In my previous post, I mentioned the owner of the Merawap Hot Springs resort, near Lawas. His name is Alfred, and his picture is on the right, standing in the dining room of his resort overlooking the garden.
He told me that his first language is Lun Bawang, his second language is English, and although he can get by in Malay, he is not really very comfortable speaking it. The reason that English is his second language is because all his education was in English, as it was at a time that Sarawak was still a British colony, before it joined the Malaysian Federation.
In contrast, his seven daughters also speak Lun Bawang as their first language, but their second language is Malay, and their English is not quite so good. This is because they all went to school after Sarawak joined the Malaysian Federation, and Malay became the medium of education for all subjects. This seems a common pattern in Malaysia, where the younger generation often do not speak English as well as their parents, but they are all quite proficient in Malay even if it is not their home language.
