The Bidayuh Language Yesterday, Today and ... - SIL International

7 Concluding remarks
The greatest threat to the survival of our language is our own indifference to the language and our
younger generation’s ignorance of it. Our children are at a very early age educated in schools where they
find themselves in a new society, in which they have to learn and master at least two foreign languages,
English and Bahasa Melayu. They have no choice but to learn and accept the alien languages and
cultures. It is therefore up to us, the parents, to make sure that our children speak our own language and
learn our culture. As parents, it is our duty to not only take a keen interest in what our children learn in
school, but also to impart to them our own language and customs through oral traditions such as myths,
folklore, legends and songs. We must act now to propagate and promote our own language and at the
same time instill our traditional values and norms, so that our ancestry and our heritage will be a source
of pride for our children as well as for ourselves.
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