.,.From ancient dmesgeneration after generation we have farmed here.'

The second example here points out a difference between Iban and Enelishgrammar. Where English uses adverbs, Iban tikes to use verbs, or imeother means. :llhe concept of 'almost,'for example, in Iban can oeexpressed in two ways, neither of which uses an adverb. Where anEnglish+peaker would say 'It is almost day,' an Iban would say Malamnyau l<a siang lNight is becoming day.' The English .The rice is almostrip; islban Padi nya'udah murai,lit'erally 'is already in the ear., Anyonefamiliar with tlte rice-cycle will know exaetly what stag; the rice has reached.

Q

One can also use phras€s such as semdft fa or datnping ka'near to:' Kitdiiinbk ka nya''We're almosttheie.' Onthe otherhand, Iban phrases thingslike 'Dinner is almost ready' as Kitai ka' makai enda' lama' agi' 'We willeat not long from now'

Such a sentence as Iya bebaju Dirur 'He wears a blue shirt,' illustratesanother subtle difference between lban and English grammar. Since onlyadverbs, in Eqglish, can modify verbs, we might feel that if we were beingstrict we'd have to ffanslate this sentence with the absurd words 'Heis-be-shirted bluely.' lnfact,biruhercis a true adjective and it modifies thenoun concept held inside the yerb bebaju, baju 'shirt.'

Comparison of a{iective

The comparative degree of the adjective is made by placing the adverbagi', 'more,' in after the adjective:

Tu' besai agi'. 'This is bigger.'

The word for 'than' is an 'from.'

Baju ti' embar agi' ari siti' nyii 'This shirt is more expensive than ihatone,'

A sense of progressing intensity is gained by reduplicating the adjectiveand attaching the prefix sd- to the se.ond element:

mlmsau-aam,enseu'riper and riper'c6lap-sacClap 'colder and colder'jaoh-sajaoh 'farther and farther'

The superlative degree is made by placing the word pemadu' (from badu'' finistrcd' ) or pengambis/pengabis (frorn mtbMabis'complete, fi nished)'in front of the adjective:

Nya' penudu'/pengabis besai. 'That's the biggest.'

or by using the expre ssion agi' ari semua' 'more than all.'

Tu' nanah a gi' ari semna'.'This is the best of all.'

Bunga pabna bunga besai agi' ari semua' di dunia. 'The rafflesia isthe biggest floiver in the world.'

Adverbs are compared in the same way.

Aku rindu' tu' lebih agi' ari tu' 'I like ftrs more than r/rrs.'

To say that something is thi same as-something else you say tu ' sarwl enggautz' 'This is the same with this.' r) To say that something is the same as

/

4l

something else with regard to a certain quality, you put the prefix s4- infront of the adjective: Ikan tengiri sanyamai ikan salmon. 'Tengiri-fish isas tasty as salmon.'

The idea that something is '/oo X' is expressed by placingthe word kelalu'too' in front ofthe adjective:

Kelalu mnioh orang 'too many people.'

In dialects influenced by Sarawak Malay, speakers place the word gila''too' after the adjective:

Sahari tu' panas gila' 'Today is too hot.'

The prefii salse-

A prefix we have aheady seen attached to numerical classifiers, and, justabove, to adjectives is sa-. The original word for 'one'in Iban was.ra, aswe can see from the ritual beginning to sa mpi, prayers: Sa, d.ua, tiga, empat,lima,., etc. The modem word is sata. .Sa- can also appear as se-. you willhear saknyu' 'one tree [numerical classifier] of..', but seftngah,one halfl'and setuju'agree' because s4- goes better with the vowel a in the firstword, and se- goes better with the 6 and the u in the others. This is calledvowel harmony.

The concept of'one' in sa- allows this prefix to extend to other naturallyconnected meanings and uses.

Sa- in front of a noun or adjertive can give the meaning ,all' to it:

bilik 'apafimentinalonghouse' (or 'room') .rabifik ' everybody wholives in an apartmenf that is, 'family'

lama' 'old,long' (of time) selama' 'usual'

Aku arap ka nuan enggau kim sabilik gerai nyanwi baka selqma, ,I

hope you and [your] family are healthy and content as usual., [astandard phrase in letlersl.

Semua' 'all' can be analyzed as se- + mua' (or moa') 'many': 'tltewhole many.'

Thus, sa- with an abstract noun with prefix pe- can mean ,as much X aspossible.' The result acts as an adverb:

35 Saza can tre used as an adverb, or ii the phra se sana enggau X, btJt not all alone in thesense of 'same.' The prcper word for this is bela:' Peneka' ili' ngambi' siti,' beta' nagant'Take any one you like, they're all the same.' R.

42

kcring 'stxong,' sapengering: 'wilh all one's strength;'Kami nakai ikan sepemuas nyawa. 'We ate fish [to th€l uttersatislaction of our mouths.' 36 [ From puas 'satisfied' I

Sa- can indicate 'same.' W€ have seenjust above how Ja- plus an adjectivemeans 'ofthe same quality' with something else. Sd- can also be used withverb roots and in verbs:

Kami duai setuju. 'We two agrce' ['aim-the-same']

Kitai menyanak mudik kin. 'We with-our-children are going upstreamthither.'

And ofcourse-just to repeat-J4- can mean 'one' when it is prefixed to anumerical classifier:

Aku udah ngirup kopi o peng segelas. 'I already drant one glass ofblack ice coffee.' 37

Note: the sa- or J€- that often begins place names is |lrt the same as ourprefix here, but another word. I'll talk about it at the end of the book.

Body Language

Ibans use their bodies a lot when speaking, and convey much meaning bytheir actions in the context. In the sontenceAku rindu'tu'qgi' [here a pause]ori tu' above, a person may be looking at two, say, colors of paint, or twoboats out of several tied up at a landing. He'll point first to the one, andthen to the other. For other distinctions of 'this' and 'that,' an Iban maysay tu' 'this' and contrast that with nya' din' 'thatthete.'

The usual Iban greeting is Kini nuan? 'Whither [are] you [going]?' andwhether a person answers t4 pdJar 'to town' or simply /.ttt 'that way,' h€ orshe will look in the direction of the path with a significant nod, or pointwith the tip of the thumb, or sometimes---€specially if their hands are full-point with a 'pout' of the lips.

Comparisons of size almost never go expressed in language without agesture accompanying them, and much of the time the thing to whichsomething is being compared is the speaker's body, which is notrnentioned, but shown. A typical scene could go like this:

.L

36 enJ. p.5.37 The a here is Chioese, 'black (wilh suga!),' petg is 'ice.' since most coffeshops are run byChinese, the vocabulary for ordering food contains many Chinese words, which everybodyknows. Gelar is of course English.

43

I

Ni mesai ikan di-tangkap nuan tedi? 'How big is [the] fish caughtby youjust now?'Mesai tu'. 'Big [as] this.' [B makes the thumbs and forefingers ofa both hands into a circle around his thigh.l

Pronouns,

The pronoun is a word that stands in for other nouns which you don't wantto keep repeating. Pronouns come in several types, of which the mostimportant in speech arc tlrc personal ptonouns. The personal pronouns inIban parallel those of English in the way they indicate relationshipsbetween speakers, and whether they are one or many, as 'I,' 'you,' 'we,''they' etc., but Iban pronouns, like Iban nouns, look the same whether theyact as the subject or object of a verb (there is no ' l lme' 'he/him'distinction), and do not indicate gender (no 'he/' 'she' distinction.)

aku I/menuan, di', koa you (singular, older English 'thou/' 'thee')rya (also spelled ra) hefrim, she/her

welus (includes the person you're talking to)welus (exclules ttre person you're talking to)you (plural)they/them.

Whether a pronoun is a subjert or an object is indicated by its position inthe sentence.

Aku tneda' kita' 'I see you [plural, thrce or more].'Kita'meda' aku, 'You see me.'

The personal pronouns are also used when they stand in for the indirectobject, that is, the penon for whose benefit somebody does something.

Aku mei iya duit nya'. 'I am giving him the money.'

Just as there are no separate subjecVobject forms of the pronoun, there isno possessive prodoun ('my,' 'his' 'her' 'their') in Iban. To indicatepossession, the pronoun goes, like any noun, into the possessive position.

Tu' manok aku. 'This is my chicken.'Nya' itit iya. 'That is her duck.'

Notice the two words for 'we/us.' Kitoi means t}lat the oerson vou'retalking to is included in the sense of 'we;' but karni means that the personyou're talking to is not included. Aram kitai nurun ka sungai. 'Let's[all] go down to the river'Buq Kami baru pulai ari Kuching,'We lnotyoul just got back ftom Kuching.'

44

The word used fo! 'you' (singular) varies from area to area in Sarawak.Nuan is the'standard' form heard in the Saribas area of the SecondDivision; di ' is used in Sri Aman, and iaa is the word used by theSebuyau Ibans of the First Division (which other Ibans think sounds alittle funny). 38

Another pronoun form is wortlt leaming for the sake of elegance WhenIbans talk about two people, as opposed to one or more than two, they liketo use what is called a dual fom.

Tua bara pulai ari pasar 'The two of us [inclusive] are just nowretumed from tlte market,'Katni duai... 'We two' [exclusive]...Kita' duqL.. 'You two...'Seduai nya-..' 'They two, the two of th€m...' or, 'both of them.' 39

Seduai can alsobe |jsed as ifit were 'with.' Charles seduai hpai iya nurunnginti'. 'Charles went fishing with his father.' Often the xe- is omitted anddaal alone is used. The phrase *cfttr seduni Xnever occvs.

The first person pronouns in all numbers, and the third person pronouns inthe dual and the plural are very often followed by a demonstative. Aperson will say A,lra tu' or kami ta'in order slightly to emphasize that this istheir action or opinion, and people will say seduai iya or sida iyd in order to'place' the persons they're speaking about at a short distance. 1ya here isnot the pronoun 'he/she' but rather a very weak demonstrative meaning'there.' The idiom sida'iyatherefotedoes not mean 'they ofhim'but rather'they there.',|t,

But, you might ask here, why have I left out 'it'? The treatment of thingsthat are 'it' in Iban is a little more complex lian in English. Since veryancient times European languages have classified nouns by gender: theyare male, or female, or neitler, 'neuter.' Neuter nouns, in other words, arejust 'things,' but things considered as sharing a solid third of thecommunity of all nouns in the language. Thus, languages like Englishpossess a set of pronouns for all three genders: 'he,' 'she,' 'it.'

Iban has no genders. However, Iban does make a tacit distinction between

B:

kitaikamikita'sida'

38 However, toa is the olalest Iban word for 'you' as can be seen by its close relationshjPwilhMilay engkau, lavanese ftoltl, and Polyoesian ftte, all going back to Proto-Au stronesian*ka lDahl, p. 122].39 English 'both' also began life as a dual form.

45

I

nouns for animate beings as opposed to nouns for inanimate objects.Inanimate objects are here, linguistically speaking, definitely second class.This difference is reflected in the way Iban uses pronouns for 'it.'

Iban speakers do not personify inanimate objects as much as Englishspeakers do. In English we may talk about an 'angry sea.' Directrytranslated into Iban, this would sound forced to native ears. Likewise wherswe would say 'This faucet requires a half-inch thread,' an Iban would sayKitui mesd ngena' pqip setdngah inci ka tdp tz ' 'We need to use a half-inchpipe with this tap,' or TAp tu' beguna ka paip setdngah inci'This tap goesinto use with a half-inch pipe.' To say TAp nya'minra... 'The tap asks for...'('ask for'is what English 'requires' means) would sound ludicrously as ifthe tap were talking. Iban, with a very few exceptions, avoids talking ofthings as capable of willful actions as if they were people, and to be awareof this will help you avoid getting tangled in awkward espressions.

But, 'it.' The one personal pronoun in the series above that can be used for'it' is rya. 1ya is slighdy emphatic.

Kati nuan meda' kapal nya' tadi? 'Did you see the shipjust now?'Aku meda' iya. Iya madik &''L 'I saw it. It was going up riverthere.'

The demonstrative rrya' 'that' 'that there' is very commonly used for ,it' or'them' when referring to inanimate things, almost always when the thing orthings mentioned as the ob;ecl of a verb. 40

A: Kati nuon meda' igi' 4l lampu di pasar? 'Did you see [any]lightbulbs in town?'

B: Aku meda' nya' 'I saw them.'

The demonstrative pronoun tU' 'this' can also be used for inanimateobjects.

Iktt-mah tu' ba k{tyu' nyi\. 'Tie it ['this'] on the tree there.'

In talking about inanimate objects, the noun atai 'thing' does a lot of work.The phrases utai tu' arld utai nya' 'this thing' 'that thing' can often betranslated'it.'

4YB. Jimmy Donald gave me a colloquial phmse in which rla'is used in the sense of.it,asthe subject of a sentence. Suppose a bunch ofpeople have been drinking rrat, and as they'vebeen talking one person notices there is a bottle left Ny' med!'kiteihe says: .It's looking atus.' He's encouraging the party to continue alrinking, and being witty by mildly personiryingthe ric€-wine,4l lgi' here is a bit old-fashioned. Many lbans now say bab tampu lFjnllish'b\tlb'.].

46

A: Nqmo utai nya' ? 'What [is] that thing?'B: Uttti tu' di-kumbai eng.kerurai- 'Itis called [an] .,engkerurai,'

[amusical instrumenil.' 42

Reflexive pronouns

In a sentence where someone does something to himself or herseli', theobject is expressed by a refexive pronoun. The Iban reflexive pronoun isatn .

Iya meda' diri' dalam cermin. 'He sees himself in the minor.,

For more emphasis, diri' empu is used.

Iya ngubat diri' empz. 'He treats ['medicines'] himself.,

Diri', diri' empu, etc. are also used for 'myself' ,yourself, .him-/herself'

and so on when the subject is being ernphasized.

Aka empu ngaga' nya'. 'I made it myself.'Nya' di-gaga' diri' empu. 'ltwas madeby [my]self.,

And also in the possessive position:

Sid.a' nadai nemu nyaup pangan diri' 'They don't know [hirw] to helptheir own friends.' R.

Demonstrative pronouns

A demonstative pronoun makes tlle distinction between .this, and .that.'After the section on 'it' above, it should be clear that a, is Iban for ,this,,

something near at hand, and nyc'is 'that,', something farther away.

Tu'arnk kami. 'This [is] our child.'Nya' tunggal nuan. 'That [is] your cousin.'

Tu'and nya'in the attributive position, after a noun, function likeadjectives, in the same way as the English demonstrative pronouns ,this'and 'that' become adjectives.

Aku rindu ka pematci rr '. 'I like this food.'Aku bedau meda' buah nye' . 'Ihave rrot yet seen that fruit.'

Zr' has the strong meaning of 'this right here.' You will see that the adverb'herc' is ditu' , 'now' is diatu' , and in fact t& ' is often short for both. Iban

42 Note:-Sup-pose you see someone holding somethi ng and you E y Baa$ utui iya! meani(ryto say 'His,thiog is nice.' This will get you a laugh, b€cause rrtai with a petsonal pronounmeans 'his/her, my, etc. thingie'i.e. genitals,

Iban speakers do not personify inanimate objects as much as English

47

speakers, in order specify more precisely how close or how far away a

thing is, will use ll'and nya,' or attach one or another adverb of place.

lltai /u' 'this thing here'utai nya' 'that thir.gtherc'utai nya' diq' 'tl:.a!t tling there' [rather near, spec ific]utai nya' dinlnyin 'that thing there' [farther away and vaguer]

People will ordinarily accompany such an expression with a litde body

language, pointing directly, or waving vaguely, in the direction of the thing

they ari referring to. The intensity of the gesture further specifies the

degree of closeness or distance.

Nya' at th€ beginning of a sentence can be quite emphatic-

Nya'iyal 'That's him!' 'That's it!'

-sometimes emphatic to the point of sarcasm.

As we have said, Ibans, when spefing of themselves, will often add ta'

the the first person pronoun, to give the 'I' or'we' a weak emphasis, or

slightly to distinguish their own position from someone else's.

Aku tu' nadai bisi' meda' iya. 'lhere didn't get to see him.'

'Some'

'Some' is se*eda', which is generally used with a noun or another pronoun

following in the possessive position.

Sekeda' sida'nemu ngereja besi-'Some of them know [how to] work

iron [blacksmithing].'Be aku sekeda' atai nya ' 'Give me some of that.'

lban sekeda' means'a certain number out of a specific group.' Although

English uses 'some'in the sense of 'few'and 'a few,'or as an indefinitepronoun, Iban will use phrases llke nadqi maioh'not many' or dua-tiqaitwo-three,' or, in the case of people for example, iust say bisi' orang

'there arelwere people,'

Bisi' orang ti' maca sarat ari D.O- di-lekat ba dinding kedai. 'Some

people weie reading the letter posted by the District Officer on the wall

of the shop.'

Indefinite pmnouns

An indcfinite proto\n takes up the required grammatical spot in a sentence

when you're speaking in general, or don't need or want to specify someone

or something in particular. The all-purpose indefinite pronoun is simply

48

orang 'human being,'which depending on context can mean .somebody,,'a certain person,' or 'people.'

Orang nelepon ngagai nuan ndi. 'Somebody telephoned youjust now.'Aku betemu enggau orang di pasar 'I met with somebody in town.'Orang nurun magang nubai. 'People all went down to fish withpoison.'

In the last example, you could translate orang...magang as 'everybody.,Sometimes orazg means 'someone else.'

Anang niki' ka rutnah orang! 'Don't go into [other] people's houses !,Iya pindah ka negei orang, 'He moved to someone [else's] country.,

Mensia'htmanbeing/humanity' can also be used as an indefinite pronoun.

Anak mensia 'a human being' [literally 'a child of man.']

Sapa mensia nyin? 'Who is that person there?'

The word iban itself has the primary meaning of 'ordinary person, man,fellow, guy,' anyone except a lemambang'bard, poet,' or a manahg'witch-doctor.'

Bisi' iban di kedqi tu'2 'Is there anybody in this shop?'

To open the possibilities further and express 'anybody' 'anything,'the wordbarang 'any' 'whatever'goes before a pronoun, Sebarang'any one,andsebarang-barang 'any one at all' are also used.

barang orang, sebarang orang, sebarang-barang orang anybodybarang, sebarang, sebarang-barang sapa whoeverbarang, sebarang, sebarang -barang utai anythingbarang, sebarang, sebarang-barang narut/qja' ar'y [thingl at all.

Another expression for 'anything' is nya'-nya' :

Enti' orang bejako' nya'-nya...' 'lf someone says anything...'

The vaguest possible indefinite pronoun is aza' 'somebody or other,so-and-so,'used wither when you don't care about a speciflc identity (theword is often dismissive) or can't be bothered to remember the name.

A: Ni iya?B: Entah aku. Iya ngirup di kedai anu'kini. 'Where is he?' ,Don't

know. Maybe he's drinking in what's-his-face's shop.'

English uses the word 'one' as an indefinite pronoun in such sentences as'One could see the flowers growing by one's house,' expressing a

-l

49

hypothetical situation. Ibal uses the second person pronoun: Nrdn tau' meda'bunga tumboh semak rumah orang. 'You could see flowers growing nearpeople's houses.'

Distributive adjectives

A distributiye is aword like 'each' 'every,' which indicate that somethingapplies to all members ofa set. The two distributive words in Iban are riapand genap. They mean the same thing but in differing areas one word ismore commonly used than the other Tiap and genap are placed before thewords they modify. Either word, if it appeaJs once, means'each'.

Genap bilik bisi' TV sigi'. 'Each apartment has a television.'

On the other hand, tiap can be reduplicated, al]Ld rhe resulting tiapliapgives the sense of 'each and every.'

nap-tiap orang mai sangkoh, mai terabai. 'Every man carried a spear,carried a shield.'

Or tiap can take the prefix sa-:

Aku bisi' bulih undang setiap hari. 'I have caught prawns every day.'

Note: All the Iban pronouns are felt to be perfectly polite. (In otherSoutheast Asian languages, pronouns are not always considered so.)You can use any of them in front of anybody. Thus a little boy might sayto the headman: Nuan ka'nganjong aku ka sungai? 'Will you take meto the river?'

Verbs

A verb is a word that expresses action, something happening. The Ibanverb inflects, changes its form, to make clear certain grammaticaldistinctions. This feature, which in Iban the verb alone shows, may make itseem more familiar to the speaker of a westem language, since westernlanguages often have very elaborate verb systems. However, thegramrnatical categories which are revealed by the way the Iban verb changesare not the same as those of western languages.

All the inflections in the Iban verb are madeby prefxes, syllables attachedto the beginning of a verb root, with one exception, that of the causative,which is made with the szjtr (syllable added to the end of a root) -,ta lseebelowl.

