The Evolution of Multilingualism in Brunei

by
Noor Azam OKMB Haji-Othman
The Language Centre
Department of English Language & Applied Linguistics
Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Introduction
Brunei is situated on the north-west of the island of Borneo, with
a northern coastline of about 161-km along the South China Sea,
and surrounded inland by the Malaysian State of Sarawak,
dividing it into two.
The eastern part is the Temburong District, home to the
Murut or Lun Bawang community. The western portion consists
of Brunei-Muara, Tutong and Belait districts. The 570-sq.km.
Brunei-Muara District, which locates the capital, Bandar Seri
Begawan, is the smallest but most populous of the four districts.
This district is the most significant in terms of it being the centre
of government and commerce. The 1166 sq. km. Tutong District,
the third largest, is home to indigenous groups like the Tutong,
the Kedayan, Dusun and Iban. The Belait District, the centre of
the oil and gas industries, which is about 100 km from the
capital, is the traditional district of residence of the Belait
community.

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 Today, well-developed roads link Brunei-Muara, Tutong
and Belait, providing easy access between these districts. And
although access to Temburong is still primarily by river, there is
certainly greater movement of population between the districts.
On the whole, travel in Brunei is easy today, but this was not the
case just 60 years ago. Previously the indigenous communities of
the respective districts lived in virtual pockets of homogeneous
communities, practicing their own customs and speaking their
own languages. Inter-group communication was minimal due to a
lack of contact between the different groups which in turn was
due to a lack of access, resulting in a high degree of societal
monolingualism in indigenous languages. Bilinguals were a
rarity, and were highly regarded as ‘knowledgeable people’. This
paper traces the evolution of ‘multilingualism’ among Bruneians
as the nation transitions into the modern day Brunei.

Methodology
This paper draws its main findings from a larger study on the
changes to the linguistic diversity of Brunei which analysed
interview as well as documentary data. In the original study by
Noor Azam (2005) a three-stage interview approach was adopted
involving a total of 43 informants. The interviews were in-depth
and semi-structured, which allowed a whole range of issues
pertaining to language in Brunei to be probed. One of these was
multilingualism and bilingualism.
The interviews were also complemented by analysis of
documentary data which included official reports such as the
Brunei Annual Report, and other official documents such as the
Brunei Constitutional Letters and government circulars.
For the purpose of this particular study, these sources of
information are complemented by online and printed texts
referring to language in Brunei. The discourse of these texts is
analyzed to support the arguments of this paper.

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 The main finding of the original study is that there is
language shift in Brunei that is paralleled, though not necessarily
caused, by a shift in identity. This paper focuses on the language
shift aspect and its role in the evolution of multilingualism in
Brunei, and aims to unravel its cultural and linguistic
implications.

Theoretical framework
In this paper I shall adopt the term ‘multilingualism’ to refer
generally to a situation where more than one language is used or
involved. And included in this general description is the more
specific situation where only two languages are involved,
referred to as ‘bilingualism’. Hamers and Blanc (1989) state that
‘bilingualism’ refers to an individual’s ability to communicate
using two codes as well as the state of a linguistic community in
which two languages are in contact with the result that two codes
can be used in the same interaction and that a number of
individuals are bilingual, i.e. ‘societal bilingualism’. This paper
adopts Romaine’s stance on ‘societal bilingualism’ as the marker
of the onset of language shift. Romaine argues:

Choices made by individuals on an everyday basis have

an effect on the long-term situation of the languages
concerned. Language shift generally involves
bilingualism (often with diglossia) as a stage on the
way to eventual monolingualism in a new language.
Typically a community which was once monolingual
becomes bilingual as a result of contact with another
(usually socially more powerful) group and becomes
transitionally bilingual in the new language until their
own language is given up altogether. (Romaine
1994:45-50)

According to Romaine (1994:45) societal bilingualism must

exist at some point to effect a shift in language. The balance of

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power among languages will be affected when a new language
enters a monolingual society, thus making it bilingual (Aitchison
1981; Day 1985). When individuals use two or more languages
alternately, language contact is said to occur, in which the
individuals involved become the locus of the contact’ (Weinreich
1968). When a substantial number of individuals in a community
become bilingual, the community/ society could be called
‘bilingual’. Where more than two languages are involved, the
situation is referred to as ‘multilingual’.
Such societal bilingualism can ultimately lead to language
shift in a society where ‘one generation is bilingual, but only
passes on one of the two languages to the next’ (Fasold
1984:213). Population movement into or out of a speech
community is equally important in disturbing the balance of
power between languages, as it affects the number of speakers of
the language, creating an environment that is conducive to
language shift (Fasold 1984; Lieberson 1982, 1984; Beer &
Jacob 1985; Fishman 1991). Certainly, increased population
mobility that results from modernized transportation and
communication is significant in language shift situations
(Lieberson 1984). Fishman comments, ‘In those settings in
which either the myth or reality of social mobility is widespread,
bilingualism is repeatedly skewed in favor of the more powerful
being acquired and used much more frequently than that of the
lesser power’ (Fishman 1977:115). In the bigger picture,
language shift can lead to significant changes in the state of
multilingualism of a given place or speech community. More
pertinent to this study are the cultural and linguistic implications
of language shift, particularly in terms of linguistic diversity or
multilingualism in Brunei.

