Klang-born Sangari fluent in ‘jako Iban’
BINTULU: “Aku ka madah, aku ka ngucap Selamat Hari Malaysia enggau Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan ngagai semua rakyat Malaysia. Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban!’ ( I would like to say that I want to wish all Malaysians Selamat Hari Malaysia and Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan. I will keep fighting for as long as there is still a breath left in me!)
That sentence would have sounded perfectly natural for a native- Iban speaker, but it was actually uttered by G. Sangari, an Indian woman born in Klang, Selangor.
The fluency of her Iban surprised this writer, who met the 25-year- old for the first time, recently.
Sangari first set foot in Sarawak five years ago to pursue her degree in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas).
After completing her fouryear degree, she now works as an engineer at a metal product manufacturing company in Bintulu.
“I have to admit that when I decided to pursue my education in Unimas, I was a bit nervous about the community’s acceptance of
I have to admit that when I decided to pursue my education in Unimas, I was a bit nervous about the community’s acceptance of me as majority of them are Iban, Malay and Chinese. There are not that many Indians around.
me as majority of them are Iban, Malay and Chinese. There are not that many Indians around.
“However, I found them to be very warm and they treated me very well. I like living here because of the peace and calm – there are no major traffic congestion to deal with,” she said.
Sangari, the second of three siblings, said she did not take long to acclimatise to her surroundings.
She endeavoured to learn about the customs, culture, food and languages of Sarawak soon after she started her studies at Unimas.
“I find the most obvious difference ( between Sarawak and the peninsula) are the diverse groups of ethnicities here, the food and the culture.
“The Malay language used here is also different in terms of sentence construction and pronunciation of words.
“The Iban language is one of the main languages of communication here,” said Sangari, who admits to previously having difficulties speaking in the Sarawak Malay dialect.
To overcome the language barrier, Sangari worked at learning ‘ jako Iban’(the Iban language) and eventually became fluent in it.
Today, she is often chosen by her employer to emcee at company events.
Touched by her effort, her friends of Iban descent often help in improving her mastery of the language.
“I would listen to how each word is pronounced first and then practise saying it. This helps me to gradually understand the language and eventually speak it.
“I remember the first Iban word I learned was ‘makai’ (eat),” she recalled.
After five years of living in Sarawak, Sangari found that the way she spoke has now become similar to that of a native Sarawakian’s with conversations often a mixture of both Sarawak Malay and Iban.
She has become so fond of Sarawak that she declined job offers in other states.
“I have grown accustomed to living here. It has yet to cross my mind to go back to the peninsula to work,” she said.
The young engineer said that society in general should avoid making assumptions about life in Sarawak before setting foot in the state.
In addition to their beautiful culture and rituals, she said, there was a lot that could be learned from Sarawak, especially when it came to inter-racial unity and tolerance. — Bernama
G. Sangari, engineer