Languages change over time, and often something old will remain evenafter a new way of doing it has been invented. The result of this tendance

50

to preserve older forms is that in many languages there are so_called'irregular' forms of verbs and other parts of speech. In English, forexample, the verb 'to be'has many different formi that do not iratch theway 'regular' verbs work: ,am, are, is, was' as opposed to ,love, love, loves,loved.' There are in Iban a nurnber of verbs, noi many but enough to knowabout, that do not conform to the regular rules. I will give eiamples ofsome of_these, and explain the reasons for the way they l-ook the way theydo in a digression on the all-important fe ar.re of nasoiization below .Verb-rcots : transitive, intransitive, and requiring complement

At the core of all Iban yerbs is the root. -Ihe root word can be a verbalconcepl. or a noun. or an adjective.

verb '. gaga' 'make, do'noun : jalai'road, way, path,adjective : kemas'neat'

All these turn into yerbs.

gaga' -+ ngaga"makes'iglai -+ bejalai'goes'Kemas ) ngemos 'neatens up'; bekemas ,makes oneself neat'

Sometimes other parts of speech also tum into verbs, as we have seen.Roots, from whatever category they originally come, may be divided intottuee categories, depending on what kind of verbal idea they express orimply. These categories are: roots of transitiye meaning, roots ofintransitive mealing, and roots that re4 uire a verb phrase to coi.rplete theirmeaning, A verb-root can have both transitive and intransitive sinses, anda root from one category can, with the proper preftxes and/or suffix, becony€rted into a verb of anotier category.

A transitive root contains the verbal idea that someone or something rsdoing something /o someone or something else. When such a r"ootbecomes a true verb and is used in a sentence, it must haye an object tocomplete the sense.

Example: sipa& 'kick:' Aku nyipak boln nya' 'Ik:lckthe ttall.' ltakcsan objecr: ransitivel.

Do not be fooled if you hear a sports-announcer on the radio s ay lya niDak'He kicks,' for even though no object is there explicitly m.ntion"A. voucertainly have to understand it to be rhere. By logic, you can't .kick,w ithout kicklng s o m e t hin I.

--1,

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In the opposite way, an intransitive root has a verbal idea that someone orsomething is in a certain state or doing something of itseli When such aroot appe:rIs as a verb in a sentence, it cannot take an object

example: jalai 'road': Aku bejalai. 'Iwalk.' ftakes no object;inhansitivel

Again, do not doubt this, even though you may hear someone say Aftzbejatai tiga batu 'I waked three miles,' because here the verb is really'folding in' on itself. You might expand this sentence to AtL bejalai jalai

ti ga batu'l w alked a walk of three miles.' The only thing you can do witha walk is watk it. So also, Atu bemimpi mimpi siti"I dreamed a dream.'The onty thing you can dream is a dream. 43

Verb roots that take another verbal idea to comPlete their meaning are suchthings as modals,'helping-verbs' that give information about thepossibility, necessity, desirablity, etc. of some other verb's action, and alsosuch roots as express ideas like ordering, asking, being able, desiring,leaming, liking, wishing, etc. To make one example serve for all of these,the root 4so, means 'order,' tlte verb is ngasoft.

Aji Bulan ngasoh sida' ngaga' nya' mit agi'. 'Aji Bulan ordered themto make it smaller' a

By logic, you cannot 'order' without orderir^g somethinS, and thatsomething will always be an action, hence in grammar, zgaso& will alwaysrequire a verb phrase, expressing an action, to complete its meaning.

To become useable in a sentence, the root may change its beginning sound,or have a prefix put on the front, and it also may have a suffix put on theend. Through these changes, the Iban verb indicates whether it is hansitiveor intransitive, whether it is active or passive (a concapt called voice), orcausative, or any permitted transformation from one category to another.Although Iban does not in itself signal person, number, tense, and moodthrough the shape of the verb, as westem languages do, these grammaticalconcepts do exist in Iban and are necessary to it. Iban exPresses them bywords outside the verb, or by word order and context.

The active verb

The verb is called 'active' when it indicates that somebody or something isdoing something, or doing something ro somebody or something.Schematically:

A [subject] performs-action. [intransitive]

A performs-action upon B [object]. [transitive]

In Iban, the active verb always appears in the same form no matter who orwhat-I or you or fte or it--does the action, or if one or many people orthings are doing it, or when the action takes place -in the past, thi present,or ruture.

There are two ways that Iban roots turn into active verbs, either byc_hanging the sound at tie beginning of the root, or by adding a prefix.Which way you use depends on whether the verb is transitive orintxansitive.

The transitiye verb

If you have a root that expresses an transitive idea, then to make the roorinto a useable verb you take the root and change its beginning sound to therelated r?aJal sound. In other words, when you say n your tongue and lipsare in the same place you have them when you say t, but the soind is goingthrough your nose, not your mouth. The process is called na salizatioi, andthe sound that results when the root is so changed is calle d the nasalizedform. 45

If the root begins with a, e, i, or u, then you add the sound ng- to thebeginning:

qdu'analge' ngadu'lI,yors, we, you, theyl arange'' [he/she/it] aranges/repairs.'

empu 'self' ngempu 'takes for his own/to own'injau'bol:Iovt' nginjau'borrows'ubat'medicine' ngubat' gives medicine, treats,

If the root begins with the semivowel w, that changes to u and gets theng- prefix:

rrit 'paddle outward from the side of a boat' nguitwan' teritory' ngzan'dwells/inhabits,

If the root begins with k or g, then this sound changes to ng-

If the root begins with c, j or s, then that sound changes to ny-

kait'hook'gaga' 'make'

cabut 'plll out'jaga 'gtard'

ngait'hooks'ngcga' 'rnakes'

nyabut 'pulls o[t'tryaga'giafis

43 The g.arrunatical term for this constructron is 'intemal accusative '4 For the story, see Ejan, Aji B lan.

52 53

If the root begins with r or l, and expresses a transitive idea, it takes thepreflx nge-,

l.entak 'srike,bang. ngelannk ' stikes, bangs'rujak 'cram, prod' ngerult 'crams in, pushs in'

If the root begins with m and has no simpler form with p, and its meaningis hansitive, it takes the prefix nge-:

45 A digression on nasalization. converting the firct sound of a root to a nasal is a very

ancient Aus[onesian device for indicating a word is a verb. Iban, it is clear, inherited

nasalization from the language that was its ancestor because, 1) we see other Austronesian

languages do the same thing, for example Balinese and Tagalog, and second, io some Iban

words the nasalization seems to have happened so long ago that the change became an

integral part of the word, so that in the modem language, the word is felt as a plain root, aod

to be made into a verb has to be nasalized agarn. For examPle, Iban smPU 'possess, own' is

related to Malay Zala also 'own.' This shows that the original root was *p,, 'own' and that

the ancestor language of ftan made that root into a verb by adding the nasal prefix en -. (If

you simply tumed *p/ into +m,l the meaning would be obscured.)Many other Iban words show the same pattem. There arc words llr-at begin emp''

enge-, en?k-, ens-, aod dnt-. They may b€ verb-roots like eaPit 'sq'reeze" en8qai 'don'rw^it,' engkah'place, Er\' ensepi' 'taste,' entak'raise a post;' or they may be nouns like

empitu'qudI,' enggang 'sound of hombill,' etS,(a an8 'illiP-nut tree,' etc lb€lievethataclose analysis would reveal something of a verbal feel lurking in each of these words. The

nasal syllables in the wofis kemudi, Lenyalang, and Sendang wehave seen in the section on

t€-lge- above do convey a verbal feel of 'being at,' 'b€ing with,' and 'sounding;' and the nasal

that must be in place when maling a agent noun with the prefix Pe- also gives the idea that the

new noun is 'doing something.'A real in-depth study oflhese layers ofnasalization belongs to historical linguistics but

not here. I am including this sketch of what I have observed in order to Propose a method for

za' 'load, burden on back' ngema' 'caties onback'mata 'eye' ngemata ka 'keep an eye on'

This nge- with za ' and mata is perhaps originally a nasalized version of theprefix ke-, working here to convert a noun into a verb. I will have more tosay about it in a section later on. Nge- is also used before a few roots thatwere borrowed into the language; for example, cat 'paint' becomes the verbngecat'pdnts' I bom'bomb' becomes ngebom'bombs.' It seems that Ibanspeakers wanted to avoid saying either *nyaf or *mam, which is what you'dget if you simply applied the normal nasalization rules.

If the root begins with n and has no simpler form in t or d, it either does notchange or takes the prefix nge-. Very few verbs are concerned.

Some active verbs can take two objects:

Iya ngajar aku jako' Iban. 'He is teaching me [the] Iban language.'

The verb without object (intransitive)

Several common virbs are naturally intransitive and are always used rntheir root forms:

simpan 'put away' nyimpen 'pnts away'

An exception is the verb ngec&t'paints' from the noun cdt 'paint.'

If the root begins with t or d, this sound changes to n.

If the root begins with p or b, this sound changes to m.

takut'fer['dinga'hear'

pancit'squitl'belit 'coll'

nakut 'fr.lghterc'ninga 'heats'

nancit'squirts'm?lit 'wfaps around'

'rise''trust, hope''sit'' l ive''remember''to become' or 'to get married' [also nasalizes]'swim' [Sebuyau only]'laugh'

'fall''bathe''go on, go forwards''go out''return''like,love''fear''fly''sleep''go downstream'

Nothing, however, prevents these roots ftom taking prefixes when theumeaning is changed. An example is angkat: berangkat 'set out,'nganknt-kq 'raise, lift up.'

angkatarapdudokidupingatjq.dikelenanqketawa'labohmandi'nunsanSpansuipulaiindu'takutftrebaitindokundurpeople to recover the meanings of words whrise meanings have become obscure or been lost

altogether If we can analyze a word and disbover its root, and find parallels in other relatedlanguages, we may be able to reconstruct the meaning. lt is interesting that nasalizationseems alwaF to signal some kind of verbal conc ept. T'l\ts, empelawa' 'spider' can be seen tomean 'the runner' Engkabang m y invery ancient times described some attribute ofthe tree'and empeliau 'gibbon' may have refened to something gibbons do.

54

i55

Note: the verb rinda'is used by itselfif the thing that one likes is an action:Iya rindu' beginti' 'He likes fishing' R. But if it is a person that is lovedthen the verb is followed by the prepositior ka 'for: Iya rindu' ka aku 'Helikes me.' Arcp is always used with lc after it. The reason is thatboth ar..pand rindu' denote states of rnind; the /tc is a preposition [see section below]that indicates on whom or what this state is directed.

Aku arap ka iya. 'I fust in him.'Kami arap ka anak kami ka' datai. 'We hope our son will come.'Sidq' indu ko orang nya '. 'They like that person.'

The prefix beJme-

Most roots of intransitive meaning form themselves into verbs by takingon the prefix be- or me-. Me- is the rarer prefix of the two and used onlybefore roots that begin in I or r, also occasionally, as a mere m-, beforeintransitive roots that begin in engk-. This ma- is confusing in verbsbecause there are two separate prefixes that look exactly the same. Herewe will talk about only the me- used with intransitive yerbs. Be- is thecommoner prefix and is used before every otler sound.

jalai 'rcad, path' bejalai 'walks'letup'pop' meletup 'explodes'rinsa''pain, suffering' me rinsa" suffes'engkanjong 'jump' mengkanjong'pop off' 46jadi'berome' bejadi'officialelatafunctionl.'

Before roots that begin with vowels and take be-, the -e- paxt of the prefixoften drops out, and leavesjust b-.

aum 'meeti\g' baum 'hold. a meeting, discuss'

Sometimes before vowels the prefix be- takes the form of ber-

api 'fire' berapi'cooks' [as in 'she is cooking' in the senseis in the kitchen'l; also 'fiery.'engkah 'place, put' berengkah 'unburdensDegrnsanak 'child' : beranat '[she] gives birth.'

The r is inserted between the two yowels to make the verb soundsmoother. When the root ajqr'teach' (transitiye form ngajar) tumsinto the verb for 'leam, study' an I is inserted.

QJA| : DeMJAT

insur'move' : belinslr 'slip, changes'

Very often the Iban express with an intransitive verb a concept that Englishspeakers would express with atransitive verb. For example, when you wantto say that someone wears things:

kasut'shoe' Iya bekasut'he wears shoes'baju'shirt' Iya enda'bebajl'he is not wearing a shirt.'

Or be- caries the sense of 'having' something, or of having come into acertain state by an action:

bqtu'stone' Jalai nya'bebatu. 'That road is rocky.'bini'wlfe' Iya udah bebini 'He has already be-wife' [i.e 'is

married'l/ati'husband' Iya udah belaki'Shehas already be-husbanded' [again

'is manied'lAnak kami bedau berzrut 'Our boy is not yet circumcised.'

Used in this sense the verb with b€- can be translated by a past passiveparticiple in English.

tikai bemban siti' bebunqai ratah 'a beautifullly pattemed ['having-flowers'l reed mat.'

Or be- can mean 'actins as':

kuli'coolie' Aku bekuli ba parit. 'l am laboring on theditch.'

tukang 'craftsman' Apai Gani betukang besi. 'Father-of-Gamfollows the profession of blacksmith.'

As we have seen, be- plus a numerical classifier doubled bu reduplicationcan make a verb that acts like an adverb to describe how thinss aredistributed.

Iya naca surat nya' belambor-l.ambar 'he read the leter sheet by she€t.'

Be- can also be used this way with numeral, also reduplicated:

Bedun-dua sidl' nasok balai opis 'Two by two they entered the hallof the office.'

The prefix be- can indicate that someone is doing something for himself orherself, or that severat people are doing something together mutually. Thisfeature of the verb is classified in traditonal grammar as a separz.te voice ofthe verb, which is called the 'middle.'41

also

of 'she

'starts,

46 Btma, Petajar lban 3 p. 63: A man wbo has kitled a gianr sings: ,4 ntu cuang udahdi-pumpong, / Pala' iJa mengkanjong... 'The cuang Demon is already beheaded, / his headhas jumped off ..'

56 57

Aku bebasu'.Unggal belagu.Anak nya' belaya'.Kami berandau.

' l am washing I myself ]. '48'Cousin is singing.''The kids are quarreling.''We are conversing.'

Sida' Rumah Entanak begawdi. 'The folks of Entanak longhouseare holding a lestival. '

Often the same root can become both a transitive verb and an intransitiveverb. If transitive, the root is nasalized, if intransitive. the root takes theprefix be-.

Iya nenun pua' siti' 'She is weaving apa a' :49 lroottenun 'weave' ,with objectj

Iya benong betenun She is sti l l weaving. [no object]g/ga' 'seek/hunt': Aku ngiga' babi. 'l am hunting pig.' lobjecr]Aku begiga'. 'I am hunting.' lno objectl kereja 'work':1ya

ngereja kayu"He is working timber'[object]

Tujoh hari, tujoh malam, Balan begaga'ka laja sumpit.'Seven days, sevennights, Balan worked on his blowpipe-darts.' 50 [no object]

When the prefix De- is used on a root which is usually used transitively, itgives a meaning of frequent, habitual, or continuing action, often standingfor 'to be busy at':

Diatu iya bejual bebeli di pasar 'Now he's selling and buying in town '['He trades.'] Compare: Iya nyual koko. Iya meli beras-'He sellscocoa [beans]. He buys rice.'

Iya bekereja ka peraz rya. 'He is busy working on his boat.'

Orang ti' besaup ngumpul dur'l'The people who have been helpingcollect money...'

47 Caviar for the general. The term 'middle voice' comes from lhe gmmmar of ancient Greekand Sanskdt. both of which have complet€ s€ts of forms for lhe middle as w€ll as for tneactive and passive. The middle voice still exists in modem Westem languages. French speakeNcaff it the'reflexive':Jeme laye lesmains 'I wash myself[as to] the hands_'Englisb also hasa middle construction, although now il seems archaic orcountrified: 'I made m€ great works;I builded mehouses; I planled me vineyards' Itccleriasasr 2:41, or in Kentucky dialecl .I surecould use me some of them grits!'48 Although DeDas,'can have a middle sense, it need not be always exclusively middle. Seemain text below.49 an ikatwoven blanket for rituals.50 Btma, Pelajar lbon 3 p. l([.

58

Aku bebasu' pinggai mangkok'l arnwxhing plates-cups I='dishes'1.'In some places De- can give the verb the sense of'starting to.'

Maia rerak tawas pagi siti'kami lalu betiki. 'At daybreak the next daywe then [began to] climb.' )t

But all these categories of significance are not easily separable. In asentence such as Kcmi bumai lfrom uruti'farm'], you can easily see thatthe verb means 'We have a farm,' 'We farm for ounelves,' and 'We arefarming for a while' all at once.

In rapid, casual speech the prefix to an intransitive verb, especially a verbwith an idea of motion, will get 'swallowed' and will seem to havedisappeared.

'Pai 'dah 'jalai ke pbah. fApai udah bejalai ka pasar)'Fatheralready went to town.'

'Nak 'ku 'lqwa' 'ri ukoi nya'. [Anak aku belawa' ari ukoi nya'.]'My child ran from the dog.'

Sometimes the distinction between verb and adjective----of the kind whichin English would be called. a past passive participle-;s \nclear

angkat'ises' angkat'isen'motahari angkat 'the sun rises' or 'the risen sun'gugur'falls' gugur'fallen'daun gugur 'leaves are falling' or 'fallen leaves.'

The rufe that a verb in be-/me- does not take an object seems riddled withapparent exceplidns. For example, the verb bulih is deived ftom ulih 'get'and appears to be intransitive, yet it always takes an object, even if theobject is not mentioned. Its prefix D[a]- indicates that one is getting thingsfor oneself, thzt is, the verb is in the middle voice.

Apai balih tiga-belas iko' undang. 'Father got thirteen prawns.'

Likewise rycreti'understand' from reri 'meaning' can take an object: Akmereti jako' iya'l tnderstand his.speech.' This is because'understand' is averb of middle voice; we do our understatding for ourselves. The samereasoning applies in belajar 'learn, sndy.'

'Irregular' verbs

The words 'irregular verb' strike terror into the hearts of people leaming

51 etn,p. n.

59

I

l

Westem languages, but exceptions from the strict rule system in Iban aremild and friendly. We have seen how some intransitivi verbs appear mtheir root form without any modification. These misht be ialled'irregular.' ln my words introducing the section on verbs and in my note onnasalization I have already mentioned that there are a number of verbs thatdo not appear to be formed following the general rules for nasalization oruse of pref ixes. Whereas ' regular ' verbs, whether t ransi t ive orintransitive, either nasalize their toot or take a prefix consisting of aconsonant plus -e-, these ' irregular' verbs prefix themselves with abeginning e- and then add a nasal. These verbs fall into two groups.

l) -

The very common verbs empa' 'eats,' empu,owns,' enggl, ,blongsto,' and eng gai 'doesn't want to' have their nasalization buil t i n,

- to ,p"al,

and have no.simpler forms. Empa' and empu take objecrs. "nggi,

i,rntransfltve.,. and enggai requires a verbal complement.

2) Verbs that are clearly separable into a verb-root beginning in c, k, p,or s and a prefix consisting of e-plus the appropriate nasal,

"ither rr,

ng, m, or n, resp€ctively.

cdlok 'grope' enc lok ' gropes'kuit ' w av e' e n g kuit ' w av es'pekak lonomatopcseia, of a chickenl emp ekak ,cackle'sepi' 'feeling' ensepi' ,feels,' .tastes'

seput 'bteath' enseput 'breathes'siam 'sniff' ensiara 'sniffs' 53

All the verbs in the second group are intransitive. If the root is used in atransitive sense it is nasalized by the rul es: As u, ng uit- ka iko, iya.,The dogwags his tail'; Iya nyium bunga nya,.,He sniffs the floweri.' All theseverbs,.too, can be made 'regular'by the addition ofan m to the beginning:mencd lok, meng kuit, etc.

I have tried to explain these forms as being holdovers from an earlier starcof the language when nasalization was made as often by using such prefixesas-eng,- and em- as with nge- wtd me-. This theory may also give the reasonwhy there are so many verb-roots beginning in e plui nasal, srsch as enjok, hand tg

_ and- e.rrlt'stand in the ground.' Originally their roots may hivebeen fbk and *rak but rhe nasalization became fixed to the root (sinie Ibanprefers to have roots of two syllables). prcsently enjok and entak, when

52 ln the sentence Bup tu' eiggj at! ,This book tlelongs to me,, a*a is an indirec! object.53 Or 'kisses'. The traditional way a morher greets her children is to sniff thei harr.Nowadays er,,rirm stands for kissing wjth th€ lips also.

60

used as verbs in a sentence, appear as ngenjok or benjok and ngentak orbentak.

The roots that begin in ke such as I listed above in the section on nouns tuminto verbs in a way that cannot be predicted from any rule, but must bememorized. None of them are terribly important, so you shouldn't worryabout them.

teDap 'flap of wings' -+kejap'eyeblink' -Jkenyit'statrtled' -tkenyut'tlrobbing' -+

kecit'squit' -Jkebut'move,budge' --s

engkebap'flaps'engkjap'blinks'[remains same]

. nlrt 'bounces' fcompare: kenyut-keny ut/kekryut'butncy' Iengkecit 'splurls ort,'engkebut 'bld.ges'

One observation, though. With such roots that begin with ke, prefixingeng- will make the resulting verb intransitive or middle, but nasalizing theke to nge makes a transitiye verb: ngejap-ka 'winks.' ngezl,ir .starles,,

ngecit 'squirts at,' ngebut-ka'shoves,' kerit 'nibble' -) ngerit ,gnaws.'

