Jacob de Groot
• Leiden University• Ramkhamhaeng University• SOAS, University of LondonLecturer/researcher Prince of Songkla University, PhuketLecturer/researcher Leiden UniversityResearcher Andaman Group, PhangngaLecturer/researcher Thammasat University, Bangkok
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Papers by Jacob de Groot
When all Urak Lawoi‟ inhabitants of the Tarutao and Adang Archipelagos were forced out of their villages on other islands to be resettled on Ko Lipe because the whole area was to become a national park, this had great consequences for the self sufficient life style that the Urak Lawoi‟ had become accustomed to since their first settlement in Southern Thai waters, and when mass tourism began to develop in the area, the Urak Lawoi‟ became in fact a marginalized people. The question is to whom the use of land and resources of Ko Lipe and the park is actually reserved to; to the Urak Lawoi‟ or to the project developers who have transformed the beautiful island into a tourist paradise.
The Urak Lawoi‟ people have no literary tradition. Literacy among the Urak Lawoi‟ dates from the time of their settlement, when their children started to follow curricula at Thai schools. Texts in Urak Lawoi‟ are strictly modern, and written in a modified Thai script. Due to this fact it is impossible to know from written sources where the homeland of the Urak Lawoi‟ lay. A story widely told among the Urak Lawoi‟ gives us a glimpse of the possible whereabouts of the land of their ancestors. According to this oral tradition, the founder of the Urak Lawoi‟ „clan‟ arrived in Thailand four to five generations ago, from the Indonesian Daerah Istimewah Aceh, or, as it was then called, the province of Atjeh in the Netherlands Indies.
This paper aims to determine the true homeland of the Urak Lawoi‟ people by unraveling the oral tradition concerning their origin through linking available historical and linguistic evidence.
Urak Lawoi’ is a highly adaptive language that has developed alongside other Malay languages within the Malayan group (which also includes Para-Malay languages as Minangkabau and Temuan). Like the vocabulary of other Malay languages, such as Johor-Riau, Jambi, Kedah, Bengkulu and Pattani, that of UL is for the greater part cognate with the modern standard Malay (SM) languages, the most well known of which are the national languages of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia; BM) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia; BI) . When spoken, UL cannot be properly understood by speakers of SM. This is, however, primarily due to certain regular sound changes that have occurred during the last few centuries. By comparing UL with other Malay languages, and by considering loans in vocabulary and grammar which have occurred over time, we can define the place where the Urak Lawoi’ originated as a people, where they migrated from there, and in which places they chose to settle semi-permanently before making Southern Thailand their permanent domicile.
The Urak Lawoi’ have a lot in common with other Malay people, but there are also many things in which they differ. Originally a nomadic sea people, they have hardly been Indianized and never been Islamized, and until today hold on to their original animistic belief. Nomadic as they were, the Urak Lawoi’ have been in contact with many other peoples and cultures, and although they never yielded to complete adaptation to a dominant society’s culture, and only recently gave up their nomadic life style, they were still to an extend influenced by the groups they came into contact with. Many of these influences are reflected in the Urak Lawoi’ language. Urak Lawoi’ has loaned from, among other languages, Sanskrit, marginally from Arabic (via SM), from SM, English - directly and via SM - and most recently from Thai. So even though no written sources about the ethnic homeland of the Urak Lawoi’ exist, by considering natural phonetic change as well as loaning and grammatical influences from surrounding languages we can trace back the path that the Urak Lawoi’ people took from their place of origin - which lay along the east coast of Sumatra - with comparative ease. This paper offers to point out how migration, community forming and settlement of the Urak Lawoi’ is mirrored in their language.
