KADAZANDUSUN LANGUAGE FOUNDATION (KLF)
YAYASAN BAHASA KADAZANDUSUN
KOTINANAN MONOINA’ BOOS KADAZANDUSUN

INTRODUCTION
Almost half of Malaysia's indigenous languages belongs to the state of Sabah at the northern tip of Borneo Island. These Austronesian languages when identified, belong to either one of these four language families: Bajau (Sama-Bajau), Dusunic, Murutic or Paitanic.

Varying in user-size of several hundreds to hundreds of thousands, the Kadazandusun language under the Dusunic language family, is a pool of 13 languages including respective dialects which can account for over 500,000 speakers in a total Sabahan population of 3.06 million (Sabah Statistics Department Year 2000).

The past two decades challenged mother tongue use in the Kadazandusun community. Faced with a rapid decline in the use of the mother tongue especially amongst their young, all attempts were made to halt the erosion of indigenous knowledge bound closely to the survival of the mother tongue.

With vigilance, Kadazandusun community elders and leaders swore to pave the way in reinstating the status of the mother tongue in the community. In layers of efforts, language resurgence came to, establishing stronger commitments from each individual in the Kadazandusun community.

Language survey and research helped the community understand how they have neglected their mother tongue language. A language survey in 1985 (Lasimbang, Miller & Otigil, 1992), showed that the main reason for this was the lack of conversation in the mother tongue at home. The survey pointed out that intermarriage, urbanisation, language contact, formal education system, mass media and language prestige were also the major factors in deterring the use of the Kadazandusun language in the home domain. This alarmed the community a great deal and Kadazandusun parents everywhere voiced a grave concern-can this trend be reversed?

This cry for help encouraged individuals and professionals within the community to initiate and combine efforts to preserve, promote and develop the Kadazandusun language. A pilot project in the establishment of the Kadazan (later Kadazandusun) Language Centre (KLC) in 1994 saw to the conducting of Kadazandusun language classes to children of Kadazandusun parents, for the first time in a formal setting. (KLC later became the stepping stone to the inclusion of the Kadazandusun language in Malaysian formal education.)

It was clear by then, that a language body--that will specifically conduct linguistic research, prepare literature in the vernacular languages, assist in literacy education as well as conduct language classes--was needed.

Thus began the Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF) in June 20, 1995. Established as a non-profit-making research institute and registered in the name of "The Registered Trustees of the Kadazandusun Language Foundation of Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan" (Trustees (Incorporation) Ordinance 1951 Cap. 148 (Sabah), Malaysia), KLF seeks to continue the effort to preserve, promote and develop the use of the mother tongue in the Kadazandusun community.