Note: Verb-roots that begin with a nasal syllable take another nasal whenthey are used as real verbs: for example, e ngkah'place' becomes ngengkah,etc. See the table of nasalizations above.

The prefix te-

This prefix occurs as a strongly integrated par154 of several words whichdenote a state where something has happened suddenly.

tekenyit lfrom kenytl 'be startled' also used as an adverb .suddenly'

tekejut lfrom kejutl 'jerk'Mimpi pan datai naka tu', Balan lqlu tedani. .The dream [had] comethat far, then Balan awoke.' 55Sabulan-bulan iya tebatok-batok. 'The whole month he coughed andcoughed.'

When prefixed to a few other verbs it gives a feeling of something

54 This is sho*n by such words as tetop 'fixed' and tekap .srrLack,'which have nocorresponding rools *tap or *kap. me adverb teruboh .at first, firsf also resists beingunderstood as able to be broken down into fe- + ubah,change, (with an r in between tosmooth the transition) ahhough this ought to be its etymology. In Malay the related prefixtsF is optionally attachable to adjectives, and puts them into the superlative degree: teriinggi'highest.' Iban terura, should mean somethinq like'first of a seri;s.'55 BeLna, Pelajar lban p.97.

6l

suddenly happening and a rcsultcoming about, sense ofperfectve aspect.

Tadi aku tepedq'-ka rusa'siko.' 'Just now I [suddenly] saw a deer.'

This term 'aspect' deserves a few words. Aspect refers to the way timeenters into the meaning of verbs; aspect is part of verbal nature. Somelanguages routinely mark it. In other languages, including lban, aspect isleft for the most part to be understood from the sense of the verb. To makethe concept clearer, consider the difference between 'come' and 'ariving,'When something 'comes,' you can see it coming from a distance, comingn€arer, and coming close. When something 'arrives,' it gets nearer and nearer,it's a foot away from ariving, then an inch away from arriving, and anmillisecond later it has already arrived. So 'coming' is something thathappens progressively, but 'arriving' takes place in an instant, as in a racethe athletes rzn continuously, but the moment the tape is broken somebodywins. 'Run' then shows progressive aspect, and 'win' perfective aspect.The Iban prefix te- fu_nctions to convert a progressive aspect verb into oneof perfective aspect. 56

Transiormations

The causative verb, Suffix -fta

Iban has a special suffix, -&a, which when attached to the verb, expressesthe concept that you make or cause somebody or something to dosomething. The gramrnatical name for this kind of verb is the causative-51Nearly every verb root can optionally be ftansformed into a causative verb.Transitive verbs too can take the suffix -/rc and become causatives toindicate that the subject of the verb is responsible for initiaring the actionbut not for actually carrying it out.

kirum'send': Aku udah ngirum-ka surqt ngena'pos. 'I senr rhe letterby mail.'sadong'sette out': nyadong-ka'pass around' ('cause to be servedouf)datai 'come': '...nya' alni laban aku ke ngenatai-ka adat nya' ngagaikita...' '...therefore because I [am the one] who delivers this law toyou.. . '5E

ro Asp€ct is quite different from tense. A verb in the past tense can be of progressive asp€ct,for example 'walked,' and a verb in the future tense can be of perfective aspect: 'will arrive.'57 Plenty of causatives formed by slightly changing the plain verb exist in Bnglish, Oneexample is 'fell' 'cause !o fall'; aoother is 'rais€,' from 'rise.'58 Ejau, Dilahfanahp.lls. Adat is ao important word. See the entry for ir in Richards.

But the most importa way -ka is used is to make intransitive roots intotransitive verbs.

ancar 'dissolved': ngancur-ka'thin out' ( 'cause to be dissolved')pansut'go ottt' : mansut-ko \elezse'sirat 'loincloth': Iya nyirat-ka annk iyd. 'He puts a loincloth on hisson.' ('causes his son to be loinclothed')mansang 'go on, go out': ngemansang-ka 'develop' ('cause toprogress').

By definition, every causative verb is hansitive, and so the root at the heartof a causative, whether it is transitiye by nature or not, will appearjust likea transitive verb with the appropriate nasalization or nasal prenx on thefront. Then it gets the -ta. In the examples just above, the.an- changes tongan-, the pan- to man-, the ja- to nya-, the Ji to r)i-, and man- gets ttrcprefix nge-.

As I said in the section on the prefix be- above, there are two prefixesrze-. One of these is parallel to De- and comes before intransitiv€ verbs thatbegin with I or r. The second rze- comes before a small number of verbsand is used with -/rc to make them into causatives. The common rootjalaiappears as menyalai-f4 when it tums into a causative, to distinguish it fromnyalai-ka,whichmeans 'to cause [some meat, fish, etc.] to be smoked dry'lfrom salail. Likewise, the rcot jadi 'become' produces the causativemenyadi-ka 'to bring something to being.' The no.un anak 'child' can beused as a verb-root. Its causative is merazat-&a 'to make give birth.'

Iya meranak-ka duit 'He makes his money make baby money' [i.e.'He gets interest on his money by lending or banking it.'l

The causative nganak-ka made ftom anak in the regular fashion means 'tocall or treat someone as a son/daughter.' In this sense it can also be heard asmenganak-ka.59

In colloquial speech you will sometimes hear a person add an extra nasalmarker, in the shape of th€ prefix nge-, to a causative, for examplengenusah-ka 'troubles,' from tusah'harsh, diff icult, ' which wouldordinaily be nusah-ka.

-fa is often simply tacked on to the ends of verbs that don't need it in order

59 Hiatori"ul not". M"- is a pretty old prefix. It can be seen in the ma- ofrnak4i 'eat,' whosePrcto-Austronesian root is *lat. Even though its use in Iban is rcstricled, w- is still used forboth tmnsitive and intransilive verb6 in languages such as Tagalog (the Philippines), Muru!(Sabah), and Balinese. In Sebuyau dialect, though, you can hear such exprcssiods as ma48i'duriog the moming.'

63

to make the expression mor€ elaborate and elegari. Ildah ngemas-ka rwnahiya lalu nurun ka umar| 'After neatening up the house, she then went downto the garden.'

Cenain verbs, applied to people, cannot be used in the causative form. If amother were to make her child bathe, you wouldn't say of her *Iyangemnnd.i-ka anak iya,bttrather lya ngasoh anak iya mandi 'She asks [orbetter here 'orders'l her child to bathe. However, you can say lyanindok-ka arnk iya. 'She puts her child to sleep.' R.

Tfansitive to intransitive

We have seen several instances where a verb root of transitive meanins carrbe made a transitive verb by attaching the prefix be-. There arJtwoprincipal reasons for making this transformation. The first is to show thatthe emphasis is on the action rather than on the object of the action:

Iya betenun. 'She is weaving.'Balan begaga' ka laja sumpit. 'Balut worked on his btowpipe-darts.'

The second reason is to indicate that the action has been continuins oyer aperiod of time:

Suba' kami betanam dua hari di Munggu Raman. 'We were plantingfor two days at Raman Hill.'

Nouns and adjectives to verbs

Nouns and adjectives readily convert to verbs, and we have already seenmany examples of these kinds of transformations. To summarize all thesetypes, the forms that a noun or adjective will be able to take depend onwhether the root can be thought of as transitive only, or intransitive only, orpossibly both. Thus from the noun gardin 'scissors'we can have Bini iyanguntin bok iya 'His wife cuts his hair,' and lya beguntin'He is having ahaircut,' but from Do& 'hair' we can have only bebok asin lya bebok panjai'He has long hair.' Here, to make the transitive the root is nasalized, andthe intransitive takes be-. Roots beginning in I, m, or r take the prefixnge-: ngelubang'make ahole' (from lubang 'hole'), ngema' 'carry onback'ngemata ka 'keep an eye on.'

Verbs in De- often have the force of adjectives, for example from duri''thom' we can say Semoa' bensq wi'beduri "All types of rotans are spiny.'For this reason adjectives do not convert to intransitive verbs in De-.However, adjectives may tum in0o transitive verbs in three ways. First ofall by nasalization, whether by changing the sound or adding nge-:

besai 'bi.g' : mesai 'big as'

g

tl

!,

i

c e I um' black' : ny e lum' blacken'mirah 'red' '. ngemirah'redden'

Second by using the adjective to make a causative:

cilap 'cool' : nydlap-ka'cool down'kering 'strong' : ngering-ka 'strengthen'lantang 'contr,na, glad' : ngelanmng-ka 'gladden, make happy'mit'small' : ngemit:ka 'reduce'

And third, an uncommon method, by using the prefix be- in front of theroot-

...orang ke semina benyamai ati kin' ngerm' jafu' ti' manah..'..,aperson who mer€ly makes you feel nice with pretty words...'@

or, the root may be both prefixed with be- and followed by -ka:

Iya beangat-ka kaki iya ngagai api 'He wams his feet at the fire.' R.

iya-4ikena' bejako'-ka utai bukai... '/ya-used to express [put intospeechl other things...' 6l

This construction with De- and -ta signifies that someone is puttingsomething into the srale indicated by the root. I have also found this usedwith verbs:

Enda' tau'ngempok nruth perai, enda' tau' bedeka'-ka orang enggai. 'Yolcannot mold soggy earth, you cannot make willing a person who doesn'twant-' R- oz

Active Verb to Causative Verb

Some verbs, both transitiye and intransitive, can be made into causatives inorder to change their meanings:

a/ap 'trust, hope' : ngarap-ka'feel confidence'nenjai'lo gas' i ngenwnjai-ka 'lengthen'mesai'bigas' : ngemesai-ka 'make big'

@ iuia.6l anz,p. s.62 Suppl"."ntury not". I found two nouns and a pronoun (all ending in u) which are madeinto verbs by the addition or subtraction ofa glottal stop at the edd: a&rr 'I'laku' 'affirm,' asu''dog'/as, 'hunt,'t6, 'breast'/turu "suckle.' These three words are very old ones, and Ibelieve that the glottal stop, as a devic€ for distinguishing b€tween verb and noun, may bevery ofd. There is a parallel in the relationship betwe2"n apo 'what?' and kapa'[= ke- + apal'why?.'

65

rindu' 'llke' : ngerindu'-ka 'cavse to feel liking' 63

The prcfix Defte-

Ke- plays an important role in making intansitive verbs out of nouns andadjectives. After fe- is added to tlle head of the word to be converted, thewhole ensemble is prefixed by be-. Brt this process is, I think, bestunderstood as the prefixing of a two-syllable compoi|.enl beke-. The -ke-component (when it occurs in the rniddle of a word it is called an infix)givesthe resulting verbs a feeling of happening continuously over a stretch oftime, in other words, it gives the verbs it makes a progressive aspect.

I indak' v isible' b e ke lindz,k'slanding out, shining.'

All these verbs fonh ed. in beke- have a poetic flavor, and refer to things ingroups:

: Nyau bekedura bintang tiga itnnding ka suka sabang meleban 'T\renbright stan, aboye the far horizon, glisten as do the leaves of thesac-red dracaena'. g

In poetry the roots of such verbs are occasionally obscure. It is possiblethat the.poet has great freedom in coining nep words, often using thisD"fe- consfuction, or these verbs may be poetic language handed down aswholes. We hope that further research will lead to more words of poeticIban to be recorded and explained.

Iiut, a good example of how these poetic verbs are formed is bekranggak,which I fgund in Richards. It may be analysed thus: razggat means 'littledry branches of brush piled up after clearing.' 65 l(e- converts the nouninto something with an adjectival feel, znd be- makes the whole anintrarisitive verb. The final meaning is 'lying about with legs in differentpositions (said of many people)' R., obviously. after a party.

The preftx beb-

Panllel to D?&e- is the prefix bete- . It is, of course, formed from the asp€ctprefix te- further prefixed with the intransitive verb-prefix be-. There arenot very many verbs that take the prefix Dete-, it is relatively uncommon.Wh^t bete- does is to take a verb of naturally progressive aspect :rndconvert it to a verb of perfective aspect. For example, gariizg 'toll,' kcbut

63 Note: the -ta that foll ows ngnrup and geind 'here is not the preposition &a 'for' but thecatrsative suffix.g

Masing. vol. 2. p. 465 A variant of the rangSar listed in Richards.

66

'move, stir,t kinut 'twitch,' a't,d kuit 'wag' are all verb-roots that areunderstood by nature to show progressive aspect:' the actions they namehappen over time. Prefixed wilh bete-, all these roots become verbs thatdenote one single stroke of the action, emphasizing the state in whichsomething landed:

betegoring 'rolled [and lay therc]'betekebut 'budged [and stopped]'betekimut'trvitched[once]'betekuit 'wagged [once and stood still].'

Exampl€s of transfornations with IaDoIr (fall'

The shades of meaning that can be given to a simple root by the use of theprefixes and the suffix -&a are many. For example, from laboh, 'fall' wehave-

. laboh 'falls': Aku laboh ari tanju' 'I fell off the back porch.' 66

. ngelaboh'catse something to fall' [and so therefore'gather some-thing fallen'l: Iya zgelaboh buqh ridn. 'He makes the durian-fruitsfall [so he can gather them].'

. ngeldboh-ka'to ca..Jiseto fall: Iyangelaboh-kakuali iya. 'She droppedher wok.'

. belaboh'to let fall for oneself': l) Sida' belaboh main terup. 'Ttrcyfell [began] to playing cards.' 2) Kami belaboh di nanga Sematan.'We anchored [et fall (our anchor) for us] at the mouth of theSematan river.'

. telaboh'drop suddenly': Buah riqn sigi' telaboh ka kaki aku. 'Adurian fruit suddenly fell at my feet.'

. telaboh-laboh 'fall suddenly (of many things)': Leka ujan batutelaboh-laboh qri langit 'Hailstones suddenly fell out of the sky,'

. pelaboh 'outbuilding attached to longhouse.'

. pengelaboh 'the way things fall out, destiny.'R.

The passive

In the passive voice, the verb indicates that something is done to the'subject of the sentence:

A [subject] gets-something-done-to-it.

or,

66 The tarTz' is an open-air platform, usually roughly floorcd, attached to the main veranda(ruai) of a longhouse, or behind th; kirchen at the back of a longhouse apartment (biti*) ordetached house, where people do things like dry clothes and rice, clean fish, etc.

A gets-something-done-to-it by b lthe agent].

To make the passive form of the verb, you take the root and put the prefixdi in front of it.

Aku meda' anak nya'. 'I see the child.'Anak nya' di-peda aka. 'The child is seen by me.'

Notice that in the passive the word of the ag€nt, the.person or thing bywhich the something is done (what would be the subject if tle sentencewere active) is not preceeded by a preposition, as it is in Malay. 6?

If the root begins with a vowel, especialty if that vowel is e, the i of uredi- can be drcpped and the d combined with the root.

empa' 'eat,' dernpa' 'eaten'

Very often the di- of the passive is omitted.

Ngejang ka para'baka reba' anjongpasang 68 'l-eaving behind thefirewood-rack [piled with fireWood] like driftwood brought by thetide.' oe

Koko karni abis pakai tupai. 'Our cocoa is completely eaten up bysquirrels.'

A passive verb can take the causative suffix -fta.

Peraunya' di-laboh-ka ari pala' wong 'Tl;'e boat was let fall from thehead of the raoids.' /u

An agent need not necessarily accompany a passive verb. The reason thepassive voice exists, in fact, is that in some slatements we can make thcthing that has something done to it and what is done are more importantthan who or what is responsible for it. Thus, if we come to a shop and thelight is on but we can't get in, we tell the others back in the car:

Pintu nya' di-kunci 'The door is locked.'

Who locked the door and why is none of our business; our concem is torepoft on the door's state, as when we bring a non-functioning machine tothe mechanic and say:

o/ However, you will occasionally see such thin Eis ^s

'Dwya Aku (the litle of a book) olihJanang Ensiring,' where the writer is being carefirl to indicate who is the agent.68 Masing, v. 2, p. 869 Nore: this describes a household ,itit cornfoftably supplied with necessities.?0 This relels to the practise of the crcw getlng out and ietting a boat slide dowtr through arapid while controlling its descent wilh lenglhs of rotan.

68

Injin tu' kena' rusak. 'This engine got broke.'

Of course; since the ageqt need not be mentioned in a passive sentence' onecan use the passive to avoid responsibility as in the sneaky English'Mistakes were made.'

Kulit pisang nya' di-buai ari penyenSok 'The banana peel was toss€dout from the window.'

The passive with the single Vefix di- gives the feeling that the actionhappened in the past, the sense of the past passive participle in English. Ifthe iomponent -&e- is inserted between the di- and the root, then the resultindicates that a passive action is going on in the present:

Surat nya' benong diletulis iya. 'TlE le,r'rlr is presently being wrimenby him.'

Ke- can also be used to convert an intransitive root into something thatcan then be funher prefixed with di- to make a passive that otherwisecould not exist:

arap 'l\st' : di-karap lke + arapl 'trusted'Iari 'ivr' : di-kclari 'fled from'

The passive is used in making relative clauses. This is because the relativepronoun, ti', cannot be used as the object of a verb or of a preposition.

Natna utai ti' di-asoh nuan beli ari pasar? What is it you want boughtfrom the market?

Orang ti'di:peda aku kcmari'.'The person who was seen bymeyesterday,' = 'The person I saw yesterday.'

Sida' ngambi semoa' utai di-ledeka' diri. 'They took everything wantedby themselves' = 'They took whatever they wanted.'

Another common way of making a passive sentence, moredaily-speech-like than using di-, is to use the helping-vetb kena' 'to get'with the root-form of the main idea.

Beras kini sbis kena' besah. 'Our rice has gotten completely wet.'Barang iya ketw' cari. 'His things got stolen.' R.

The mark of a passive sentence is tlat what would be the object in an activesentence becomes the subjett. There is a further type of passive sentence'in which tbe indirect object of an rctive sentence becomes the subject.

Taukd mayar aku kenari'. 'The boss paid me yesterday.' [active]

69

LI

becomes-

Aku di-bayar tauki kemari' '1 was paid, by the boss yesterday. ,

Jungar nyau takut enggai-ka sida' enda' di-beri Kunsil surat terang.'Jungarbecame frightened lest they had nor been siven the letter ofexplanation by the Council lor'71

The'sofi'pasive

Iban, besides the active and passive voices, also has something in betweenthe two. For lack of a better word in English I am terming it the .soft'passive. In this voice, what would be the object in an active sentence shiftsto the beginning of the sentence. The verb stands in its root form. withournasalization, and also without the preflx dl-. The noun or pronoun of theperson or thing that does the action, what in an active sentence would bethe object or in a passive sentence the agent, here comes , efore tl.te verb,so that it still looks like the subject of the verb.

Jagong tu' kami tanam.

English has no exact grammatical equivalent, but some of the effect canbe illustrated in the translation 'This com, we planted.' Compare the activeversion of this sentence, Kqmi nanam jagong rz',We planied this com',and the fully passive version Jagong tu' di-nnam kami .This com wasplanted by us.' The function ofthe 'soft'passive is to throw emphasis onthe goal of the action, at the same time de-emphasizing the action itself.However, the actor, or doer of the action, remains mentioned with moreemphasis than in a full passive, though with less than in an active sentence.Note that a 'soft' passive s€ntence mrrJt contain the noun or oronoun tharrepresents the actor. If the actor is omitted, then a .soft' passive willbecome indistinguishable from a full passive.

Tense

?'ense is the grammarian's term for that feature of the verb that makes clearat what time the action of the verb is happening, whether in tbe past, thepresent, or the future. English verbs change form in order to indicate tense.For example, compare 'I see' with 'I saw.'

Iban verbs do not change their forms to indicate tense; the verb alwavslooks the same. Much of the time Iban speakers understand the tense of tireverb from context. If necessary, you make the time of the action clear byadding additional words to the sentence.

7 I Ejaq Dilah Tanoh, p. 96.

70

Some of these are adverbs of time, for example-

udah'abeady'suba' 'forr:.terly'menya' 'forln.erly, in th€ past, once'dulu' 'before' 'first't4di'recently, just now'barz 'hasjust' (also 'again')

benong 'presently' 'in the middle of'mzngkang'strll'agi'/ lagi' 'sti l l ' (also,'again,' or' later')enda' lamn agi' 'soon' ,du.di' later'' afterwards'i/a "later' (in a number of dialects 'tomonow')

Dulu' and duli are l.:sed in a pair. Nuan mandi dulu' , aku dadi. 'yolu take abath first, I later.' If one word of the pair is there and the other not, theomitted idea is understood.