Urak Lawoi’ is a highly adaptive language that has developed alongside other Malay languages from the Malayan group (which also includes Para Malay languages such as Minagkabau and Temuan). Like the vocabulary of other Malay languages, such as Johor-Riau, Jambi, Kedah, Bengkulu and Pattani, that of UL is for the greater part cognate with the modern standard Malay (SM) languages, the most well known of which are the national languages of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia; BM) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia; BI)3. When spoken, UL cannot be properly understood by speakers of SM. This is, however, primarily due to certain regular sound changes. By comparing UL with other Malay languages, and by considering loans in vocabulary and grammar which have occurred over time, we can define the place where the Urak Lawoi’ originated as a people, where they went from there, and in which places they chose to settle semi-permanently before making Southern Thailand their permanent domicile.
The Urak Lawoi’ have a lot in common with other Malay people, but there are also many things in which they differ. Originally a nomadic sea people, they have hardly been indianized and never been islamized, and until today hold on to their own animistic beliefs. Nomadic as they were, the Urak Lawoi’ have been in contact with many other peoples and cultures, and though they never yielded to complete adaptation to a dominant society’s values, and only recently gave up their nomadic life style, they were to a great extend influenced by the groups they came into contact with. Many of these influences are reflected in the Urak Lawoi’ language. Urak Lawoi’ has loaned from Sanskrit, SM, English (directly and via SM) and most recently from Thai. So even though no written sources about the ethnic homeland of the Urak Lawoi’ exist, by tracing linguistic development and influences we can trace back the path to their place of origin - which lay along the eastern coast of Sumatra - with comparative ease. This paper offers to point out how migration, community forming and settlement of the Urak Lawoi’ is mirrored in their language.
The conditions described above may be exemplified in the research I conducted on Basa Urak Lawoi’ and the description of the language that I completed recently (De Groot 2012). Due to their isolated history, the language of the Urak Lawoi’ is based on, describes and conveys a reality that is quite different from that of speakers of other Malay languages and that of any researcher venturing into their midst. The proximity of Urak Lawoi’ to other Malay languages therefore is in some cases a bonus to the researcher who speaks and understands Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Indonesia , although equally often it forms an obstacle for the correct understanding of its relation to truth and reality in the linguistic-philosophical sense. This paper will propagate reflection on whether, in situations as the described, the instrument of translation in general and the instrument of comparison with related languages in particular should be parts of the right method to go about linguistic research, or whether these instruments should be as much as possible dropped.
Books by Jacob de Groot
When all Urak Lawoi‟ inhabitants of the Tarutao and Adang Archipelagos were forced out of their villages on other islands to be resettled on Ko Lipe because the whole area was to become a national park, this had great consequences for the self sufficient life style that the Urak Lawoi‟ had become accustomed to since their first settlement in Southern Thai waters, and when mass tourism began to develop in the area, the Urak Lawoi‟ became in fact a marginalized people. The question is to whom the use of land and resources of Ko Lipe and the park is actually reserved to; to the Urak Lawoi‟ or to the project developers who have transformed the beautiful island into a tourist paradise.
The Urak Lawoi‟ people have no literary tradition. Literacy among the Urak Lawoi‟ dates from the time of their settlement, when their children started to follow curricula at Thai schools. Texts in Urak Lawoi‟ are strictly modern, and written in a modified Thai script. Due to this fact it is impossible to know from written sources where the homeland of the Urak Lawoi‟ lay. A story widely told among the Urak Lawoi‟ gives us a glimpse of the possible whereabouts of the land of their ancestors. According to this oral tradition, the founder of the Urak Lawoi‟ „clan‟ arrived in Thailand four to five generations ago, from the Indonesian Daerah Istimewah Aceh, or, as it was then called, the province of Atjeh in the Netherlands Indies.
This paper aims to determine the true homeland of the Urak Lawoi‟ people by unraveling the oral tradition concerning their origin through linking available historical and linguistic evidence.