The Discourse on Multilingualism

The discourse on the multiple languages of Brunei reveals a
range of attitudes toward the state of multilingualism, and the
languages that make up that multilingualism. Certainly academic
or linguistic discourse such as Nothofer (1991), Clynes (2005),
Martin (1991, 1995), Jones (1996), Sercombe (2002) etc show

4
appreciation of the actual multilingual situation on the ground.
Outside of these esoteric works, however, the discourse suggests
a different kind of understanding of the concept of
multilingualism or the description of it, as shown by the
following extracts:
Extract 1
„ ‘Malay is the official language but English is widely
used’ (Muhibbah 2006)

Excerpt 1 is taken from Brunei’s national carrier’s in-flight

magazine provides a curt note on the languages used in Brunei.
Malay’s status as official language is firmly established, while
the currency of English is also emphasized. However, there is no
mention of any other languages spoken in the country. Compare
this to Extract 2 from the Tourism Board’s website below:
Extract 2
„ ‘Bahasa Melayu (Malay) is the official language, but
English is widely spoken. Mandarin, Chinese dialects
and native languages of Borneo are also spoken by
segments of the population.’ (www.tourismbrunei.com –
Accessed 9 Dec 2006)

In addition to the use of Malay and English, languages spoken by

the largest ethnic minority community, the Chinese, are
mentioned. More significantly, there is also a generic reference to
indigenous languages of Borneo, which stops short of stating
what these indigenous languages are. Note also that the
languages are attributed to ‘Borneo’ rather than to Brunei,
reference to which is in fact included in the following excerpt:
Extract 3
„ ‘Malay or Bahasa Melayu is the national and official
language of the country. The Malays form the biggest
ethnic group in Brunei. However, English is widely
spoken and understood especially in the business

5
 community. The various indigenous groups speak
indigenous dialects in Brunei. Chinese groups speak
Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese as well as the
national language, Bahasa Melayu.’
(www.brudirect.com – Accessed 9 Dec 2006 – my
emphasis)

While the first extract mentions only English and Malay, the
latter two make a reference to indigenous languages albeit in
passing. In the following extracts taken from official documents
or communication a similar treatment may be discerned.
The constitution was written in two languages, Malay
and English. Extract 4 below is the English version of Article 82
of the Brunei Constitution that declares Malay as ‘Official
language’:
Extract 4

ƒ 82. (1) The official language of Brunei Darussalam shall

be the Malay language and shall be in such script as may
by written law be provided.
(Govt. of Brunei 1959)

In this all-important document, there is no mention of

the indigenous languages of Brunei1 or any other languages for
that matter. However, the same document does refer to the seven
groups of the indigenous peoples that make up the ‘Malay’ race.
Twenty years earlier in 1939, the British Resident Black
wrote the following in the Brunei Annual Report:

1
See Noor Azam Haji-Othman (2005: 55-73) for in-depth
discussion on interpretation of ‘Malay’ in in the Brunei
Constitution.

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 Extract 5

ƒ As at least a quarter of the indigenous population of the

state is composed of races whose mother tongue is not
Malay, the criterion [of compulsory education for
children who live within a two mile radius of a school
where the language of instruction is their own language]
is hardly satisfactory. The provision of education in
their several languages is obviously impracticable, and it
is inevitable that, linguistically at any rate, the other
races must be assimilated to Malay. It is proposed,
therefore, to amend the Enactment so as to make
attendance at Malay vernacular schools compulsory for
all children of Malaysian (sic) race alike.
(Govt. of Brunei 1939:33-34)

The above extract clearly sees home languages other than Malay
as an impediment to a successful education of the Bruneian
population. Many decades on and to date, this is manifested in
the education system. The national education curriculum in
which Malay is a compulsory and an examinable subject reflects
the official policy on language in Brunei. Apart from Malay,
English is the medium of instruction from Primary 4 onwards.
Arabic language is taught as a subject, and Chinese is used and
taught in the Chinese schools. French has been introduced in
selected schools only recently. Meanwhile Bruneian languages
such as Dusun, Tutong and Belait have been omitted from the
curriculum. Obviously these languages are unwritten languages,
making it rather difficult to teach these languages formally, a
problem noted in Black’s statement above. The official reasons
for their exclusion from today’s curriculum are as follows:
Extract 6
The other languages in this country are not taught in
schools because:

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 i) Those languages cannot perform the
formal and official function as a language
of education, compared to Malay and
English which have a complete corpus in
terms of lexis, phonology, morphology and
syntax.
ii) The area of spread of these languages are
limited and do not transcend the speakers’
geographical boundaries. They are spoken
in informal situations. Malay is used as a
main regional language in MABBIM
member countries. English on the other
hand is an international language.
iii) The number of speakers of those languages
is small and limited to each ethnic group.
In the Asean region, Malay is spoken by
roughly 250 million people while English
is used by the global population.
[Dir. of Curriculum Devt., MOE, - Trans.]

Drawing on the discussion above, one could argue that in both

official and unofficial discourse on language in Brunei the
existence of these many languages, hence multilingualism, is
acknowledged. However this nod is rather terse, and one gets the
unsettling feeling that in the official documents, there is a
‘dismissive attitude’ of indigenous languages of Brunei. At the
same time, what have been ‘dismissed’ are the linguistic diversity
of Brunei and the multilingualism of Bruneian society.
What we have discussed so far have been ‘attitudes’
toward indigenous languages and multilingualism in Brunei, as
revealed by the extracts above. Next we look at the actual
linguistic processes that could result from these attitudes.

8
Evidence of Language Shift
As discussed earlier, societal bilingualism/ multilingualism
involves language shift to a large degree. Informants in a study
by Noor Azam (2005) have remarked on the language shift that
they observed happening among the Bruneian population.
Extract 7

ƒ … the children of today [don’t speak] Bisaya! They

speak Malay, all Malay… they don’t know how to speak
Dusun… even my children, none of them speak
Bisaya… all of them speak Malay… [Informant16]

Extract 8

ƒ Previously the Dusun community mainly used the

genuine Dusun language. When they go to school the
younger generation now use Malay, so their daily
language is Malay… that’s the loss, a language loss… if
we don’t keep our language… [they will] disappear…
once the elderly are gone, even once my generation is
gone, the languages will disappear. [Informant 26]

Such is the gloomy outlook for Brunei’s indigenous

languages that Kershaw (1994) has termed the current generation
of speakers the ‘Terminal Heirs’. Many earlier studies have also
identified this language shift from traditional ethnic languages to
the lingua franca Malay, including Martin (1992, 1996a, 1996b),
Poedjosoedarmo (1996), Sercombe (2002) and Kershaw (1994).
If language shift is taken as indicative of the
population’s move away from indigenous languages to Malay,
then it could be argued that the societal multilingualism in Brunei
has been redefined. Whereas previously the languages that
comprised ‘multilingualism’ in Brunei could be identified as
Malay, Kedayan, Belait, Bisaya/ Dusun, Tutong, Kedayan, and
Murut. Earlier it was established that the ethnic languages of the

9
Belaits, Bisayas, Dusuns, Muruts and Tutongs are not dialects of
Malay, but are in fact separate languages. It could be argued
therefore that in fact indigenous tribes of Brunei, with the
exception of the Bruneis and Kedayans, are today mainly
bilingual in at least their own respective languages and in Malay
– this is assuming of course that every member of the five non-
Malay ethnolinguistic groups is indeed brought up in their
traditional languages. However, there are signs now that an
increasing number of ethnic group children are being raised
speaking Malay as their first language, instead of their/their
parents’ ethnic language. In such cases these children grow up to
be members of a non-Malay ethnic group, but have Malay as
their mother tongue.
Language shift from all these languages to Malay over
the years has meant that ‘multilingual Brunei’ refers to a
homogenized Malay-speaking population that also speaks
English and other languages such as Mandarin and Arabic, rather
than to the situation where Malay co-exists with the indigenous
languages, as well as with Chinese and Arabic. Multilingualism
in Brunei therefore can be argued to have evolved through the
process of language shift, which is depicted in the following
diagram:

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 Figure 1
The Evolution of Multilingualism and Language Ecology of
Brunei

The following model charts the evolution of multilingualism and

linguistic diversity in Brunei within the last 60 years or so in
relation to more specific sociohistorical developments in the
country.