Iban is careful to make it clear if an action has nol yet happened, using th€negative words of tense bedau, apin, or empai. I wilt talk about theseimportant words in the section on negatives below.

In addition to these general adverbs, there arc also many adverbs andadverbial phrases that express time quite precisely. You can see animpressive example of this in Richards' article on the word Dari. Ibanhas not only words for 'tomorrow' (pqgila') and'yesteday' (kqm.eri'),btJtwords for 'day after tommorrow' (lrrra'), 'day before yesterday' (ensanus).In the older language there exist equally compact words for 'third andfounh-, fifth-, sixth day from now.' Taken all together, these words andphrases make up a large palette of shades of meaning with which todesignate time, shades from Iban speakers can choose almost anythingfrom the very general to the very precise. Table number 2 in the appendixgives words for the various times of day.

Tense can also be indicated by the ar,,xiliaries, or helping-verbs bisi' 'has'and deka' 'will/want to.'

Present tense

Obviously, the present tense indicates things are happening rolv. For thepresent tense, as for all other tenses, Iban has no special form of the verb.

Naruq utai di-gaga' nuan? 'What thing is being made by you?'Aku ngaga' langkarr.riri'. 'I am making a shed.'B:

41l

,"]Colloquial Iban does not make any explicit distinction between simple andprcgressive present, which is so important in English. Nuan bejalai kakebun is both the progressive 'You are walking to the garden' and thesimple 'You walk to the garden.' (This would look clearer in older English:'Thou walkest to the garden.') If you need to say you are in the middle ofsomething, you can add benong.

Pede-mdh enti' bisi' orang nemuai. Aku benong nyumai asi'. 'Seeis ther€'s someone visiting. I'm in the middle ofcooking rice.'

However, we have seen two ways in which the verb changes to show thatan action has been or is continuing for a while. If a person buys rice on oneoccasion, I1a meli beras 'He buys rice.' If he habitually buys rice, thenIya bebeli ka beras 'He trades in rice.' We have also seen how in tnepassive, a component -ke- insened between the prefix di- and the rootindicates that the action is continuing.

Iya enda'meda' utai ti'dikelari. 'He didn't know what was beins fledfrom.'

Another way in which Iban gives a progressive sense to a verb is parallel tosuch expressions with adjectives such as c€lap-sac4lap 'colder and colder.'The verb is reduplicated, and the second member ofthe compound is prefixedwith sa- or me-:

ambi"take' : ngambi' -sangambi' I ambi' -mengambi''keep on taking'palu' 'hit ' : malu' -samalu' lmalu' -memalu' 'keep on hitt ing.'

Sirnple past

The simple past is best understood as the tense in which we tell stories;Iya angkat, masok baju iya, ngambi' ginti', lalu nurun ka ai'. 'He got up,put his clothes on, grabbed his fishing-rod, and went down to the stream.'Again, the concept of simple past exists in Iban, but like all other tenses isnot explicidy marked in the form of the verb. Any Iban verb can be madepast simply by attaching a word that specifies a past time.

A: Kemnia nuan pulai ai Kuching? 'When [did] you come backfrom Kuching?'

B: Aku datai kgnlqri'ngena' ekspres. 'I [came] come back yesterdayusing the express.'

Or, very often the sense ofpast action is understood from context. A storymay begin Pagi siti "one morning... ' 72 This sets the location in the past,

72 Note: the expression hali riri'is an idiom that means 'nd.rl day.'

72

and from there on the storyteller goes on using verbs in their ordinary forms,

confident thathis hearers understand them all as belonging to the context of

a past time.

Nyadi pagi siti', die' Encelegit, bini Apai Aloi' qngkat berapi pagi.

Leboh esi' udah mansau, dia'iya lalu berengkah melo tubu ka kukpaginya', Ildah tembu' mela tubu' nya' dia' iyanemu garqm sida'

udah abis.

'So, one moming, Enchelegit, the wife of Father-of-Aloi, got up to

cook breakfast. When the rice was ready, she began to Preparebamboo-shoots to eat with it. She had already finished preparing the

bamboo-shoots and then she noticed they were out of salt.' /r

Or, someone may begin a story more specifically witb Musin kalia'.-., aphrase that with appropriate material is equivalent to 'Once upon a time-'

Future, the verb defta'

Iban speakers commonly do not bother to mark the future tense too, if there

is enough context from which to understand a futule sense. The same thing

happens in English.

Kini kita'? 'Where [will] You go?Kami bejalai ka Betotrg. 'We [will] go to Betong.'

Often, though, they sp€cify the time at which something will happen.

Indai manggang ikan lemai tu'. 'Mother grills [will gril| fish this

evening.'

An important word for expressing future action is the verb deka'. Thts

means 'to will,' 'to want/desire.' Sftictly speaking, deka' is a verb that

needs a verbal complement to make a comPlete sentence. However, the

complement can be left out, and so delc'can seem to take an object.

Aku deka' duq sudu'grla. 'I want two spoons of sugar.'

And, like the ve$ 'to will' in English, is used as a helping verb to make the

future:

lya deka' ngiga' paku di babas-'She will look for ferns in thejungle.'

The short form of defa ' is &a ', which you will hear more often than the long

form.

73 'Indni Aloi Abi" G-um/Mother-of-Aloi Runs out of sak" in sather 1984, p. l. I haveprovided my own tmnslation her€ in Place of Prof. sather's in order to make the Ibansmmmar cleafet

Deka'-cut also- 19an 'to go.' Aku deka' ka tuan raja is a pretty exacatranslation_ of_Shakespeare's 'I will to the king.' This uiage isunderstandable because we 'want' to get someplace. The short form 7<a'iscommon in gleetings:

Kini ka' nuan? 'Where are you going?'

Perfect

The perfect tense expresses a past action that has a present result;petectum, in Latin, means among other things .finiihed,' ,over,''complete.' In distinction to the simple treatment of the simple past, Iban lscffeful_about making the perfect tense explicit. The commonest way ofdoing this is to add fte adverb udah ,abeady.'

Aku udah betemu enggau iye.. ,l lhave) abeady meet [met] with him.fimplication: Andwhatever business we had is now complete.]'

Suba', d.ulu' and tadialso give the verb aperfective sense. .fhe word badu,'finished' functions as a son of helping-verb:

Sida' badu' nafui, lalu gali'. 'T\ey finished eating, then lay down.'The verb bisi' 'has,' when used as a helping-verb, gives an emphatic senseof completion and assertion:

Aku bisi' nebas rumput nya' ambis..I [in fact] ftave completely mownthe grass.'

Past pmgrcssive, the .imperfect' tens€

When an action takes place in the past, and doesn't simply happen at onepoint and then is ovet but continues for while, we call the iense tharexpresses this thep4st progressive or impe4fect lban does not bother aboutthe_imperf€ct mrrch, yet we have seen s]uch fomts as bekelinda& .shining,and di-kcloi 'fled from' (with the infix -fe-) that clearly indicate thatsomething has been going on for a while.

Certain adverbs or phrases give a weak sense of the imperfect. Dulu, andsaba'often carry the idea that the action has been spreid out over a periodof time when they appear with a verb of naturally progressive aspeci.

Dulu' karui diau di semenanjung- 'First [.before this'] we live [werelivingl in the Peninsula lwest Malaysia].'

Of course you can always specify how long a past action went on:Aku ngajar lepan taun di aniversiti. .I teach [was teaching] eight yearsat the university.'

74

"Ka kini nuan?""Ka kin, ngagai menyadi aku di Setunggang."

But since diau and ngajar in the examples above can equally well betranslated 'lived' and 'taught' respectively, it's really a close call whetherthe imperfect exists in Iban grammar as a separate category. To amplifywhat I said in the inroductory section on tense, westem languages like toconcentrate the sense of time and the relations between times of actioninside the verb, while Iban rnakes them clear in ways that happen outsidethe verb. In English someone might wiite-'He entered the forest. A birdwas singing.' When you enter something it is an event that takes place inan instant and then is over, thus the writer chooses the simple past; butsinging goes on for a while, hence the imperfect. But in Iban it would comeout: Iya masok kannpong. Burung siko' bemurryi'dia'. Here Iban lets thedistinctipn between instant and continuing action be taken for ganted.

Relationship of temes in context

As we have seen, the time of a verb depends to a very great extent oncontext. Context can be the situation in which you, as a speaker, will findyourself together with other speakers, or it can be provided by clues andcues in the surrounding language. The elaborate system of supplementarytenses and moods such as we have in English derives from the desire tobuild redundancy into the language. T4 For example, there is really noneed for a marked pwetfect terce, a tense that indicates that somethinghappened before something else happened. If the context in Iban is past,then perfect verbs will all be understood to express a pluperfect sense.

Sidn' udah n4ka| lnlu orang siko' datar\ 'They [had] already eaten, then aperson arrived.'

Further examples:

Prcsent: Aka neda' nyo'- 'l see it.'Aku udah meda' nya'. 'I [have] already see[n] it.'Suba' qku besekula di sekula Mission. 'Formerly I went{o-school atthe Mission school.'Aku dulu' meda' nya'. 'I saw it first.' [='I saw it once' spoken to otherswho haven't yet seen it.lDulu' radai bisi' tali karan di kanpong kami. "fherc didn't used to bea elecric cable in our village.'Asu' ksmi Belang beranak baru tadi. 'Ow dogPatch gave birth justnow.'

74 Reilundancy is where there are two or more ways of doing the same thing. Redundancyhas often been thought of in the sense of 'useless extras,' but consider: controls in an airplaneare backed-up thr€e times or even rnore. Ifone system fails, the other safely flies the plane.Language uses reduodaocy to make sure the message gets across.

75

Aku benong meda' nya'. 'I am in the middle of seeing it.'Kain nunn mengkang di-jimboi, Ialu agi' basah. 'Your clothes arestill drying, and still wet.'Aku dzka' mcda' nya'. Iwillseeit.Nwn bejalai dalu', aku dudi. 'Yor: go first, I lwill gol later'

If you're talking abofi anttquiay, kclia' (also agi' kelia' 'it was still the olddays') has the something of the feel of'once upon a time.'

Agi' kElia' katni lban besirat aja'. 'In the old days we Ibans worejust a loincloth.'

Risi't i* use as an autiliar! and as existential,

The verb Bisi'derives from the noun iri' 'what's inside something,contents.' Thus isi' rumah means 'the occupants of a house.' R. Startingfrom this concepl Disi' itself has come to be a specialized verb of middlevoice /) whose most basic meaning is 'to have for oneself'or simply 'tohave.'

Aku bisi' duit dua puloh sen. 'l have twenty cents.'

By extension, ,iri' can also means 'to gef or 'to be able to'-

Kati nuon bisi' nBli ikan di pasar tadi? 'Did you get to buy fish in themarket just now?'

or, as I have said, it acts like the English 'has'in giving a verb the sense ofperfect tense:

Indai Stepani bisi' dat4i. 'Stephanie's mother has arrived.'

Because Iban has no true verb 'to be,' ,iri' takes over some of itsfunctions. Brsi'often means 'there iyare.'

Bisi' jamban di belakang bilik 'Tl]F;reis a toilet at the rear of the room[apartment in a longhouse].'

. Bisi' seput, bisi' arap.'Therc's breath, there's hope.' 76

Br.si'will often appear in what look like simple a = b sentences:

Buah semangka tu' bisi' mansau. 'This watermelon is ripe.'

However, the sentence means more than a mere assertion that a fruit rsready to eat. Because bisi' is a middle verb which implies some benefit for

75 sea note 4776 the Brookes' motto, Drm rpiro rpem, 'As long as I breathe, I hope.'

76

the people in its, let us say, immediate vicinity, the accurate way tounderstand this example is '[We] have this ripe watermelon.' This isprobably how ,i,ri' came to perform the role of the existential 'to be.'Perhaps originally people thought of sentences like as Brsi' bukit, bisi'langit as '[We, generally considered as members of the entire humanadventure on eafth,l have hills, have [the] sky.'But then the grammaticalsubject, unexpressed and vague as it is already, faded further to become a'dummy' subject such as one sees in English sentences like 'Ifs raining' orinFrcr.ch Il y a du monde 'There are people.'

More commonly people will szy Mansau semangka ra', cutting out boththe bisi' 'is/ have' xd buah 'fruit.' You have to imagine you are at themarket with your Iban friend, who is pointing-his language makes thatclear because he determines the noun with tu'-to a watermelon and doesn'tneed to specify 'fruit.'

Nyau and Jadi/Nydi 'to become'l'is become'

The two Iban words with the meaning of 'become' differ in that ryaudenotes a becoming in process, and nladi that something has arrived in asu e.

Buah nanas u' nyau ka mansau. 'This pineapple is becoming ripe.'

Nya.di is the nasalized form ofTbdi.

Tembu' besekuln, iya nyadi polis. 'He finished school, and becarne apoliceman.'

It can also mean 'to happen in a successful way, tum out well':. kcreja nya'na.dai nyadi'. 'Thatjob didn't happen.' Nyadi also works as a conjunctionmeaning 'then,' rather in the same way as the Bible phrase 'it came to pass...'although much more day-to-day in feel.

In ordinary speech zyaa (also lenyau) means 'lose' 'lost.' Ny4u seems tokeep this feeling of waning in several common phrases concemed with thepassage of time, as if time were flowing from a higher to a lower level:

hari nyau lemai'T"be day began to become evening.'ai' nyau surut 'the tide is etbing'nyau ka lana' 'after some time'

Other Auxiliaries

In Iban, just as in English, there are helping-verbs other than 'is' that oneadds before the main verb in order to change the meaning. These are knownas modals. In grammar, maod referc to senses of possibility, necessity,

77

degree ofreality or unreality, desireableness, etc. associated with the verb.Akamu' mcda' nya'.Aku enda' tau enda' meda nya' .Akt patut meda nya'.Aku ulih meda' nya'.

. &c.

'I can see it.''I cannot not [='must'l see it.''I ought to see it.''I gevgot to see it.'

Mlsti 'must' is also used, bonowed from Malay.

Aku nisti betemu engga& iya. 'I must meet with him.'

Three other important modal auxiliaries will be discussed in the section onnegating words and sentences below. These are rudai .is not,' enggai, don'twant,' and anarrg 'do not!',

There are two features to note in the above examples. First, the verb thatfollows the modal is in the same form as it would be used by itself in asentence.

Iya medn' aku.'He sees me.'Iya tou' meda' ak*'He can see me.'

Second, Iban does not allow an adverb, or any other part of speech, to comebetween the modal verb and the verb that follows it. you cannot sav +hdtau'lama med.a'aku. This leads me to believe that the rwo verbi her.should be anafyzed, at the most basic gramniatical level, as parallel. Itisas if we can break up the sentences into two, like this:

Ak tau'. Akumeda'nya'. 'I am capable. Iseeit.'Aku patut. Akl meda nyq'. 'I am designated. 77 I see it.'Aka ulih. Aku,meda'nya'. 'I got. I see it.'

But then the se€ond verb comes to work in a relationshio to the firsrsomewhat as in which we have seen nouns followed bv other nouns towork. For example, nanah.manok means 'house [for] chickens.' Iaa,maca rrl€,ans 'be capable [to] read.' In both examples the second elementmakes rnore specific the general idea stated in the first.

Verb plus verb

After verbs of asking, ordering, learning, teaching, knowing,remembering, feeling, liking, hating, trying; beginning, ceasing etc., in short,in every construction where a main verb requires another verb--a verbalcomplement-to complete the meaning, Iban uses two verbs in parallel, or

77,See Richards on the word patal

78

a main verb followed by a parallel verb-phrase:

Iya nemu ngaga' percu. 'He knows [how to] make boars.'Iya ngasoh aku ngaga' perau siti'. 'IIsasks me to make a boat.'Iya ngajar aka ngaga' perau. 'He tcaches me [to] make boats.'

. Iya minta orang nunjokjphi Bau kn ia. 'He asks somebody [to] pointout .the Bau road to him.'Iya rtnd ' manggang r'&an.'Heloves [to] grill fish.'Iya benri' meda' orang ngasoh asu' mzrinsa'. 'He hates to see someone make a dog suffer.'Aku nguji bejab' Iban. 'I try to speak Iban:'Kitai berengkah nanam padi. 'We begin to plant rice.'Aku asai dcka' tindot 'I feel I I ] want to sleep.'

The main verb can be passive.

Aku di-asoh orang meli kain leboh maia aku di Kuching. 'I was askedby somebody [to] buy cloth when I was in Kuching.'

When the subject of the second verb is the same as that of the first verb,nothing comes between verbs one and two. The subject of the second verbmust be mentioned when it is different than the subject of the first verb.

The parallel nature of the two verbs explains why an intransitive verb, suchas beLajor, can s@m to take an object:

Iya belajar ngaga' perau.

InEnglish, ngaga' peraa 'to make boats' would be analyzed as the objectof belajar 'leam.' We could avoid this type of translation in English byrrsing the pariiciple:78 'He leams, making boats.' .However, there is noparticiple in Iban, for the reason that there is no agreement. A morefaithful representation using English of the underlying Iban gramrnarwould be: 'He leams [he] makes boats.'

Verb plus verb to d€scribe manner

In sentences where it is not necessary that one verb be added to the mainverb to complele the meaning, two verbs can still be put together Thesecond verb, again, describes how the action of the first takes place andmakes the meaning more specific.

Katni niki nitih-ka jalai ti' latrut'. 'We climbed follow[ing] the oldDath.'

7E So called because it 'participates' in the natures of both the verb and the adjective.

79

An object can come between the two verbs,

Aku ka' nganjong Sanuel pulai ka rumah. 'I am going to take Samuelhome.' [='sggert Samuel retum']

As we have seen in the section above on adverbs, one verb can be followedby another yerb which will modify the fimt verb in an almost adyerbialway:

Bungan lalu beguai-guai belanda ngagai Balan.79 'Btngan thenhastily ran towards Balan.'

Paip nya' di-jual bebatang-bateng. 'The pipes are sold by the piece.'

Yerb plus verb to expness purpose

The verb plus verb construction can also, like English, express purpose,especially after main verbs of rnotion:

Kami nurun nginti'. 'We're going down [to] fish.'Kita' mestl pulai tindok ditu'. 'You must come back [to] sleep here 'Iya makai ngi.tlup seput ajo'. 'He eats merely to keep his breath alive.'[='keep body and soul together.'NB: The phrasing of this sentenie isvery casual.l

Verb plus verb as the origin of Iban prcpositions

Prepositions are words that make clear the relationship of the word theypreceed to others in the sentence. Many Iban words that function asprepositions are, in fact, ve6s used in parallel with a main verb.

Iya bejalai ngagai kampong. 'He gcfls to the forest.'

ln fact, ngagai is in form a verb, derived from gagai 'pursue, approach.' R.Gagai iya! 'Chase him!'And so this sentence could be translated: 'Hegoes, approaching the forest.'

Apart from ngagai many other Iban prepositions originated from verbsplaced in parallel and retain a strong portion of their verbal identity. Thefollowing list illustrates a few.

ngeza''with, using' [from tena''get or use']

Iya nebang kayu' ngena' kapak '}Je fells tl:ees with an axe.' 80

19 Brm+ Petajar lban 3 , p,9780 To translate this exampl€ 'He fells a tree using an axe'shows how English, with thepafliciple, cao get close to Iban grammar.

80

ngenrng 'zbout, conceming' [from &enang 'call to mind, mention']

Aki nusoi cerito ngennng utai lama'. 'C'nndfxher tells stories aboutold things.'

,runyi 'like, as, as if' [from bzzyi 'sound']

Anang bejakt'munyi zya'l 'Don't talk like that!'

ngeliling'around' Ifrom kelilins'surround'l

Bulan bejalai ngeliling dzzya 'The moon moves amund the earth.'

nyentok '!p to, rs far as' [fron senlot 'touch']

Kami mudik ari Stunggang nyentok Nanga Batang Kayan, Ialu pulai.'We went dowffiyer ftom Stunggang as far as the mouth of the KayanRiver, then retumed.'

Some conjunctions, words that connect or set off words and phrases, alsobegan their lives as verbs. Certain of these retain a strong verbal flavor:

nyadi 'then, so' [fromjadi 'become, happen']

Nyadi krnai han iya dnai ka tebing sungai ,erai srt '. 'Then, at eveninghe came to the bank of a large river.'

enggaikn 'lest' lenggai 'don't want'l

Iya nyaga ufiuti enggai-ka di-rusak jelu.'He watches his farm lest[fearing that] it be destroyed by animals.' R.

ngambi'-ka'in ordet that' ffrom ambi' 'take, get'l

Kami empu miki' injin nya'ngambi'-ka bejimat duh. 'We repairedtheengine ourselves in order to fto get to ] save money.'

Others have mostly lost their verbal feel.

tauka'or' ffrom tau' 'can'l

Iya bisi' di kbun muka iya nurun nginti'. 'She's in the garden or fcanbel she's gone fishing.'

Inban 'beraru'se' lfrom laban 'to resist, oppose'l

Aku pulni twnu laban hai lu' ujan. 'I retumed early because it wasgoing to rain.'

