Language in use. The people of Mualang have a strong awareness of their ethnic identity and are proud of it. They realize the existence of other ethnic groups and frequently compare themselves with those groups, such as Cina-Senganan ‘the Chinese and Malay’, the people of Jangkang, Banyur, etc. This ethnic awareness is also depicted in their legends, such as the stories about Xxxxxx and Xxxxxx (names of persons) and Xxxxxx Xxxx. The disappearing tradition of tunsun purih ‘tracing one’s family’s descendants’ also reflected and supported this attitude. As with ethnicity, the people are also very well aware of their linguistic identity. In general they can identify similarities and dissimilarities of their speech form with those of others, and comment on intelligibility and learnability with regard to Ibanic varieties (such as Iban and Tabun), as against the difficulty of learning, for instance, the more distantly related Jangkang varieties (“Land Dayak”) in the western part of the Upstream area. It was said that Mualang villages located on the border with other groups get influenced linguistically. The situations described above reflect an intensive daily use of Mualang by everyone from children to adults. Some teachers at an elementary school in a village once informed me that they are obliged to teach their pupils in Indonesian, but that they also resort to Mualang, otherwise the children would not quite understand the lessons given. Unlike those who grew up in more urban circumstances, many people who grew up in the Mualang area still speak the language even when they have moved to cities (such as Sanggau, Sintang and Pontianak) later in life. However, erosion of the language and culture inevitably takes place as development and globalization continue. Many forms of bahasa dalam ‘deep or old language’, a term that refers to older forms, have been replaced by equivalents from Malay/Indonesian, notably among the younger generations. Many words in traditional songs, such as kana, are not known anymore, except by a few older people who on the average are above 50 years of age, which is caused by, and reflects, the decline in the tradition of reciting or chanting stories. Besides by the socio-cultural factors mentioned above, the maintenance of the everyday language has been conditioned also by the relative isolation of the area. The landscape, clay or swampy roads in disrepair, expensive transportation, no electricity in the villages (only in the major towns of the kecamatans...
