CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background

Ambai is vernacular spoken by the Ambai people from Yapen island

Papua. Ambai is a term refers to the people, tribe and language for a sub tribe

among nine sub tribes of Yapen namely: Ansus, Ambai, Woi, Pom, Papuma,

Marau, Munggui, Busami, Yawa, Saweru and Wabo. The people of Ambai since

long time ago have involved in mobilization from island to island and have been

migrated to other parts of Papuan such Hollandia (Jayapura), Sorong, Manokwari,

Nabire and even to Vanimo Papua New Guinea. The Ambai people is traditionally

sailors so they have migrated along the coastal area of North part of Papuan island

and occupy the location mentioned from times ago.

Manokwari is one of the destiny location for Ambai people to pursue life.

The motivation behind migration of Ambai to Manokwari is the same with

migration of Ambai to Jayapura (Hollandia). A motivation reasonably argue of

Ambai people to Manokwari and Jayapura have relation with social economic and

social politics factors. The two areas as destiny location are city center of

development Manokwari was since 1892 was a capital of Noord Netherland New

Guinea, Meanwhile, Jayapura Hollandia was capital of Papua since 1949.

(Schrool. 1997).
 This study would like to investigate Ambai language as vernacular how it

becomes identity of the people along with growing of Manokwari city with its

social-cultural demand; the growing of city socially push such as high pressure for

local people which traditionally came from different traditions and languages. For

a reason of interaction in a socio multilingual community their traditionality

degrade in manners and behavior. One of the degradation is a traditional language.

In this case Ambai language in Manokwari.

This study is a study conducted under applied linguistic concern

particularly sociolinguistic. Sociolinguistic is a study of relationship between

language and society, but more focus on language existence. In other word how a

society is seen from their language identity is a main point of sociolinguistic.

J.C.Chambers (1995) classify the domain of sociolinguistic into personal

characteristic, socio-cultural factors and sociological factors. According to

Chamber (1995:11) sociolinguistic and sociology of the language guide similar,

but are differ in focus of finding. Sociolinguistic is the study of relationship

between language and society with the goal of understanding is the structure of

language. Sociology of language is study of relationship between language and

society with goal of understanding the structure of society.

Ambai people in Manokwari are one of society with their own language.

In living in Manokwari as multilingual community naturally they have domains of

Ambai language usage which is as identity. This study would like to survey how it

happens. Language sometimes socially could stand alive depend on the manner or

behavior of the speaker toward the language; suppose they thought the language
important it could live impact on existence of the language, but were they think it

is not important, then the language is unhealthy. Some social factors such as

economy, education, politics, trades and global information are the factors that

can resulted in degradation of first language usages by vernacular speakers into

second language. Theoretically, the first language speaker of vernacular will mix

and switch and finally shift their speech acts from L1 to L2 or vice versa.

This study would like see those sociolinguistics phenomenons on Ambai

language. Through a Survey this sociolinguistics studies aimed to provide a data

about Ambai society and their linguistic competency and proficiency.