The verb which exploins an adj€ctive

The verb can also be used to clarify in what sense an adjective is meant, or

8l

what it refe6 to.

Aku lembau bejalai kin-kitu' di pasar 'I'm tired/reluctant to walk ['ofwalking'l here and there in the town.' 8l

Asi' nyanai di-pakai enggau tempuya*. 'Rice is tasty to eat withdurian-relish.'

b ul oh b auh n g elan g gai bay m' the tall bunboos equipped-with-pointy-leaves [as of tail-feathers ofl parakeets.'

Injin tu' mar di-pasang. 'This engine is hard to start.'

The verb as noun

We often have the need of using a verbal concept in the role of a noun. InEnglish a common way of using verbs as nouns is to use them in theirinfinitive form,82 which is the verb introduced by 'to.' Iban has nospecial infinitive form of the verb. Since the Iban verb by itself does notspecify who is doing the action, the appropriate form, actiye, passive,tmnsitive or intransitive, can stand as a verbal noun.

Tusah ngajar d.i universiti. 'To l'sach at the university is had.'

Tusah belajar di univeruiD,. 'To study at the University is hard.'

Badas ngelantang-ka ati diri'. 'lt's fine to enjoy yourself.' (='mal(eyour own heafi happy.')

Nyamai dikerindu' orarg. 'lt's nice to be loved by somebody.'

The mood of verbs

Mood, 1n gammar, as I have said, means the ideas of actuality, possibility,necessity, desirability, or hypothetical nature associated with a verb. Youmight say that mood is the m ood of the verb, how you feel about the action,as opposed to what the action is. Iban indicates mood, first of all, by modalssiJch as tau', dekn', p4tzt, etc., and secondly by context. Aku deka'makaiaJi'can mean either 'I want to eat rice,' or 'I would eat rice' dependingupon tlte circumstances in which it is said. In English and other Europeanlanguages the different moods figure most importantly in conditions,sentences of the form 'if...then...' We shall see how Iban heats these later.

8l Pasar literally means 'market,' but by extension it has the common meaning of'towo' or'ciry.'82 'Infinitive' means simply 'undefined,' that is, the verbal notion has no person ot numberspecifically connected with it; the infinitive signifies action in general.

82

Negatives

Making a positive sentence into a negative one is a bit more complicated inIban than in English. Iban has a selection of words where English uses asimple, single all-purpose 'not.' The two plainest negatives in Iban areenda' 'not' and nqdai'have not,' the negative equivalent of bisi'. U/<a/denotes the rejection of the word or phrase it is attached to. Enggoi means'don't want.' Negatives commands are infioduced by drlzt?g 'do not.' LasUy,Iban makes a distinction between lhings that did not happen and things thathave not yet happened, using such words as bedau arLd apin'not yet.' Ibannegatives precede the word they modify.

Enda'

It is here that Iban has the closest thing to English 'not.' The word ofnegation is enla'.

Aku enda' meda' nya'. ' InotseeiC ['seeitnot']. '

Aku enda' deka' meda' nya'. ' I not wil l [ 'wil l not'] see it. '

Enda' is used with the simple past and the perfect when it states thatsomething simply didn't happen.

Niang indai kami endn' nemu maca tauka nalis. 'Our late mother didnot know [howl to read or write.' 83

Aku.enda' bulih umi. 'I did not get [a] thing.'

One Iban idiom with enda' puzzling at first. In a sentence such as 'I toldhim not to do it' with the verb ngasoh 'ask, order,' the negative comesbefore ngasoh'.

Aku enda' ngasoh iya ngaga' nya'. 'He asked me not to make that.'

Nadai

Nadai is the negative form ofDisi' and shows the same range of meaningsthat its positive brother has. Thus, nzdai can mean 'is not'-

. Kayu' tu' nadai manah. 'This wood is not good.'

or 'does not have,'-

Kitai nadai gala kena'ngaga" kuih. 'We don't have sugar to make acake.'

83 Notice here how the tense of the verb is indicated by the adje.tive niang 'lale' modirying'mother.'

83

or, with another verb following, 'does not,'more emphatic than usingsirnple enda'-

Injin sepit tu' nadai bejalai. "Ihis outboard does not run.'Akt nadai nemu daun sup di pasar tadi. 'I did not find coriander in themarket just now.'

As you can see from the last example, naddi often acts like a synonym forenda' , in othet words, as a plain 'not.' However, it is slronger than end.a'-

Aku nadai meda' nya'. 'I don't see it.'

Sirce nadai, like Disi', often caries a sense of completed action (createsth€ perfect tense), this example is better translated 'I have not seen it.'

Nadai and enda' can freely change places, although one should keep theperfecdve nuance of nadai in nind.

Kayu tu' nadai manah, - Kayu tu' enda' marurh.

Akunadai meda' nya' - Aku enda' meda' nya'.

Akai

The word ukai ilrdicates a rejection of the word or phrase in favor ofsomething else, often the opposite, which may then be expressed but mostlyis simply left understood. In using llkai the speaker rhetorically assumes orhypothesizes that his hearer has an opinion that the speaker thencontradicts; the sense &kai conveys is 'not what you think, but somethingelse.' The best way to understand how akcl is used is to compare it withnadai.

A: Kati bisi' tepung gandum di-jual ditu'? 'Is there any wheat floursold here?'

B: Na.dai. 'Isn't.' (ot as Malaysians often say in English, 'Don'thave.')

C: Ked.ai tu' nyual tepung gandun? 'This shop sells flour?'D: Ukai!

In the first exchange above, A asks a grocer whether he's got any flour andfinds they are out of it. In the seiond example, C has wandered into ahardware shop, and D's ztci says, in brief, 'We're not a grocery store, wesell nails and bolts.'

Ukai forms the first word of a number of little Dhras€s that add intensitv tocolloquial speech, e.g. ukai rzr,in'notplay,'equivalent to English 'nojo[e,'and, ukai mimit,'not a litde,' i.e., a whole lot.

u

Ukai main parias saftari-ra'. 'No joke [it's] hot today.'Ukai mimit-mimit perau di pengkalnn. 'Not a few boats at the dock.'

When r/(ai appears as the first word in a sentence, it has the meaning of 'It'snot that...'

Ukai aka bisi' lapaa aku ka'nguji aja'. 'Ut'sl not [that] I'm hungry, Ijust want to try.'

It should be clear that you cannot use ukai to iegate a verb, without anexplicit contrast. You cannot normally say something like-

*Aku ukai motong getah.

because we're left hanging. You can say, though-

Ukai aku motong getah, aku nebas. 'It's not that I'm tapping rubber,I'm clearing brush.'

However, utdi is not used if there is no expressed or implicit contrast. Ifyou want to say that something does not have a certain quality, then usemda'before ttrc adjective: Iya enda' tinggi. 'He is not tall.' To describe aperson's size this way carries no implication that in fact he is small.

Notice that in negative copulative sentences. where the predicate is anadjective, the word order is most often the reverse of the positive, andlooks like English.

Ukir nya' enda' marui. 'That carving is not good.'

Enggai,3don't want'

lf yon donl want to do something, you make the negative with the modalarxillary enggai.

Aku enggai meda'jerebug{ datai baru. 'I don't want to se€ the hazecome anew.'

Berung nya' enggai masuk ka mata ja runut'This thread doesn't wantto go into the needle's eye.'

Enggai can be used to mean 'will not' as the negation of a future sense if i$subject is human being or something that can be thought of as animate, andthus possessing a will. The two most common things which are notpersons with which enggai is used are plants and the weather.

84 Another borrowing, from Malay, b€cause this was the wor(i used in the newspap€N and onTV for the terible smoke of August 1997.

85

Kami enggai nurun ka Kuching pagila' . 'We won't go to Kuchingtomorrow moming.'

Buah pisang tu' enggai mansau leboh musin ujan tu'. 'The bananasdon't want [to become] ripe in this rainy season.'

Enggai ujan sahari t&'. 'It doesn't want to rain today.'

If enggai is used with other inanimate objects, it gives a slight feeling thatthe object is personified. This personification canies, perhaps, a sense ofannoyance.

Benang nya' enggai masuk ka man jarumar.'This thread doesn't wantto go into the needle's eye.'

But with inanimate subjects always, and with animate subjects where thedistinction of wanting to or not is unimportant, the phnse that expresses anegative of a future inlban is enla' deka.'

Jatnbatan enda' dzka' di-gaga' sebedau tqun due ribu. 'The bridgewill not be built before the year 2000.'

Anang

In order to command somebody not to do something, use th€ wordanang plus the normal form of the verb.

Anang nyabut bunga zya'./ 'Don't pull out the flowers!'

The expression anang ga' can mean'far less' in the middle of a sentence:

Iya bedau nemu ngaga' ulu duka' , anang ga' ngaea' rumoh! 'He d.esn'tyet know how to make a knife-handle, much less a house!'

Bedaulapin

These two words combine tense-marking function with that of making asentence negative. They both mean 'not yet,' In conversation, if someoneasks you whether you have done something that you habitually do, and youhaven't done it, the correct response is not enda', which makes it sound asthough you haven't done it and are never going to do it, but bedou, 'notyet.'A common formula for greeting is the question Udah makai?'Already eat?.'

Wrong A: Udah nakai?B: Enda'.

[A, puzzled, thinks: 'What does he mean? Doeshe never eatl'lRiCht . A: Udahmakai?

B: Bedau.

86

Yes !

'Yes' is aa'.

A: Kati nuan deka' nguji makai buah rian? 'Do you want to tryto eat durian?'

B: A[ ' . , 'Yes! '

In Iban there is none of that confusion which sometimes hapFns in otherlanguages: A: 'You haven't yet visited Sarawak?'B: 'Yes.' [A, puzzled:'Has he or hasn't he?"1

In Iban the exchange would go like this:

A: Nuan bedau nemuai ka Sarawak?B: Bedau.

The proper way to answer, in agrcement, a negative question is to repeatthe negative the questioner used.

A: Nadai ikan terubok di pasar? ' Are therc no terubok fish in themarket?'

B: NadaL 'There aren't.'

But if you contradict the questioner, then-

A: Nadai ikan terfubok di pasar?B: Bisi'! 'There are!' (or 'Got!')

or, when appropriate. use aftai.

Questions

In Iban, as in English, you can take a positive statement and tum it into aquestion simply by altering the intohation of the sentence.

Nuan ka'enggau. [voice drops at end] 'Yor.r'll come along.'Nuan ka'enggau? fraised pirch of voice at endl 'You'll come along?'

Iban differs from English in that where English makes questions, withquestion-words, by rearranging the word-order of the positive sentence,Iban places the question word at the beginning of the sentence, but ke€psthe same word order,

Iya dntdi. 'Fre's coming.' Kemaiq iya darai? 'When is he cominf I

Nunn meda' sapa tadi di pengkalan? 'Whom did you see iurt no* utthe landing?'

More commonly, you want to make sopd 'who?' come first in the sentence,for emphasis, you must use the passive form of the verb.

87

Sapa di-peda' nuan di pengkalan tadi? 'Who was seen by you justnow at the landing?'

So: Nama utqi di-asoh nuan beli ari pasar? 'What thing is asked by you tobe bought from town?' = 'What do you want bought from town?'

rKati is a fine word you put at the beginning of a sentence to signal thatyou're asking a question. It functions rather like the expression EJr-ceque...? 'ls itthat...?' at th€ beginning of a question in French. Indeed, youwill often hear Malaysians speaking English begin a question with 'Is itthat you...?'

Kati nuqn kalamedt' badak di kampong t'?'Haveyou ever seen arhinoceros in this forest?'

Kada is another word that signals a question, but unlike kqti, whichimplies that the speaker is mercly asking for information, kada meansthat the speaker has doubts about his question.

Kada enda'iya udah makai? 'He hasn't eat€n yet, has he?'

See the entry in Richards for a complete explanation df the nuances of thiswotq.

Ouestion words

sapq who?nana what? ldo not confuse with nama, 'name,']namakabuah what reason? [='why?']

who? what? which? wherc? how? what about?when?question marker at b€ginning of sentence = 'Is itthat...?'what for? why?.how?how many/rnuch? [followed by a noun or adj inthe genitive positionlwhere?to where? whither?from where?

ni Wngelama' how long? ['what length of time?']ni bansa what kind?

To ask someone's name, you use an idiom that needs explanation: ̂lapananm nuan? literally,'Who ale you [by] name?'

88

Commands

In order to request, urge, ask, or command somebody to do something, usethe root form of the verb plus the suffix -n6h. Irup-nih! 'Dinkl'

This usage of the verb is called inperative. Do not misunderstand: makinga comrnand sounds like a harsh and arrogant thing to do. In English,everyday commands--'shut the door'etc.---are commonly softened by somelitde.formula: 'Shut the door, please.' Nonetheless, English commandsare, gramrnatically, comrnands. Iban does not normally botherwith 'pleases,'and there is nothing impolite or rude about saying to your hostess, if she'srnaking coffee,Bai m6h kitu"Bing[itl here.' t€aving offthe -mihmakesthe comnand less formal-

nrakai! 'eatl'

or more abrupt: Jalai! 'Movel'The exact feeling associated with acommand you can tell from the tone of voice. Saying Jal.ai! in an angrymanner will mean 'Scram!' Tone of voice matks a difference in Makai asi!'Eat already!' 85 whether you're saying it in friendly fashion to the famiryor in an annoyed way to a sulky child.

Before commands addressed to a group ofpeople, including the the personcommanding, tlrc particle ararn (which is often abbreviated to am) givesthe feeling of exhortation or encouragement. Aramjalai-m6h kitai! 'Let'sgo!'

kt means 'let, let alone, allow' and is often used with the preposition fra inr€quests to permit somebody to do something:

Lak ka iya tinlok agi '. 'Let her sleep some more.'

The conjunction awak-ka can introduce a command directed to athird-person noun.

---dit' Altnh Taala lalu bejaka,' ko' iya, 'Awak-l<a dunya bisi' penampalgnya' alai dunya lalu tampak 'And cod said, Let there be lighl and therewas light.' [Genesis 1:3].

We have already stien anang as the word for a prohibitive command, Oneway to ask somebody to do something in a soft way is to use the doublenegalive onang enda"don't nol...'

, Arang enda'ingat mnipayung.'Don't forget ['not remember'] to bringan umbrella,'

,takaruiakati

kapa'balu niberapa

dinikiniari ni

85 Makai agi is literally'eat some more'; its force is that of 'kcs eat.'

89

A strong (but not necessarily rough) way of saying you zaJ, do somethingis ao say Endq' tqu endq' 'Cannot not!'

Nuan enda' tau enda'nulis ngagai aku. 'You mus, write to me.'

Prepositions

A preposition is hterally a word 'put in front of' a noun in order to makeclear tlat noun's relationship, in any number of ways, with some otlerthing or element of tlle sentence. For example, you can have pisarg'banana' a\d ajat 'backpack-basket' but only pisang di ajat means 'bananarn the baskeu' yolu canhave bejalai 'goes' afrd bukit 'mountain,' but youneed to s y bejalai ka atas bukit lo fircarJ 'goes on top of the mountain.'

Enggau

Enggau is a special case. It means both 'and' and 'with,' and is thereforeboth a conjunction and a preposition. As a conjunction enggau carl joinonly single words and phrases. Let us first discuss how it works as apreposition.

Enggau as a preposition means 'with,' in all the senses that 'with' has inEnglish: in the sense of accempaniment-

Sam udah angkat ka sekula enggau Jilim tadi. 'Sdrn has just lefi forschool with Jilim.'

or of instrument or means by which-

Kami lban rindu' makai asi' enggaujari, tang kita' orang puteh eng4ausidoA 'We Ibans like to eat rice with our fingers, but you white peoplewith a spoon.'

or of manner in which-

Enggau ati ti' lantang aku mnlas surat nuan ti' di-kirumnuan kena'21 hb- bulan ,adi. 'With joy (lit: 'with a happy heart') I answer theletter sent by you on the 2 I st of last month.'

Enggau,like bisi' in the example above, can be repeated wift each elementof a list for emphasis.

Enggau aku undor sama enggau Tuan Bryan4 enggau Major Fisherienggau Kapitan siko,' aku enda' ingat kn nama. 'With me, wentdownriver together with Mr. Bryant, with Major Fisher, with a certaincaDtain. I don't remember the name.'

Prelmsitions of Spate and motian

The most important prepositions of space or movement are not many.

di, ba in, at, onka toari from

These cbmbine with other words to express more specific dirertions orpositions:

atas: over, abovedi atas on top of, above (pronounced and written.dctas)ka atas to the top of, over (Von. katas)ari atas from the top of

baroh: underdi barch undemeatlkabaroh downwardsari baroh from beneath

And the same for:

dalar.n insideluar outsidebelakang behindtengah middlenlun front of (lit: 'face. always di/ka/ari mua + a to\rL)antara/entora betweel

Another word for 'to, towards' is ngagai, which, as we have seen, is in facta verb.

Iya bejalai knki ngagai Sunbas. 'He walks on foot towards Sambas.'

The 'to, towards' sense of rgagci can be used when the idea of direction issomewhat metaphorical:

Kita' mesti nulis surat siti' ngagai D.O. 'You must write.a letter to theDistrict Officer.'

.. jako' ti di-kern' ngajar di-tukar ngagai jako' English. '...thelanguage used in teaching was changed to English.'

Orang nyema' -ka anak uting nya' ngagai.,.remaung negong...'Some-one compares the piglet to a roaring leopard...' 86

90

86 ans,p.u.

9l

Ngagai can also have come before a noun to signal that it is the indirectobject:

Gani bejafut' ngagai aku. 'Gani spoke to me.'Iya meri duit nya' ngagai iya. 'She gave the money to her.'

Ngagai as a preposition 'to or 'towards indicates there is a specific goal onand to the motion. 'Towards' in the sense of in the direction of [but notnecessarily intendint to reach therel' can be expressed by nuju, anotherverb, from the root tuTa 'aim.'

Iya bejalai nuju bukit 'He walked towards the hill.' R

Another preposition of direction:

naka as far as, up to

Often used in the adverbial phase naka z//r 'as far as possible.'

Other preposilions

The preposition that signals that something is being done for somebody'sbenefit or something's sake is ka. This performs the same function as theEnglish preposition 'for,'or signals that the following noun is the indirectobject of the sentence. Don't confuse ka either with tc' 'want,' kq 'to,' orthe causative sufflx -fta.

Iya nadah ka aku bisi'ikan di pasar 'He told me there was fish in themarket.'

Beri nya' ka aku. 'Give it to me.'

We have seen that certain verbs must be followed by the preposition kdand the thing or person on whom the idea of the verb is directed:

Aku rindu' ka iyo. lalu aku arap ka iya. 'I love her, and I trust her.'

ktben 'beca'use' specifies a reason.

Aku c€lap laban ujan. 'I'm cold because [of the] rain.'

Bata 'like' is a preposition that equates one thing with another.

Kueh tu' kering baka /<ayal 'This cake is hard like wood!'

Baru tu'puteh baka /rapor 'This rock is white like chalk.'

Pcsal 'about'

Iya nemu pasal ensera Apai Saloi ti' befi "He knows about the storiesof Father-of-Saloi the Stupid.' er

92

Kelimpah 'besides,' used in the phrase kelimpah ari with the force of 'maddition to:'

iya*dikena' bejako'-ka utai bukai kelimpah ari mensiq taukq antu'Iya-used to express other things in addition to human beings andspirits'88

The preposition used to specify dates is /<eza'. It means 'on.'

Hari empqt ti' ko' datai, kna' 30 hb. bulan empat tu', komiti tatahKpg. Lubok Gayau ka'baum. 'Next Thursday, on the 30th ofApril,the grounds committee of Kampong Lubok Gayau will hold ameeting.'

The abbreviation &b. above stands for ra ibulan'day oftherno h.'Nyentokmeans 'up lo.'

Kerja gotong-royong ka'berengkah kcna'2 hb. Mei nyentok ka 4 hb..'Communal work will begin on the 2nd of May up to the 4th.'

Iban often does without prepositions, whereas English relies heavily uponthem. We have already seen how such ideas as 'They went around the house'are conveyed by two verbs in parallel. There is, for example, no prepositionin Iban which means 'without.' In Iban, the sentence 'Give me a teawithout milk and sugar'would be rendered Beri aku tdh o kosong satu,literally, 'Give me one black, empty tea.' The sentence 'He went to Kuchingwithout his wife' would be recast as, Il,a nurun ka Kuching fudiri': binirwdai enggau'He went down to Kuching alone; his wife didn't come along.'

More on kena'

Although when used in this way with dates keria'functions exactly like apreposition, and in this usage we call it apreposition, in factfena'is a verb.In its root form it has several meanings. Most basic is 'to hit' as in 'the darthit the mark.' This can be used metaphorically with speech or ideas:

Jako' tu' kena' bendar alai nerang-ka pekara tu ', 'These words are fitto clariry this matter.'

