A Message from the Chairman of KLF Board of Trustees

Welcome to KLF's Website!

It is a well-known fact that a culture of harmony in a society is largely due to the diligent maintenance of respective cultural heritages there are. This is more so for a multi-racial country like Malaysia where UNESCO has recorded some 138 languages and cultural groups in existence.

For the Kadazandusun community, the task of language and cultural preservation is a serious one. One that is made evermore acute in daily challenges of modern living. But a deep chord of awareness has been struck in all of us, causing a resurgence of pride in our language and culture. Therefore, protecting what we know is tried and true--our customs, traditions and language-ought forevermore to be a conscientious task.

The Kadazandusun Language Foundation (KLF) has been established to achieve these goals on the collective front, that is--to provide professional leadership in preservation, development and promotion activities that will seek to arrest the erosion of cultural values, chiefly, the mother tongue.

We have acknowledged that the mother tongue is a vital key in unlocking the treasure-trove of cultural information of the Kadazandusun people. More often than not, age-old information from our elders can only be gained in conversation with them. Hence the importance of the mother tongue as a means of unearthing important information such as the Kadazandusun worldview and the terminologies there are in a host of customs and practices.

As an officially recognized indigenous people, let us promote the unique facets of our culture by preserving our mother tongue. I implore firstly to Kadazandusun brothers and sisters all over this world-to play a concrete role in this matter. You can start today by simply using your mother tongue to express yourself whenever possible. You are indeed an essential link to this sacred duty of preserving our lineage through language and culture.

We at KLF very much look forward to hearing from you; in your ideas on how you can play an active part in this mission. Drop us a line and post your comments in our 'Guest Book'. We also take this opportunity to thank our foreign friends for viewing our website, you, too, may help us in our concerns and we welcome your ideas, support and financial contributions.

On behalf of the Foundation, I thank you kindly for viewing our website, enjoy the site and 'Happy Surfing'!

Yours sincerely,

Tan Sri Simon Sipaun
Chairman,
KLF Board of Trustees.