Urak Lawoi’ is a highly adaptive language that has developed alongside other Malay languages within the Malayan group (which also includes Para-Malay languages as Minangkabau and Temuan). Like the vocabulary of other Malay languages, such as Johor-Riau, Jambi, Kedah, Bengkulu and Pattani, that of UL is for the greater part cognate with the modern standard Malay (SM) languages, the most well known of which are the national languages of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia; BM) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia; BI) . When spoken, UL cannot be properly understood by speakers of SM. This is, however, primarily due to certain regular sound changes that have occurred during the last few centuries. By comparing UL with other Malay languages, and by considering loans in vocabulary and grammar which have occurred over time, we can define the place where the Urak Lawoi’ originated as a people, where they migrated from there, and in which places they chose to settle semi-permanently before making Southern Thailand their permanent domicile.
The Urak Lawoi’ have a lot in common with other Malay people, but there are also many things in which they differ. Originally a nomadic sea people, they have hardly been Indianized and never been Islamized, and until today hold on to their original animistic belief. Nomadic as they were, the Urak Lawoi’ have been in contact with many other peoples and cultures, and although they never yielded to complete adaptation to a dominant society’s culture, and only recently gave up their nomadic life style, they were still to an extend influenced by the groups they came into contact with. Many of these influences are reflected in the Urak Lawoi’ language. Urak Lawoi’ has loaned from, among other languages, Sanskrit, marginally from Arabic (via SM), from SM, English - directly and via SM - and most recently from Thai. So even though no written sources about the ethnic homeland of the Urak Lawoi’ exist, by considering natural phonetic change as well as loaning and grammatical influences from surrounding languages we can trace back the path that the Urak Lawoi’ people took from their place of origin - which lay along the east coast of Sumatra - with comparative ease. This paper offers to point out how migration, community forming and settlement of the Urak Lawoi’ is mirrored in their language.
Urak Lawoi’ is a highly adaptive language that has developed alongside other Malay languages from the Malayan group (which also includes Para Malay languages such as Minagkabau and Temuan). Like the vocabulary of other Malay languages, such as Johor-Riau, Jambi, Kedah, Bengkulu and Pattani, that of UL is for the greater part cognate with the modern standard Malay (SM) languages, the most well known of which are the national languages of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia; BM) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia; BI)3. When spoken, UL cannot be properly understood by speakers of SM. This is, however, primarily due to certain regular sound changes. By comparing UL with other Malay languages, and by considering loans in vocabulary and grammar which have occurred over time, we can define the place where the Urak Lawoi’ originated as a people, where they went from there, and in which places they chose to settle semi-permanently before making Southern Thailand their permanent domicile.
The Urak Lawoi’ have a lot in common with other Malay people, but there are also many things in which they differ. Originally a nomadic sea people, they have hardly been indianized and never been islamized, and until today hold on to their own animistic beliefs. Nomadic as they were, the Urak Lawoi’ have been in contact with many other peoples and cultures, and though they never yielded to complete adaptation to a dominant society’s values, and only recently gave up their nomadic life style, they were to a great extend influenced by the groups they came into contact with. Many of these influences are reflected in the Urak Lawoi’ language. Urak Lawoi’ has loaned from Sanskrit, SM, English (directly and via SM) and most recently from Thai. So even though no written sources about the ethnic homeland of the Urak Lawoi’ exist, by tracing linguistic development and influences we can trace back the path to their place of origin - which lay along the eastern coast of Sumatra - with comparative ease. This paper offers to point out how migration, community forming and settlement of the Urak Lawoi’ is mirrored in their language.
The conditions described above may be exemplified in the research I conducted on Basa Urak Lawoi’ and the description of the language that I completed recently (De Groot 2012). Due to their isolated history, the language of the Urak Lawoi’ is based on, describes and conveys a reality that is quite different from that of speakers of other Malay languages and that of any researcher venturing into their midst. The proximity of Urak Lawoi’ to other Malay languages therefore is in some cases a bonus to the researcher who speaks and understands Bahasa Malaysia or Bahasa Indonesia , although equally often it forms an obstacle for the correct understanding of its relation to truth and reality in the linguistic-philosophical sense. This paper will propagate reflection on whether, in situations as the described, the instrument of translation in general and the instrument of comparison with related languages in particular should be parts of the right method to go about linguistic research, or whether these instruments should be as much as possible dropped.