Then, 'to get,' For example, Iya kena' sakit'He got [a] sickness.' Thissentence could be translated'He got sick,'which illustrates how, like theEnglish 'get,' kena' can be used with a verb root to create passiveexpressions. Iya kena' anu' guru laban iya enda'ingat mai kereja iya kasekula 'He got scolded by his teacher because he forgot to bring hrs

87 atrt p. tsl .88 atrz,p. t9.

93

homework to school.' A favorite pfuase, to say humorously that you got ascolding is A/<l &eza'Dorz.'I got bombed!'

Kena ' can also mean 'used for:'

Utai tu' kena' ngemiru-ka kain. 'This thing is used to dye cloth blue.'R.

The nasalized form, ngena'; is an excellent example of how Iban wordsfunction equally well in different part-of-speech categories. Ngena'can ofcourse be 4 pure verb. This nasalized form means 'to use.'

Iya ngena' kapak awak-ka nebang kayu' nya', 'He used an axe to fellthat tree.'

As a preposition, rgena'is the most common word for 'with' in the senseof doing something 'with' an instrument, or to express 'by means of.'

Iya ngunci sekeru injin nya' ngena' lungga. 'He tightened [from krnci'lock'l the screw of the outboard with a knife.'

Aku nurun kt pasar ngerw' bas. 'I came down to townby [on the]bus.'

You will remember other verbs that are tsed., like ngena' , as prepositions.To review: ngenang 'conceming,' murryi 'like, as,' ngagai 'to, towards,'and others.

Adverbs of position and dhection

While we're at it, we may as well discuss adverbs of direction and positionunder the heading of prepositions, because many of them are formed fromprepositions in much the same way that the more specific prepositions are.

ditu' I=di + tu'ldia' [= ii a ;Ya1dedia' l= di+dio' Sebsyau onlyl

herethere, quite neartheretherethereto hereto there, quite nearto there, farther awayfrom herefrom there

Conjunctions and clauses

Some terms, Conjunctions arelinle words that connect other words, phrases,or clauses, or set them apart. The two most common conjunctions inEnglish are 'and' and 'or.'

A phrase is a gronp of words that bundles several ideas into one packet, butwhich cannot be a sentence on its own.

tasik biru dalsm 'deep blue sea'nanampadi 'p lant ingr ice'

A clarse is a sentence that exists as one part of a complex sentence. Theclauses in the following sentence are called coordbate ('placed side byside'). The following example can easily be split into two completesentences:

Tuai ramoh mutus-kq aum, lalu masok bilik ia. 'The headman endedthe meeting, and entered his apartment.'

A subordinate cla]use is a group of words that courd be a sentence, excePtthat it is introduced by a conjunction or pronoun that makes it 'subservient'to a main sentence in which it is embedded.

Sebedau aku pulai ai wtmi,. 'Before I came back from the farm...'

'And'

Iban differs from English by splitting the concept of 'and' in two. Theconjunction lalu can connect clauses, but not single words. Theconjunctior/prepositiot enggqu call connect single words and phrases, butnot clauses.

Iya nimbak lalu iya kena'. 'He fired and he hit.' R.Aku enggau Sam nurun ka sungai . 'I and Sam went down to theriver.'Kitai lban indu'makai asi' enggau sup. 'We Ibans like to eat rice andsoup.'

As you can see, these sentences can perfecdy well be repbrased as 'I wentto the river with Sam,'and'We Ibans l ike to eat rice with soup.'Sometimes enggar behaves as a conjunction, sometimes as a preposition.

Iban does not rely on words for 'and' as much as westem languages do.Iban speakers, when describing an array of things, will often just stringthem together.

Bisi'ikan, sayu6 babi, sapi, sup, paku', tubu', maioh macam pemakai.

ny,nnzn [Sebuyau]kitu' lka + tu'lkia' ,ka + iyaJkin [ka + qin]ari tu'ai nyin

94 95

[We] had fish, vegetables, pork, beef, soup, fems, bamboo shqots, allsons of food.'

lJse af enggau is optional. You can, if you want, express this menu asEnglishdoes,ending ...paku', tubu', enggau maioh macarn pemakai'...fems.bamboo shoots, and all sorts of food,' but omitting the enggaa does notrhake the style more informal.

The force of 'and,' when meant to be emphatic 'and also.' can be expressedin Iban by putting each item in its own little clause, with the verb repeated-

Jilim bisi' dia', Sam bisi', Babil bisi', Nana bisi'... 'Jilim is there, Samis [there], Babil is [there], Nana's [there]...

You could also translate dris as 'Jilim is there, and Sam, and Babil, andNana...'

Likewise-

Dqlatn berqm nya' iya ngulai ai' di-suma[ iya ngulai gula., ngulai lia', ngulai ragi mipis, ngulai ragi segala. 'In the rice mash

she mixed boiled water, she mixed sugar, mixed ginger, mixed flatyeast, mixed round yeast.' 89

A further conjunction, serera, also means 'with' but more strongly:'together with.' Unlike enggau, it has no uses other than emphasizingconnection.

Kami nanam kncang seretq jagung. 'We planted beans with com.'

Simple and complex smtences

Iban shows the same variety of ways of making sentences that Englishdoes. Iban sentences can be simple or complex; complex sentences can bemade of coordinate clauses or of subordinate clauses, or of a mix of both.

Coordinating co4iunctions :

lalu and (or better, 'and then')tauka ot whethertangnya'alninya.di

buttherefore, sothen, so

tambahmzga' furthermore

Exwnples: Iya nimbalg lalu iya kerw'. 'He fired and he hit.' R.

89 This describes the second stage of making rra& 'rice-wine.'

96

Iya bisi' di kebun, tauka iya nuritn nginti'. 'She is on the garden, orshe has gone fishing.'

Aku bedeu meda' iya, tang aku berandau enggau iya ngena' telepon.'I haven't seen him, but I have talked with him on the telephone.'

Nadai bisi'ikan di pasar, nya'alai aka meli tiga iko' ketam gemu'.'There was no fish in town, thercfor€ I bought tbrce fat crabs.'

Bisi' ujan sahari-qri, nyadi ai' angkat di sungai. 'T\ere was rain allday, and so the water rose in the river'

Iya bejako' ka aku enggau manah, tambah mega' iya madah aku dataika rumah iya. 'He spoke to me kindly, and furthermore he invited meto come to his house,'

Lalu, nya' alai, nyadi, and tqmbah mega'can conneit not otrly clauseswithin a complex sentence, but link discrete sentences also. They stand atthe beginnings of sentences, and are favorite ways ofbeginning a new topic,or of summing up an old one.

Lalu karni angkat pulai ka rumah. Malam nya'petang bendar 'Tttenwe got up to go home. The night was really dark.'

Nya' alai Pengulu ngasoh bala ind:u kami serumah nyumai tuak.'Therefore, our chief asked the women of the house to makedce-wine.'

Nyadi, aku ka' nerang-ka semoa reti ceritq nya'. 'So, I shall explainthe whole meaning of the story.'

Subordinating conjunctions :

l) Iogical

enti ' i f

[See section below]

taja' although

Taja' iya agi biak, iya udah bulih penernz. 'Although she is stillyoung, she has already got wisdom.'

laban because [also used as a preposition]

Aku pulai nmu laban aku nedh' hari ka' ujan.'I came backearly because I saw therc was going to be rain.'

alai because

97

2)

Aku nyantok alai aku dani samalam-malam tadi. 'l'm sleepybecause I was awake all last night.'

sakali'-ka whether

Ennh aku sakali'-ka iya pulai. 'I'm unsure whether he is goingback.'

enti sene' supposing that, for example

Enti sema' orang datai, iyo tqu tindok dnlam kibong baraai. 'Supposing someone conies, he could sleep inside amosquito-net on the veranda.'

engka 'perhaps, in case'

Bai kapak tu' ngogqi iya mgkaiya ka' ngeno' nyq'.'Bring thisaxe to him in case he wants to use it.'

baka as lwith nouns the preposition 'like'l

Iya maca bup baka orang ti' mal<ni asi'. 'He reads books assomeone eats rice.'

ngambi'-kn, awak-kt so that, in otder tlat

Kqmi empu ngadu injinnya'ngambi-ka bejirnat duit. 'Wefixtheout bdard ourselves in order to sDare monev,'

enggai-ka lest

Iya nyaga umai enggai-ka di-rusak jelu. 'He guards his farm lestit be ravaged by animals.' R.

Of time and space

sebedau before

Aku ka' nembu'-ka kcreja aku sebedau iya /atai. 'I want to finishmy work before she comes.'

kboh. leboh maia when

Leboh iya dntai, aku benong bekereja di keDrn. 'When he came, Iwas in the middle of working in the garden.'

Leboh maia nya' suba' aku agi' mit, mcnoa agi' kncau. 'When atthat time I was still small, the country was in a disturbed state.'

maia when

Datai hari maia sida' ka' pulai- 'The day came when they were to

go home.' R.

barangmaia 'whenever'

Nuan mu nemuai barang maia bisi' hari serta peneka'. 'Yolu canvisit whenever tlpre's the time and the inclination.'

benong while (in the middle o0

Benong akt nnndi, aku ninga orang ngangau ka aku. 'While I wasbathing, I heard someone call to me.'

sektmbang while (since, during, as long as)

Sehmbang iya diau di Kuching iya gerai. 'Nhlle he has beenliving in Kuching he has been healthy.'

Sekunbang bisi' mon nadai agi' tusah nurun ka Ftsar 'Since there'sbeen a car, it's no longer difficult to get to town.'

ud4h after, aheady

Udah kani nunu, lalu katni narnm padi. 'After we bumed [the land],then we planted rice.'

Udah empat minggu aku batok laban sakit pefu. 'Already four weeksI have been coughing because of the flu.'

kenyauai since

Kenyau ai bulan adi iya diau di langkau ba urnai iya. 'Sincelastmonth he has been living in the hut on his farm there.'

alai where, when

Aku enda' nemu alai iya kereja. 'I don't know where he works.'Bam dudnk aku alai iya datai. 'l Ind just sat down when hearrived.' R.

endar where

Iya ngiga' end.ur ngaga' nmah. 'He is looking where to build ahouse.'

barang endur whercver

Kulnt nyamai bal<a tu' tunboh barang endur orang muai pala' sawit.'Tasty mushrooms like this spring up wherever people tlrow outoilpalm heads.'

kelimpah 'since' [in the sense of'except since']

98

Aku nadai bejako' enggau iya kelimpah ari tua betemu enggau iya. 'lhaven't spoken with him since we two met with him.'R.

Speakers of Iban can certainly connect clauses like this to come up withsome long and intricately balanced sentences, and it is possible to see suchin poetry and in traditional oratory. However, because the genius of Iban isso greatly that of people who speak together, l ike all forms ofconversation-oriented speech it relies much on context and keeps sentencesshort and, at the longest, easily speakable in one breath.

Relative clauses, lr' and te

A relative clause begins lif€ as a sentence: Iya bediri' di simpang jalai.'He is standing at the street comer.' Then the subject is removed andreplaced by a relative pronoun. The resulting clause is a sentence no longer,but when inserted into another sentence functions like an adjective to modifya noun:

Iya bediri'di simpang jalai. 'He is standing at the street comer.'+Iya ngangau ka aku. 'H€ calls to me.' --)Orang ti' bediri' di simpang jalai ngagau ka aku. 'The man who isstanding at the street comer calls to me.'

The relative pronoun li'orte can work only to indicate a subject, and so llteonly kind of relative clause possible in Iban is one which the pronoun actsas a subject. (English, on the other hand, can can make relative clauses inwhich the relative pronoun is an object 'whorn,' or indirect object 'to whom,'etc.)

Aku betemu enggau orang ti' bekebun lada di ulu din. 'I mettheperson who raises pepper in a garden upriver there.'

If you want to say 'I met the person lrionr...' in which the relative pronounin English is an object, you must use the passive in that clause in lban.Aku betemu enggau orang ti' di-Eqji Apai ngereja umai kitai."I met tbeman who was hired by Father to work our farm.'

There is a spebial way the word ti' or &e operates in lban like an article. Ifyou want to say 'Give me the big one,' in Iban it comes out as,

Beri ti' besai.

You can understand this as being a very abbreviated expression of thesentence 'Give me [out of all the possible choices, the one] which [is] big 'The number of possible choices is always apparent from context. Forexample, the two ofyou are repairing an outboard and your friend asks fora particular philips-head screwdriver out of three sizes. Or,Iyanadai nenu

ngaga' utai ti' jai' 'He does not know to do what's bad.' (Obviously, asopposed to whafs good.) Anak ke mit'the small kids' (as opposed to thebigger ones).

Poetic Iban often uses a noun/adjective plus verb construction to express aconcept which prose would put into a relative clause.

. bul.oh bauh belanggai .bayan 'the tall bamboos lwhich arelequipped-with-outsticking-leaves [as of tail-feathers ofl parakeets.'

The same happens in colloquial speech:

Baka ukoi nemu pasir 'Like a dog [that] finds sand.' s

'That': Reported sp€ech

There is no conjunction for 'that' in lban, as there is in Malay and inEnglish. The words or thought or fact that you are reporting are simplyrelated in parallel next to the main verb of saying or thinking or knowing,

Iya madah buah limqu baru datai tli pasar 'I{e sayslsaid fthat] oranges are just now arrived in the markel'

English, too, often drops the 'that' in the same way, as you can see.

More examples:

Kami nemu kita' nadai ulih nemuai ngagai kami taun tu'. 'We knowyou can't visit us this year.'

Iya nyangka'; Wat udah bisi' datai.'He expects wat i s al ready arrived.'

Katni ditu' arap ka kin' di din gerai ryatnaimagang baka selama'.'We here hope you there are all healthy and happy as usual-'[a standa-rd phrase in letters.l

When an Iban is reporting somebody else's words, the pronouns of tlleoriginal quote change just as they do in similar circumstances in Engtish:

Dirert quote: 'He said, ' Last year we got plenty of ric e."' Iya madah 'Thuntadi kami bulih ntaioh padi.' lndrect: Ila nudah mun mdi sida bulih maoihpadi. 'He said last year they got a lot of padi.'

The reflexive diri''self' appears as the pronoun in the clause of the thingreported when the person it stands for is the same as the person doing thereporting.

n Asenpana iako'or proverbial plrase that descrittes someone running about ftrriouily.

100 100 l0l

Wat madah diri'deka'pulai ka Semenanjung pagird'. 'Wat said hewas going to retum to the Peninsula tomorrow.'

Narrative. the verb ko'

The most usual verb for 'say' in reporting speech or telling stories is ta'(short forjato''langnge, talk' lbejqko"speaks'). Ka' always preceeds itssubject, as we in English used to say 'Said he...,' and can be used forintroducing direct quotes as well as reported speech.

Diect: Ko' iya, 'Musin Jepun suba' aku baru pansut ari sekuln.' Hesaid, "In the Japanese period formerly I had just got out ofschool."

lndjnect: Ko' iya, musin Jepun suba' iya baru pansut ari sekula. 'Hesaid in the Japanese period formerly he had just got out ofschool.'

Ot with diri': ...Ko' iya, tnusin Jepun suba' dii' udah...

The formula ta' iya can also follow or be inserted in the middle of thequoted or reported speech-

'Aku nemu jalai mai kita' ka Debah' ko'iya. ' "I know the rvay to takeyou to Debak," he said.'

Iya nemu maioh cein Inru, ko' iya. 'He knows many old stories, hesays.'

'Nama,' ko' iya, 'utai tu'?' 'what,' he said, 'is this thing?'

Ko' often appears in pmallel with another verb describing the manner inwhich something was said. These have become fomulaic expressions:

...k)'iya nyaut... 'he said [in] answer'...ko'iya nganu' sida'... 'she said instructing (or, 'chiding') them.'

As menlioned above regarding the simple past in the section on tense, theverb will look the same whether it expresses a present action or one in thepast: &o'is both 'say' and 'said.' Although &o'is commonly used innarrative, you cannot automatically assume that its primary feeling is past,rather you must pay attention to context to figure out which of the two it is.Obviously, when you hear someone using fo'while telling a story, to 'is tobe taken as past, 'said.' There are other uses of fo' where it has a presentmeaning:

Pia'kb'aku. 'That's what I say.' [or, 'think']Katiko'nuan? 'what about you?

ro2

And /<o'in certain formulas can mean simply 'as.'

Iya nu rnali' diri' nyaili sebarang utai bukai ko' ati iya.9l 'He canchange himself to become any other thing he likes '

For other idioms, see Richards' entry on /ro'.

Enti' 1'Y', Condiiions

The Iban language does not make an explicit distinction wh€thersomething migtrt happen or might have happened, or distinguish whether apossibility is open or closed. You leam the proper nuance from context.The Iban word for 'if is enri', and it is followed by the verb as you'd use itnormallY.

Enti'hari bisi' ujan, kitai enggai ka pasar 'If it rains, we won't [go] totown.'

Enti'qk:u ka Amzrica subq,' diatu' tentu akutau'berandau ngena'jako'orang puteh. 'lf I had been to America' I certainly couldconverse now in white people's language [English]"

This is to say that Iban does not indicate the mood of the verb by a specialform. There is no way the Iban verb changes in a way to correspond to theEnglish 'were,' 'would,' 'could,' such as we use to express a hypotheticaloossibilitv and in 'if'sentences, and which English grammar termsiubjurniie forms.e2

In lban, the verb can be understood as hypothetical in context' Forexample, in a geometrical problem, 'let th€re be two straight lines' can betranslated as bisi' drd bctang suran ti' lurus.'

In English we have the 'hortatory' subjunctive, famous in rhetoric:

'Let us therefore brace ouBelves to our duty.."

Iban expresses this by commands, or by introducing the exhortation withawak-ka, uthich can roughly be translated 'let.'

Awak-ka iyabemain enqgau ayMn nuarL 'l€t him Play with your toys.'R.

9l Bum+ l9?9p.53I Special forms of lhe subjunclive are dying our in English, or takingrheir places as s€pamtemodil verbs. For example, one might say, core-ctly, '!f it rain, we will not eat outdoors,' butmo6t people now say 'If it rains, we will no!...' 'Could' and 'would' started life as thesubiunctive forms of 'can' and 'will,' but ale now felt as sepatate verbs.

103

Word order

This qught not to have come so late. However, you can see that-with theimportant exception of the 'head-first' rule in phrases-Iban word order ismosdy like that of English, and not likely to need much explanation. Themost important similarity between Iban and English word order is thepattem subject-verb-object. Since neither English nor Iban changes thoform of nouns to distinguish when they are used as subject or as object,gramriatical firnction inboth languages is,iridicated by position. The inoistimportant difference between.Iban and English word order is theplacement of adjectives and adverbs. In Iban they normally come af0er theword they modify.

This similarity is the reason I have not explained such things asapposition, explaining a word or phrase by a parenthesis, in detail. Anexample:

Bisi' sepun kayu'tebelian, kayu'kering sereta berat, ba tebing sungai., 'There was one belian tree, a tongh, heavy wood, on the river bant.'

As in English, subjects of clauses can be omitted, and supplied from themain sentence:

' Apin jadi enggau ini' katni nya', dia' Me lintang bisi' mimpr'.'Beforemarrying our grandmother, Melintang had a dream.'

You will find, I believe, little difficulty in detecting and understandingsintactical parallels of this sort. r.However, when you start getting into rapid colloquial speecfu you willnotice that lbans take a great deal of liberty even with such significantpattems as the subject-verb sequence. In intransitive sentences subjects canbe placed after the verb:

Leboh maia pegai iepun ,-d)i b"ioloi ka m,enua bukai kitai lban.'When [the country] was held by the Japanese did not travel to other.countries we Iban.'

The subject often comes after the verb in clauses of time that begin asentence.

Angkat kami ari rrya' Iala undor ka Belaga. Datai karni di Kapit, neda'opis di-tutup. 'Got we up from there tlen went do*nriver to Belaga.Came we to Kapit, [we] saw the office closed.'

Other adverbs, int€nsifierc, particl€s atrd interjectionst

Like every other lairguage, Iban has a nuinber of exremely useful litfle

104

Apu./apoh. besai ai tu !

words, that are not, at least for the purposes of a book this like thi$, ea$ilyclassifiable. Their prinary purpose is to make transitions betwccn mdreferences among the sentences of a conversation, to smooth thcabruptness out of talk, and to add nuance and emphasis. One litde paniclcmakes place-names. I will take them one by one.

Pt4'means 'thus' or 'so' and refers back to something someone has said, orhas been doing.

A: Aku nadai meda' iya di runah. 'I don't see her in the longhouse.'B: Iya nurun ka Kuching kemai. 'She went down to Kuching

yest€rday.'A: Oh, pia'. 'Oh, so [it is].'

Plc' is very offen used in reporting quotes.

'Karni mesti nanam getah di kebun din,' pia' ko' iya. ' "We mustplant nibber in the garden there," so he said.'

