Bahasa Punan Bah [Ba']: Satu Rintisan Awalan is a research on Punan [Ba] but the data is Penan


UPDATED. "Bahasa Punan Bah [Ba']: Satu Rintisan Awalan" is grossly misleading for one main reason. The survey data actually collected among the Penan near Bintulu. Locally they are known as "Penan Batu 12". 

Simply put, it is akin to do a research about Iban (Sea Dayak), but then went on to gather data from a Bidayuh (Land Dayak) village. 

Furthermore, the Penan community at Batu 12 actually prefer to speak the Melanau Bintulu or Vaie dialect instead of Penan. Many in fact, identified themselves as 'Vaie'. Therefore, unsuspecting researcher would end up collected a mashup of languages - Penan, Vaie and Punan wordlist. 

No amateur researchers

Those involved in this research are amateurs - but professors and lecturer at local universities. As such, Punan National Association (PNA) was compelled to highlight the critical error in the paper. A letter was sent out to the the professors and lectures involved.

The lead author said she had requested the paper to be retracted in a letter. However, it is still widely circulated online, for example here at this  Malaysian Citation - accessed on 1/2/2020. The original link was here at UNIMAS.

Do please avoid citing the paper in your academic practice. PNA letter is attached below.

PNA letter to UMS
PNA complaint letter to Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS)


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