KUCHING: More than 4,000 words will be collected from the Melanau tribe for the purpose of publishing the first Melanau Ajang dictionary.
In order to turn this endeavour into fruition, 35 participants from Kampung Kuala Rajang, Jerijih and Belawai are participating in the Melanau Ajang Dictionary refinement workshop from September 19 to 23.
Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Urban Development Datuk Len Talif Salleh said that all the words collected would be corrected, refined and verified at the workshop.
He said that the existing words that are being used need to be verified and refined with its proper definition and meaning before the words are compiled into a dictionary.
“The correct way of pronunciation is based on phonemic analysis by the indigenous speakers who have been appointed based on their respective idiolects.
“We have waited for four decades to do this but it is better to be late than never and hopefully the dictionary will be available in the first quarter of 2023,” he said during a press conference for the workshop held at Samudra Hotel here yesterday.
He added that all the words would then be authenticated by the validation committee to make a clean manuscript for publication purposes.
Also present was Deputy Minister in the Sarawak Premier’s Department (Corporate Affairs, Information and Public Communications Unit) Datuk Abdullah Saidol.