-Mdh:Wehave already seen -my'i in its use as the marker of a command' Itcan also be used to make the preceeding word more emphatic: Au-mdh!'Yes indeed!'It is helpful in making strong affirmatory sentences:Besai-mCh ai' tu'! "Itrc tide is rcally high!' Indeed, a perfectly goodsentence can consist of adj. + -m€ft, if you all know what's being referredb. CAbp-rEh! '!lt'sl really cold!' There are many colloquial phrases with-zlh built in, for example nu-mdh 'carl. do.'

There are several other words that resemble -mihin theit usage, -ddh, -ga',-lah. The last, -lah, is a little-uded borrowing from Malay, but I mention itfor a particular reason. Malaysians and Singaporeans speaking Englishadd the particle Jah very often to all kinds of expressions, and infact -lahhas becorne naturalized in the English of this area. You will hearexpressions like 'Let's eat, lah,' 'okay lah,' 'So I told him that, lah,''Expensive, lah!,' 'Friday, lah,' or the delightful 'No way lah!' The easiestand pleasantest way to leam the use of -zift is to pick up the way peopleuse Jah in what they call 'Singlish,' or 'Manglish.'

tatc: This is an emphasizing word that comes before the word itemphasizes. Tak mnncal nembiak tu'! 'This kid is really naughty!' Idl.can be used in sentences that are either exclamatory or affirmative,whlfe -mAh etrc. can be used only in commands or affirmations.

Dipegai Keling pintu: Sepi tak lEkat-lAknt / Asai ka mabak akap knpirlelabi.

'The door was held by Keling. It felt very stuck, very stuck. It felt like

t05

pulling the shell off a river-turtle.' 93

Endang: This word also precedes the word it emphasizes and means'really, truly, naturatly, always.' It can often be translated better by usingan adjective:

Tu'endang apai aku. 'This is my real father.'R.

At the beginning of a sentence endang can mean 'This is re3lly...' or anequivalent.

Endqng iyo nemu bekayoh- 'Certzinly he knows [how] to paddle.'

Sigi'. 'simply,' 'absolutely.' Often used with Disi'to indicate that the verbis being used as an existential:

Tuhan sigi' bisi'. 'God exists.'

Mega':'fhe word mega' means 'also/too' and comes after the word itqtJalifres. Iya mega' terejun/Iya terejun mega ' 'He also jumped down.' Bisi '

agi' mega' 'andthere is another [thing] too.' R. In fast daily speech, mega'is often shortened to ga'. Aku ga'nemu matai asl"I too know how [='can']to eat rice.'

Pen: Pen comes after the word it modifies. It gives a slight emphasis andalso indicates a contrast with what came $efore. Sida' agi' ngirup di kedaidin; aku pen pulai kerEa. 'They were still drinking [sc. coffee] in the shopthere; I myself went back to work.'

Other emphasizers: A number of other words are used for emphasis: qmat'true/truly,' balat'sertolslseriously,' bender'sincerelsincerely' (thetypical Iban signoff to a letter is ari aku ti' bendqr'from me who issincere'= 'sincerely'). All three mean 'very' 'really.' Since they havemeaning of their own apart from being intensifiers, they can be classed asadjective/adverbs. not particles.

Question marker: Rarely you will hear Ibans tack on a little particle at theend of a question, as a sort of verbal question mark. Kqti u&n nemu iyakah? 'Do you know him?' This particle is more typical of Malay, but itmight very well have been original to Iban, also, because in the Sebuyaudialect people regularly tag their questions with the particle teNi kunci kta te? 'Where are your keys?'

Se. This little particle is related to Balinese 1 and Rhadd (an Austronesianlanguage of Vietnam) f, which are placed before a man's name as a title

93 Pirok 1966, p. 2.

106

something like'Mr.' In Malay, si is used before thc nirmcs ol llninl0l$ in

fables, bui not with the names of real peoPle. lban uses thc pttl ticlo rr lo

make Dlace-names, siuch as Senibong 'Nibong-Palm Placc' und*in itl

traditi;nal spelling-sarawak, whigh may mean 'Antimony Plucc '. In

speuirig the short ; often drops oul Stunggang 'Tunggang-tree -Plircc

' lll

onty one word does se- stand for the title of a person, sanu' l[ron anu'l'such-a-one, what's-his-name.'

Interjections

Every language has little 'cries' that contain meaning English has 'ouch,'

and even ineezes are articulated 'ah-choo!' when, if you just let your nose

alone, things go 'chuuuugggghhhh.' The following are the main handy

words in Iban you use when prodded by something out of the ordinary'

Akai! General exclamation for things that take you by surprise' The

eouivalent to English 'ouch' when you're bit by a mosquito or feel some

other pain. Akaii- Pedis kaki aku kenT' giSit nyamo&/ 'Ouch! My foot hurts

got bii by a mosquito!' Wlren you want to be more dramatic, you can say

iknt-rai- ekai-rait panas sahari tu'! 'Good grief it's hot today!' or you

can get really &amatic andsay akai Apai, akai lnzla;.'Oh FlJler,oh Mother!'

If you're any older than six, using tltis last expression will indicate you've

got your tongue in your cheek.

Apr.l'Expresses surprise and disbeli€f. Apu! Bedau di umu-r aka aku-meda'

iian yu' be s ai baka nya'l'Good grief I I' ve never in my life seen a shar- k as

bie is that!' Sometimes opz expresses disgust. Ap,/ Nama kabuah iya

^ii .oto bqka nvq'? 'Good grief! What reason ['why'] he drives like

that?'

Tud.ah! an expression of symPathy, sad in feellng. A: Apai kami meinsa'

kuat laban tikit gort. B: Tudah! 'Our father is suffering rnightily from

gout.' 'Foor man.'

Amai jara! An expression of empathy, with a smile of agreement' A: A/"'

enda'ientu nemuiiko'kita'. B: Amai jara. A: 'I really just don't know your

language.' B: 'Poor fellow!'

Oil is good old 'ohl' Oh, nemu! 'Oh, now I understand!'

Ail l ikewise.

Ncfrl 'Here!' as in 'here it is, take it!'

Nya'l Often sarcastic. 'There you are!'

107

Ellipsis, 'leaving things out'

Normal, day to day Iban speech is compact, light, and rapid. Ibans livingfamiliarly with one another, like people all over the world, save words andenergy by relying on everybody's awareness of the context in which theyspeak. So, for example, if someone is going to town, and asks whether youwant to get a ride, he may ask Enggau ka'? which is even shorter than theEnglish 'Want to come along?' Here, your Iban friend knows that he cannot only omit the pronoun 'you,' as English speakers do, but also the verb'to come.' We already know there is no verb 'to be.' Just this moming Iheard someone addrcssing a lady walking towards the budstop with abaskt" Nyual ka'?'Selling something?'. In the example far back aboutwatermelons, since you and your companion arc standing in front of a heapof fruit, there's no need to be firlly correct and say buah semangkn; semangl<aalone is enough. However, if you ale talking with somebody about food,and nobody has mentioned the topic of fruit, you ought to say Aku rinn 'makai buah semangka, and so indicate that you are introducing the generalcategory of fruit.

Objects as well as subjects can be left out, especially in questions, repliesto questions, and commands, because the topic of conversation is clearerfrom context in these types of sentences than in others.

A: Bisi' meda'?' 'Get to see [him, her, it]?'B: Nadoi meda'. 'Didn'tsee [him, her, it].'

Buai aja:! 'Just trash [it]l'Ibans use pronouns in daily speech in a way we might find vague if wedon't know the language well and are consequendy not too sure about thecontext. In an example above I gave the sentence lya mei duit nya' ka iya'She gave the rnoney to her.' Who is doing what will be clear if you haveheard and remembered what preceeded that: Bunsu nurun ka pasar pagindi lalu betemu enggau Indai Stepani. Iya meri... '[Your] youngest auntiewent down to town this moming and met with Mother-of-Stephanie. Shegav€...' In leisurely conversations bare pronouns rnay take over for longstre0ches between sentences, so it pays to have sharp ears for who's whoand what's what

How to addrrss people

Iban people addresi people by their personal names less often thanAmericans do, and do not like to use personal names with people who areclose to them. In America, we wouldn't dream of calting our parents bytheir given names. In Sarawak, this feeling of taboo (yes, we too have

108

taboos) is extended to more people, because the circle of intimacy is wider.

If you know how you're related, you use the correct term Jor thatrel;tionship. For example: Samuel is three years old. His cousin Victoria,who is I 8, has just given birth to a little boy. That little boy when he reachesthe age of talking, will call Samuel 'uncle,' even though Samuel is ontyfive, ibans don'tihink this is strange. There is much more variety of agerelationship in Sarawak than you usually find in the US.

Wonls of relationship

apai fatherindai motherol@' elder brother or sistermenyadi' brother or sisternnnyadi' tuai elderbrother/sistermenyadi'tengah middlesiblingmenyadi'biak youngersiblingmznyadi'bunsu Youngestsiblinganak childpetunggal cousinaya' uncleibu' aunt [Sarawakians using English always say

'auntie.'loldest uncle or auntmiddle uncle or auntyounger uncle or auntyoungest uncle or auntgrandfathergrandmothergreat-grandfather/-mothergreat-great- grandfather/-mothergrandchildgreat-grandchildgreat-great-grandchildbrother- or sister-in-lawblood kinin-laws

tuaitmgahbiakbunsuaki'tnpuyangjagangucu'icitwrtiparkabanmcntua

If you're not related, address a Frson according to how you ndlr -be

related. If he's a generation older than you, you might call him 'uncle.' Iftwo generations older, aki", lf thtef- puyang 'great-grandfather.' Don't beshy. This is the polite thing to do. Everybody in Sarawak is related to oneanother, so people are used to being called relative.

109

People will say to you, for example 'go ast your grandfather Duin...,tanya-mdh aki' nuan Dui4' in order to clue you in as to how you shouldaddress a particular person. Here, someone is telling you that you shouldaddress the person named Duin as ati'.

Then there arc terms of address that are neither names, nicknames, titles, orwords of relationship. These are used between equals, or by an olderperson to a younger

dom to a young man: 'lad''jang short for bujang 'bachelor', often facetiously to teenagerswat to a younger man, or man in the prime of life, esp. to a son or

son-in-lawwai friendly term of address, some dialects to men, others to

womensatnbi' polite address between equalsunggal 'cousin'1' a friendly term of address: .fiend,' Ari ni nuan,

unggal?igat boy of younger generation ,masier'

endu' girl of younger generation 'miss'

Pangan 'fiend' is not not used as term of address. Words of relationshinand terms of address are not used, as in Mala% to substitute for personalpronouns. You use the term to hail someone, and then continue talkine withpronouns, as in English.

Oi! Wai! Kini nuan? 'Hey, Wai! Where are you going?,

Personal names: the commonest and politest way for an Iban to namesomeone else is to call him or her by the name of their child. you may heara man being addressed zs Apai Nuing 'Father-of-Nuing,, or a woman asIni' Satnuel 'Grandmother-of-Samuel.' Given names of traditional styleamong the Ibans are oI the forn X a.nak Y 'So-and-so child of So-and-so.'Since here there is no such thing as a 'last name,' when you talk formally tosay, Muda' anak Tansi, you should call him 'Mr. Muda'.,

Being Polite

As in all langauges, how you say something has a lot to do with how peoplefeel you mean it. As a rule, you can never be too polite-not stuffy-polite,but cheerfully courteous-when you speak with Ibans. Counesy is valued,and it maintaids a good balance with frankness. To soften negations, oneoften turns the word order around. For example-

Aku enggai nwkai diatu'. Aku kenyang. 'l don't want roearnow. I'mfull. ' :.

110

This is direct, and so perhaps less €legant. But, you can say-

Enggai aku makai diatu'. Kenyang aku.

Which could be translated: 'Ild rather not eat now, I'm full.' Depending onwhere you are, you might touch the -dish of food with your fingers,symbolically to accept ttreir hospitaliry. e4

There are no deeply Iban words for'please' and'thank you.' If you want tosoften a request, you can use r,lji infront of it. The old lban-English PhraseBook gives the following example (the meaning is clearer if translated intoolder English):

uji nuan bejako' luba, agi'. 'Try thou speak more slowly.'

To make sense of this example, imagine that a white person, who lmowslittte lban, is trying to talk with an Iban who is speaking far too fast forhirn. The white person is confused and disoriented; but doesn't want toconvey the impression that he's annoyed.'Please,' in the sense of arequestfor help, can be expressedby tulong 'helpi

Tulong bul<a pintu. 'Please open the door.'

For 'thank you,' Ibans use the Malay expression teim0-k^sih, if they feeltheir sense of gratitude has to be made explicit. When people are on closeterms, they don't say 'please' or 'tha* you' at aU, but simply understandthe feelings involved. Iri fact, this way of dealing with things is not sodiffercnt ftom what happens in English-speaking countries. A simPle grunted'thanks' is a minimal verbal nod between friends. Big 'thank-you's' are forstrangers and other people whose automatic assumption of yourgratitude you can't count upon.

Likewise, there is no word for 'hello' apart from rabi', which has a slightlyformal feel, something like 'hail!' and is often used at the beginning ofletters. There are no words for 'goodbye,' 'good moming,'good night'inIban. If someone comes to see you at home, the first thing he may say isNanw berita? 'What's tlle news?' When people meet outside the house thegreetingphrase is l(ini nuan? 'Wherc are you going?.' When someone inSarawak asks you for the first time, in English or in Iban, where you aregoing, don't think that she or he is being impertinent. If you don't want toexplain, you can always reply Kin 'that way,' or say something equallyinnocuous. When people are leaving, they usually say tarzi rzupok'We'regoing.' This is often softened to mupok kami, giving the feeling of 'Well,

94 see Richards' entry for the word prni'.

l l l

we re gong.

Courtesy, however, does not mean one does the same thing as one would athome. In America, if we 'have to go to the bathroom' 95 we excuseourselyes or use a euphemism. In Sarawak, if you are talking with peopleand you get up to leave without explanation, or with a vague explanation,your company may be worried that they unwittingly offended you. Thepolite thing to do, when you get up to go to the toilet, is to say Aku k4'kctii,'I'm going to urinate,' or even Aku ka' bira''I'm going to defecate., Evennow in many parts of Sarawak, people live unavoidably close to the grimyfacts of nature, and denying them, as a sacrifice to delicacy, would makelife even more uncomfortable than it already is.

By all means be sensitive to the clues people give you. Ibans will tolerateand even enjoy an awful lot of silliness if inadvertant, or harm.less, oramusing, but are not, like everybody, very happy with rank insensitiviry ormaliciousness.

Dirty words

Iban is well provided for words for body organs and their natural functions,etc. But Ibans are not in the habit of continually describing things theydon't like by reference to them.. In fact, words in Iban such as brtah'penis' and tai' 'shit'have perfecdy respectable uses as members ofcompounds: tai' lalat 'fly shit'-a little mole on the face, butoh dilah'tongue's penis'-the uvula.96 It is striking that Ibans on tie whole usevery few euphemisms. fdi'stands alone; it has no 'nicer' synonyms. Thesubheading here is a come-on; but I'm not going to take the opportunityhere to teach you any obscenities; The lesson is, rather, that expressions ofdirect dislike are much stronger in lban than in English. We may say .Itat" to stand in line at the post office.' In Iban this would come out directlyas yor'll leam them quackly enough on your ow\. Ahr benci' bebaris dipos-opis. 'Hats' is a very strong word in Iban, and the sentence above wouldconvey an unpleasant meaning to the people amund you, for if you arestaying in a small town, the people you are standing in line with are yourcompanions. By implication, ydu hate them, too.

95 Europeans think Americans are silly for saying 'bathroom, when they mean loilet.,96 A p"oll"l i" th" Lti n rtords faeces 'feces'-any kind ol dreg s"---arrd peniculus .peic 'literally'litde lEnis.'

1t2

Satu, dua, tiga......................

Iban Literature

A short word about Iban literature. Iban is fortunate to possess anextraordinarily rich literature. Not only is Iban literature remarkable for itsvariety and high quality, but there is a whole lot of it, more, I think, thansome written traditions can boast. In the past all this literature was oral, itexisted through the voice and performance and survived and thrived in thememories of the people. In the past thirty years much of this olderliterature has been written down, and Iban writers have begun to usemodem forms such as the novel. Regarding the traditional forms, Iban usesboth prose and verse. In prose there zrre many stori€s that deal witheverything from the gods and heroes to daily life and ordinary people. Therearc serious stories and funny stories. Poetry is remarkably well developed.Iban is a language, unlike English, in which many thousands of rhymes arepossible, and Iban po€ts use rhyme to create stanzas that are tighdy wovenand highly musical. The rhythm oflban poetry is predominantly 'iambic',moving in pattems of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, but showsmetrical complexities that no one so far has begun to analyse. Rhyme,rhythm, and rhetorical art appear even in the little phnses with whichpeople pepper their speech. For example, if someone leaves the house on atrip to a party, and coming back gets caught in the rain and splattered withmud, she may comment: Mansang baka Kumang, pulai bakn bangkai. 'Weset out like a goddess, came back like a dead body.'

Poetry and religion are still closely connected in the Iban tradition. Manyof the grcatest poets werc lemembang'itual bards.' If you should wind upin a pagan area, you may be asked to join in a rite. Don't feel odd, butparticipate. The following is a general all-purpose prayer, of the kind calleda biau, rcciled as the officiant waves a rooster over the heads of th€participants.

O-ha! O-ho! O-ha!Aka ngangau, aku nisau,Aku ngumbai, aku ngelambai.Ngangou kn PAbra Aki, P€tara Ini.Aku minta' tuah, minta' limpah,Akuminm' raja, minta' anda,Aku minta' bidik. minta' InsilcMinta tulanS, minlo PandanS.

I t3

vocabulary:

andabidiklnnsikduitgayugerarnyamaiSUrUkangautdsauktmbailambailirnpahmenganakpa.dipandangpCtarapinta'pulirajaringgitsegiausetqwaktajautuahtulang

Awak ka kani bulih ringgit, bulih duit,Bulih tajau, bulih sigiau,Bulih senwnk, bulih menganakAku minta' bulih padi, bulih puli.Agi ga aku minta gerai, minta' nyamaiMinto' gayu, minta guru! 97

'prosperity''lucky''sharp, keen of sense''money''long-lived''healthy''pleasant, feeling good''wise''call or shout''summon, invite''call ''beckon'Iwith tutthl'overfl owing'ftom anak'rice (in the field)''shining, glory''sod''ask for''glutinous rice''rich, riches''silver dollar''valuable jar,' or by metaphor, 'head-trophy''gong'.

. ' jar ''good fortune''bone, strength'

BibliographyThere is so much wdtten on Sarawak and the Ibans that it makes littc ttcttttoto give a full list of books here. You will quickly find the major works if youcheck in your library or in bookstores in Kuching. Of the following, somcare in print and readily available. Those books marked by an asterisk (t)will be found onty in a large research library, or in the Museum Library inKuching.

1) Dictionarics

Richards, Aathony: An lban-English Dictionary. Penerbit Fajar Bakti/Oxford University Press, Petaling Jaya, 1988 after reprinted.

Sutlive, Vinson & Joanne: A Handy Reference Dictionary of lban anlEzglisft. Tun Jugah Foundation, Kuching, 1994. [Both lban-English andEnglish-Ibanl

Bruggeman, Rev. G .'. EnglishJban Vocabulary, SarawakLiterary Society,Kuching, 1985.

2) Gramnar

Adelaar, K. Alexander: 'Borneo as a Crossroads for ComparativeLinguistics' in The Austronesians: historical and ComparativePerspectives. edited by Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Farrell Tryon.Canberra, 1995.

Asmah ,Hj. Omar: The lban Language of Sarawak: a GrommaticalDescription Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur, 1981.

Atur Sepil Jaku lban. Day4k Cultural Foundation, Kuching, 1995. [guideto the proposed new spelling systeml*Dahl, Otto Chdsti an Proto-Austronasian. 2nd revised ed., ScandinavianInstitute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, No. 15. Curzon Press,London, 1976.

3) Phrase book*Borneo Literature Bureau: English-lban Phrase BooABup JakoInglis-Iban. Bomeo Literature Bureau (BLB), Kuching: 1965.

4) Schoolbooks in Iban*Buma, Michael: Pelajar lban Bup Tiga. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,Cawangan Sarawak, Kuching: 1979.

97 Ri.h*d". t"ko Moin lban,p. 13-14.

4 115

Bahasa lhan Tingkntan 1. ['Iban Language Level One'; there is also BITingkaton? and BI Tingkaton 3. AbVeviatedBITI, 8172, B1T3.l KurikulumBersepadu Sekolah Menengah. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka CawanganSarawak untuk Jabatan Pendidikan Sarawak. Kuching, 192.

5) Also, here are a lew books of lban litcralure:*A. Alli Majang: Sempama Jako lban. BLB, 1968.*Andria Ejau: Aji Bz lan. BLB, 1968.* -: Dilah Tanah. BLB, 1964. [The first Iban novel.]

