Saluan - A Flourishing Language

P & H moved from their home country to live and work among the Saluan people in Indonesia for seven years, learning the language and compiling a dictionary. Their desire was to encourage the people to continue using their own language and preserve their culture and heritage.

Over the years, they produced a Saluan dictionary app (with an Indonesian, English and German index) that was first launched in 2018 and has been updated several times since. Apart from the dictionary app, a marine life app and a Saluan song app were published as well.

P & H produced a Saluan dictionary app, downloadable from Google Playstore

In 2020, they returned to their home country for their children to complete their education, but they continued to support the Saluan people and their language. Working remotely with their Saluan helpers, they continue to transcribe recordings in order to analyse the language and create new reading material for the Saluan community. With every transcribed recording, the text corpus grows and many new entries are added to the lexicon. Other than during the Covid years, they have made annual visits to reconnect with their team, and collect more materials and language data.

Saluan folk stories as children's books

Over the years, they have collected many folk stories from several older Saluan people. These were published last year through a folk story app (Undu-Unduon Saluan*) that includes audio recordings to help people read the Saluan stories. They have also produced little booklets with some of these stories, beautifully illustrated by P (formerly a graphic designer). These were distributed to a few villages to promote literacy during their visit this year. The grandson of one of the men who contributed stories was thrilled to see the booklets of his grandfather’s stories!

Undu-Unduon Saluan, the beautifully-illustrated Saluan folktales app

God's better plans

P & H had made an appointment to see the regent of that regency, but disappointingly, that fell through. But God had prepared another plan! They discovered that a brand-new public library had been opened just the month before, intended to be the centre of literacy for the entire region! They were invited in and introduced to the head of the education department as well as the head of the library who were very excited to see the printed folk story booklets. They shared with P & H how they realised that they really didn’t have any material in Saluan, and they would love to have some local literature for their grand opening in three months’ time. With great joy, P and H were able to offer to print a collection of the stories for the library, and also share the mobile app. 

Library of Luwuk, the Centre for Literacy for the entire region

“Why are you doing this, and for free?”

During a subsequent meeting with library staff, P & H were asked by one of the senior staff, “Why are you doing this, and for free?” They answered, “Because we love the Saluan people and their language.” The staff were surprised, and one of them was clearly touched by the response. H said she saw a glimmer of a tear in his eye! Later they found out that these staff were actually from the Saluan people group. One of the library staff has since offered to help with collecting more Saluan folk stories.

What next?

P & H don’t intend to stop here! They will continue collecting more folk tales to add to the existing corpus. They also plan to translate each story into Indonesian, English and German, and combine them into one book! 

Another project they hope to begin in the future is to collect and publish information about medicinal use of native plants by the Saluan people, a valuable part of their cultural heritage. They have started taking some photos and collecting basic information in preparation.

For the Saluan and many other minority people groups, such literacy projects not only preserve their language, culture and heritage, but also open doors to education and jobs. We can also pray that they will eventually be able to read the Word of God in their own language.

*To download the Saluan folk story app, go to Google Play Store Undu-Unduon Saluan.

*Learn more about the Saluan people here.