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 Figure 2 Change of Linguistic Profile of Brunei’s Ethnic
Population

Figure 2 above encapsulates the following changes in Brunei’s

language ecology:
1. Prior to the 1950s contact between ethnic groups and
travel was very limited, and the ethnic communities
would predominantly if not exclusively speak their own
language: Tutongs would predominantly speak Tutong,
and the Bruneis and Kedayans would mostly converse in
their respective dialects of Malay because they were
confined to their ethnic circles. When interethnic contact
did occur, Malay was used as the lingua franca.
Linguistic diversity could therefore be defined by clear
separation of these speech communities who were
predominantly monolingual. The fragmentation of the
indigenous tribes into small isolated groups ‘has meant
much cultural and linguistic diversity for such a small
country’ (Jones 1994:9).
2. By the 1950s the ethnic groups who had previously
been recorded in government reports as having their
own languages were now reported to be ‘Malay-
speaking’. Rapid development road networks began in
the 1950s with the building of proper tarmac roads along
the coast linking the capital to the furthermost district,
Belait. This led to increased population mobility,
migration and dispersal, and therefore also increased
interethnic contact, mixed marriages or intermarriage.

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 According to Jones, contact between ethnic groups was
minimal prior to the development of roads in the 1950s,
but when contact increased, the need to communicate
between different tribes forced them to use a shared
language (Jones 1994:9). The Malay education system,
in place prior to the introduction of the bilingual
education system in 1985, had by now increased the
chances of students to interact with people from various
ethnic backgrounds through the use of Malay. Malay’s
status as a school language was reinforced. The change
in Brunei’s language ecology by the 1960s could be
described as follows:
i. Bilingualism in an indigenous language
and Malay was on the increase.
ii. Monolingualism in traditional languages
was waning in turn.
3. The growing affinity for Malay in the 1970s and
1980s, and the belief among ethnic parents that
bringing up their children in Malay would prepare
them well for the schools, gave rise to a cohort of
monolingual speakers of Malay among the ethnic
communities. The importance of Malay grew due to
the greater movement of the population, hence greater
social integration that necessitated the use of Malay
for communication. This was also reinforced by the
use of Malay as a medium of instruction in the
schools. While there was still a large number of those
who could speak both an ethnic language and Malay,
they belonged in the older age group. The linguistic
scene at that time saw large-scale shifts from ethnic
languages to Malay, hence a large increase in the
number of monolingual Malay-speakers.
4. The 1980s saw a greater emphasis on the English
language with the implementation of the Dwibahasa
(bilingual) education system. English was now seen to
be the language of high status and education, much
more than Malay. This could be attributed to the status

13
 associated with the return en masse of students from
British universities who were sent there following the
breakdown of diplomatic relations with Malaysia. A
Bruneian now could be defined as a Malay-English
bilingual, while bilingualism in an ethnic language and
Malay was fast disappearing among the younger
generation. Malay-English bilingualism, at varying
degrees, has been institutionalized through the schools
(Jones 1994:9).
5. Nowadays it would be difficult to find an ethnic
language speaker below the age of 15, although many
youngsters would claim to have receptive abilities in
their ethnic language out of language loyalty. A shift to
Malay (and to English), particularly, though not
exclusively, among interethnic families from mixed-
marriage parentage. The following trends may be
discerned from the informants’ views in this study:
‹ Bilinguals who speak Malay and English
outnumbering Malay monolinguals.
‹ Bilingual speakers of an indigenous language
and Malay are now dwindling in number.
‹ Monolingual speakers of indigenous languages
have virtually disappeared.
‹ Bruneians who are brought up as first-language
speakers of English on the other hand are on
the increase.
Conclusion
Based on the preceding discussions, whereas in the past,
monolingual speakers of ethnic languages were numerous,
greater socialization and integrative processes in the past few
decades has changed linguistic acquisition trends. Language shift
processes have been the main contributor to this change in the
language ecology, the redefinition of the notion of ‘a multilingual
population’ in Brunei, and the reduction of linguistic and cultural
diversity in Brunei. It is not reassuring to know that only 60 years

14
ago Brunei’s population as a whole was in fact more multilingual
than it is today. Noor Azam’s (2005) study reveals some
profound changes in the language ecology of Brunei that coincide
with the rapid modernization within the last century. In terms of
indigenous languages, the prognosis is that the linguistically
diverse population is now steadily morphing into a
‘homogeneous’ and ‘monolingual’ Malay speech community.
Spurred by the seemingly unbalanced power relationship between
Malay and the indigenous languages discussed earlier, and the
lack of maintenance, or perhaps even the inclination to maintain
them, the ethnic languages are fast disappearing, some much
sooner than others. Was the travel information analyzed in this
study really being dismissive or ignorant after all? Perhaps they
were describing the truth after all.

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