Christy Duin Tanggi:. Sempatrw lban. Klasik Publishing House: Kuching,1998.

Jimrny Donald: Kel ing of the Raised World. Penerbit Fajar Bakti. PetalingJaya: 1991. [In English]

Jimrny Donald: Ensera Keling Nyad.i Sebungkok. Klasik Publishing House,Kuching: 1989. Uban text.l

Jimmy Donald: Iz&, Main lban. Klasik Publishing House, Kuching, 1993.

James Jemut Masing: The Coming of the Gods: An lbsn Invoc(nory Chent.2 vol., Dept. of Anthropology, .A,ustralian National University, Canberra:t997.*Norman Rundu Pitok: Salumpong Karong Besi. BLB, 1966.*Satheq Clifford: Apai Aloi Goes Hunting and Other Stories. PersatuaanKesusasteraan Sarawak, Kuching: 1984.*Richards, Anthony: Leka Main lban. BLB, 1966.*Rubenstein, Carol ( 1973): Poems ofindigenous peoples of Sarawak: someofthe songs and chantJ. Sarawak Museum Joumal, special monograph no.

Appendix

zero kosongquarter, one quartera halfthree quartersoneone of, 'a'twothre€fourfivesixseveneightnlneteneleventwelvethirteenfourteenfifteensixteensevenrceneighteennineteentwentytwenty-onetwenty-twothirtyfortyhundred, one hundredtwo hundredthousand, one thousandmillion, one million

Ihble 1: Numerals

(lit. 'empty')suku, sa;ukusatingahtiga suktrsatusa- + numerical classifer + nounduattgaernpotlimaerurntujohhpensemilansepulohsebelas&ubelnstigabelasempatbebslbtmbelaserwmbelastujuhbelaslapanbelassemilanbelasdua pulohdua puloh satudua puloh duatiqa pulohempat pulohratus, saratusdua ratusribu, saribujuta, sejuto

186, 927 saratus-lapan-puloh-ernn rtbu, semilan-ratus dua- puloh tujoh[with batu sasdkan gives the speed of light]

Example of a telephone number: 082-735140 kosong,lapan dua, tujuh,tiga, linu, sqtu, empat. kosong.

l t6 117

For the ordinal number. add the Drefix &e- to the cardinal. Clock time:

hourminutesecond

Firstsecondninety-eighthetc.

kzsatu, ot bettet keterubah. .kedua'

kesemilnn puloh lapan

JArnminitsikan

Fractions. 'One half' and 'one quarter' are satengah and sesukurespectively. 'Three-quarten' is tr'ga szta. All other fractions are expressedby the ordinal form:

Pukul bempa jam diatu'? 'What [lit: 'how many'] hour is it?' Udah pukullima. 'Alieady five o'clock.' Pukul mexts'to strike' and the Ibanerpression, literally 'It's already struck five,'comes from the days when, asin bH Europe, people listened tq the town clock----or the one striking clockon the verandah of the longhouse. 'Five-thirty' is pa&a I lina setingah, atl,d'quarter to six' is sesuku sebedau pukul eru1m.

In Malav. 'second'is sa'al, but I have not heard that word used by lbans''ln a seiond!' is sekejap aja'litenlly: 'just an eyeblink.'

3.) Days before and after a day

'one third''two thirds''five twelfths'

l.) Days of the week

MondayTiresdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturdaySunday

2.) Times of day 98

sunriseearly momingmomingnoonaftemoon (rather late)evemngdusknightmidnightpast midnightwell past midnightdawn

sekeligadua ketigalima keduabelas

Table 2: Time

hari satu,, hari seninhari d)tnhari tigahari empathari limahari ensn, hari sabtuhai minggu

nyang pagitumu pagipa8,tlngah haringalih harilemainyang lemaimalamtangah nalamdini hai dalqm

. dini hai mabu'dini hari

last yearlast monthlast weekday before Yesterdayyesterd&yyesterday eveninglast nighttodaytonighttomorrow (moming)tomorrow eveningday after tomorrownext weeknext monthnext year

4.) The months

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJune

nun ryin tadibulan tadiminggu ndtensanaa'kemari'lcmai tadigg llemai ketna.i'nelatu tadisahai tu'lemai tu'pagiln'ftk ' (sone di,'le/;ts)Icmai pagila'lusa'ntnggu baru, mintgu ti' kn daraibulan baru, bulan ti' ka dntaitaun bdru

bulnn satubulan duabulan tigabulan empatbulan litnabul,an enatn

98 See also the detailed lisr in Richards' enuy for rtan.

118

99only if the day on which you're speaking is not yet dark.

119

tnclkakiila (='ell')d"po'bqtupaunketipikul

Ibans, as Malaysians generally, also commonly use the metric system. Ifyou're not sent tbree miles to town for one and a half katis of pork, youmay be sent five kilometers for a kilogram. There are many vatieties oftraditional measur€s. See the entry on s ukat 'r]tr,ast re' in Richards.

Table 4: Grammatical Terms in English and lban

JulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember

inchfootyardfathom (stretch of arms)milepoundChinese pound = 600 grChinese hundredweight = 60 kg

activeaffixagentauxiliarycomplex sentenceconjunctiondeclarative sentencedemonstmtive pronoundirect speechdualexclamatory sentenceinterrogative pronounintransitiveitalicsmeamngnegativenoun

r20

bulan tujuhbulan lapanbulan semilanbulan sepulohbulan sebelqsbulan duabelas

Table 3: Weights and measunes

numeralnumerical classifierobjectparagraphparticlepassivepersonal pronounphrasepluralpredicateprepositionpronounpunctuationquestion (interrogative sentence)reduplicationreported speechrootsentencesentence of commandsimple sentencesingularstylesubjecttransitiveverb jako'word

Table 5 :

l) Rice

rice, cookedrice, uncooked

2) Meat(dagin) and fish

jako'tiappengerurp t6sq'objdkparagrafpartikelpassif/runggugantinama diri'rambaijako'berqbanprddikatjako'peninpat

SAntmam4tanla bacaayqt lanyQjako' betandu sebutjako'tusoiur4taydtayat merintahayat tunggaltunggalgaya jqko'subj6ktransitifpenS4wa'lekn jako'

Things to Eataktif/regaspenambahpengqwa'jakt' bantuayat turu'penyambong4!4t peneranggsntinann penunjokjako' sebutduq iko'ayat tekenyitSantinama tqnyainffansitifurup cundongretijako' sangkal,uuno

I have inserted this list ofeatables for the convenience of the person who isvisiting Sarawak for the first time and feels lost and bewildered among tltevariety ofstrange foods. It may take a while, but get yourselfused to eatingrice. There is no better food for energy, and Sarawak rice, especially ifhome-grown, is extuemely fragrant and tasty, baka roti Peroncis bqrununsau.

asi'beras/berau (r.ce in the field is padi)

t2l

beefchickenclamscrabdeerduckfish

goat, or lambmouse-deerporksago grubssquidwild boar

Eggg$"rl",ryDbamboo shootcorianderfemslettuceonionspinachy leaves off a bush

Fruits

coconutdurianlemonlimemango, cultivatedmango, wildmangoste€norangePaPayatangerine

Confections

cake

bread (considered as cake)

sapilcapimanoklukan, kerangketamrusa'ititikan; do2ens of kinds enjoyed. Askabout local delicacies.kanbinpehndokbabiljaniulat tindohsunlonSbabi utan/kampong

tubu'daun supPakudaun saladbawangcangkok manis

nyiurnanI&innlimaukuini , asamI uah raba', buah mawangnangSrsordnlsun*isttanSanlimau

6) DrTkcoffeerice spfuitricewineEawat€r, boiled

7) SeaseElugtchiligarlicpeppersaltsoy sauce

ai' kopiIangkau/araktuakai' tdhai' nati

cabibawang putehIado84rQmkicap

INDEX

wat€r, plain ai' Putdh, ai' anutanv kind of drink made out of eordial is- ci'+ name of flavoring,e.g, at oren

3)

4)

5)

ftzii, nany varieties; the Iban specialtyis kudhjahroti

abstract nouD$fixing of meaning

address, terms ofaddressing peopleAdelaar, K. Alexanderadjectivesas Yert-rootcomparison ofcompoundeddistributivefollowed by nounformation ofmodiling noun concePt in verbof quantitypr€dicatereduplicetedto verb '

adverb, indicating copulative sentenc€adve$s

35110r08f.8, 9, l1525,3s5l4l37503732,384l303639&

26,39,lU

t22 123

comparison ofcompoundedof position and directionof time, as tense-markersreduplicated

agentin passive sentencesplace of in 'soft' passive

ag€nt and abstract nounsagreement, lack of'almost'

-an, suffix, used once only in Ibananang 'do not!''and'Iban separates into two conceptsoften omitted

Andria Ejau

ba 'in, at, on'Bahasa MalaysiaBalinese languagebarang 'any'Bartholomew Nasipbe-, prefixand -kainceptiveindicating frequent action

be-/me-, prefixBedau/apin 'not yet'beke-, prefixbekeranggak, etymologybete-, preflxbiau, defined, and text ofbitk, definedbisfas auxiliary and existentialnegative of

body languageborrowingsfrom Chinesefrom Englishfrom Malay

Brookes, their mottoBuma, MichaelcausahYesin English

Christy Duin TanggiChu Mee Fahclass, assertions concemingclassifiers, numericalsee numerical classifi ers

clausescoordinaterelativesubjects of optionally omitted

68703416,7940

78, 86959595

52,62, lt6

104899I

10016f.

'62

6962,662l23358, 14

9,38,45,54, 106787l77r03

9lo

32,54,63, tM4986462tv5856866666661131876768343,48

16,4343,4678,8s, 105, 1117656, l1562,656237, 11682812

4l37e47l39

animat€ and inanimate objects, grammatical distinction between 2gappositionaram, exhortatory particleari 'from'articleexpressed by relative prcnounlack of

'as '37aspect, definedprogressivehow marked in Iban

assertions, general and specificasterisk, significance ofattributive positionAugustine Anggat GanjingAustronesianauxiliariesindicating tensenegative

awak-ka, hortatory

124

95951001@

125

subordinateclock timecoinageswith beke-

colloquial speechcomrnandsintroduced by awak-kanegative

comparative degreecomparisonsof sizeverbs from adj. used in

compoundsconditionsconjunctionscoordinatingsubordinatlng

consonantstable of

coniextand mood of vb.and rclationship of tenses

copulative sentencesndg6tiv6, word Oftler in

Dahl, Otto CMstiandays beforc and after a day, table of termrdayi of the w€€k, table ofdeka' 'will, shall'deinonstratives, as determinerdi'afdi-, prefixornission ofomitted ln 'soft' passive

dietionaries, Ibsndiedonary formsdiphthongsdirection and position

126

adverbs ofdiri"self'in reported speech

Drahman bin Haji Amitdualdulu' and dudio, stands fgr different soundseat, thing$ to, tatle of wqrds forEliot, T.S.ellipsisemphasisby reduplicadonby repeating bisi'sarcastrcshift of

enda' 'nofenda' tau enda' 'cannot nqt'endang, adv. oftgn better translated by adj.enggai, 'don't want'enggai-ka 'l9st'euggau 'with,' 'and'connects words and Phrases

enti"if'etymologyfractionsFrench'fri9nd,' not used as term of addressganelangendergenitivp positionGermqng9stufBglonal stopmarking of

granmar, historicalgamr4ars, Iban & Austronesian (stuiies)gralnmatical terms in English and lban, table of

951193566101, 105, 1078989864l

4325371038r, 90, 93969711t24,16,19,43, tM82I )

m,24,288338,45, 1151191187319.239L686870l15l410

9447l0l8

7 r ,74l0t', I

21108

45,46,74,90, rO438964E64,70839010678, 858l90951033l i118:6

110JZ

27 ,4526,36z044l l , 13, 65l431, 54115120

r27

Greek, ancientgreetings'has'hb. abbreviation of hari bulanhead, of phraseHirsch, Steven

i, alternative spelling ofiban, as indefinte pronounIban language

differs fiom English

history ofnature ofsounds of

imperativeinceptiveindirect object

as subject ofpassive sentencepronoun assignaled by rigagai

infl nitive, concept defi nedinfix, definedinflection i

lacK orof verb

information, 'new' and 'old'instrument or means by whichintensifiersinterjectioirsintemal accusativeintonation, alter€d to make question

lyaas'there'

James Masing, Y.B.Janang EnsiringJavanese language

128

4, 58:43,74,86, rt176

. 93 , , : . :15,30 :810

.49

28, 4O, 45, 51, 57 ; 70,7 5,87,93, 1l l , t rz ,

,11

15 '

10.8959.60

'10..44

ot

E266l616,44,5l5118

, 90,104f.105, 107528745 :.28,44,4645r36, 66,68, 11668

' .32,45

ryaas'therg'

James Masing, Y.B.Janang Ensiring,Javanese languageJimbun TawaiJimmy Donald, YB.ka'for'ka 'to'ka' , short for deka'

-ka, aftef ngarap and ngerindu'-ka, causative suffixadded for elegancein passive

kada 'it,isnlt, is it?'kati 'is it that?'ke- and ge-, prefixeske-, prefixge-, parallel to, functionsas a separable Prefixin Malaynasalizedto make passivg of intransitive rootwith di-, indicating continuous action

Kelsey, Johnkemudi, etymology ofkena' 'to get''used for'with dates rto make passive

kenyalang. etymology ofko', verb 'said',laban'because'laboh'fall'uansformations of

Jah, affirmatorysuffix used in Malaysian English

28,44,464536,66,68,6832,4587,46, t t6ot

91746662,6564688888..31

31 . .a4

55

69811 {4

, :949369,9334, 541028l

67105

6

t29

lalu, conneats clausesLatin'lefletters, standard phrases in'like' or 'as' without prepositionlitetature, Ibanbooks of

Looi Siew TeipMalaydiffen from lbanSarawak

Malayo-Polynesianmarklack of

md-, prdfixbeforo causative Yetbsid second mdmber df reduplicated verb

measurefilenq units of-mdh, afft rinative parrlclein comhands

mehyanab analysism€taphormiddle voic€modalsmodificationmonths, tablemoodMu an, Sidi and Heidimunyi 'like, as, as if'Murut languagg'must' expressed by double negativenadai 'has hot'changes places with enda'

hamesidiom in asking someohe'sless used in addtess

130

vf

112103

42, 90, 101; 105, 11136113l l6811 ?O 45

6l42o

i8,722l24,56,63637230, 120105892491,9358,59,767115,22,35.t1982, 103881636378,8384

88108

I t0tz

r02JJ

24,34,53, s4f . ,63,64605383i898?.918081 'fr)

34

OJ

80, 9481106, 116)a2A1925,263451 - '

2817,23i 2827

'3436'3E644827

personalNaragansett languagenatrative, the vefb ko'nasal, tr .ansitionalnasalizationin 'irleBular' verbstable of

neganvesdouble, as comftandsentences, avoiding confusion with

ngagai, prep.derived from gagai

ngambi'-ka 'in oider that'nge-, prefixas infix with agent and abstract nounsbefore verb"roots in l-, rh-, and r-pleo astic

ngena' 'with, using'ngemng'about, concefnihg'Normdn Rundu Pitoknoun or verb, difficulty of distinguishingnoun phrasesboundary

nounsagent and abstractas verb-rootcompoundedcounhble and uncountabledeteirhined and undeErmineddistinguishing gender offormationof'plus noun or adjective in the genitive positionreduplicatedto verb

'now'numbers

l3t

numerals, table ofnumerical classifiersin Englishplus be-table ltable, supplementary

oya'as 'it'

nyadi 'then, sornyau andjadi/nyadi 'to become'/'is beCome''of''one' as an indefinite pronoun, how Iban expressesonomatopo9la''or'oral tradifionorang 'human beingordinal numbersOrwell, George'ought'parameters , .,

paflative genitiveparticipledefinedforce of in Iban

particlesparts of speechpasar, definedpassive voicein questionsin reladve clausesin vb. + vb. sentences

passive voice, softpe-, prefixwith sa-

pem-, altemate form of pe-pen, particle

11716:20,I7',28f.'2857,o

3019,47 .. r ..4681

. .7726

49. ' i32,3i96 , . .4, 11349. - . !33, u8 . .22

, 78.,. 6, 15f., r03 . .

29'

7979104f.25f.82

.67881007970.344335106

pepet'perhapsthdybe''person'personificadonphrasephrase book, Ibanpia' 'thus, so'Pinker, Stephen, The Language Instinctplace-nanies, formation of'please' :

pluralpoetrypolitenessPolynesian languagepossession, the possessive positionpossibility, necessityPostill, Johnprayersee also sampi and biau

pr€dicateprenx'swallowed'in partial reduplicationvowels dropping out of

prepositionscombinations oflogical, etc.of space and inotion

progressive action. indicatingpronounsall pronouns'politeas determinerdefineddemonstrativedualindefihite

t0402746, 8595115

.104

,15106

' . 89, 11027,38.,113

'r l1O

38, 45.26,36,44 :77t i l l3.8, ,113

. , i .

20,3631, 50. .

. .59, ,?e

42.15; 25' 80, 9091929l72,44'5019.

'444745

.48

r33

interrogativeiyaomission ofpersonalreflexiverelativerelative, omission oftrouble with referents to in colloquial speech,

pronunciation, colloquial rapidpronunciation, regionalproverbi4l phrasespua', d9finedquantifl ers, before nounsquestion words, tablequesuonsmarked by pa4icle

quotation, direct and indirectrand l, insertion of afler prefixconverted to, or changing places with Idifferent pronunciations of

r9ality or uffoallty, degree ofredundancy, in language, definedreduplicationof adj . for progressing intensitypartial

relationship, words ofrelative clausesforce of expressed by n./adj. + vb.use ofpassive in

repprtd speechchange of pronouns in

RhadC language (Vietnam)rhymes. great numbers of in lbanRichards, AnthonyAn lban-English Dictionary

134

8844,45,46108444720, 100 ,l0 l10814,3811I l358278887.106101

56 , ,l3l37875,16, 32, 33,37f.4l14,39f. , .10910010169101101106113rr4, 1166,38, 115;

rindu"love'with and without prep. ka

roots, verbintransitivemake both trarsitive and intransitiverequidng verbal complementtxansitiveused as verb in root form

ruai, defineds, pronunciation of at the ends of wordssa-, prefixplus adj.

sama, as adverbsampi, prayersSanskritSather, Cliffordschoolbooks, Ibanse-, for sa-se, titular particleSebuyau dialectsemanttcssempamajako'semua' 'all', analysissentences, simple and comPlexSim Kwang Yangsingular and plural'some''sophisticated' expressionspellingsubjectdummyin vb. + vb. sentences

subjunctive, in Englishsuffix-ka

superlative degree

9232,50,5t ,53,6052585251556713

20, 24, 30, 33, 41, 42, 50, 7243414232,34, 5873, 1161154210611,13,14,45,632437, l0l4296826,2747356, ro, \2, 1420'17

7910350624l

syllables, finalsyllogismtaboosTagalogtak, used before word emphasizedtanju' , definedtauka'or'te-, prenxtensefurther examples offuturefuture negative, with enggaifuture negative, with inanimate objectsnegative words ofobliquely indicatedpast progressive

Past, simpleperfectperfect, created by nadaipresenrrelationships of in context

tense words, ornission ofterubah 'at first''than''that', no Iban word forti' and ke, relative pronounsused with force of article

timeplock, how specified

Jlban perception of

inegative words ofwords to specify

times of day, table of words for'to be'ton€ of voice'too'

136

1124108, 11156,63105678161,6616,70757385867183747262,74.84

7175

33,614110169, 100100

11977837111816,20,40,768942

tracetransformationsactive verb to causative verbexamples of with laboh 'fall'

transitive to intransitivetu'after personal pronounsas 'it'

tu' and nya'as demonstrative adj.

tuattusu, etymology ofukaidoes not negate verbsidiomatic phrases with

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)utai 'thing'as lit'

verb plus verbas origin of lban prepositionsin reported speechsentences,analysisto describe mannerto express pupose

verbal sentences, Iban preference forverbs'irregular'activeactiYe transitiveas roun 82asking, ordering, leaming, teaching, knowing, &c. 78causative 62,65compounded 37explaining an adj. 8lfollowed by ka 'for' 56form ofaftermodal 78

zl

626567&

4846

4796

84,878585746,47467880lo27879802425, 50t.50,595253

t37

in be-/me- taking objectsintransitiveintransitiye, reduplicatedreduplicated, as adverbrequiring verbal complementtaking two objectstransformations oftransitive, reduplicatedwith force of adj.

Victoria Encharangvowel harmonyvowelsunstessed

weights and measures, table of'with' seduai asword order

deviations from standardinverted to indicate politeness

words, dtty'yes''you'in different dialects

5955,6638,lo, 805J 1q

5562386584210t4t2045

6,15,22,23,26,35,87 ,104to411047, tt287al \45

138