The language planning situation in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This monograph examines the language planning situation in Sri Lanka with particular emphasis on the planning of Sinhala as an official language of the country. It explores the historical, social, ideological and political processes, changes in language policy decisions, as well as the complexities of the language policy and planning situation in the country. After a general account of the language profile of Sri Lanka, the sections that follow examine both status and corpus planning that have occurred in Sri Lanka since the country became independent in 1948. This monograph investigates the spread of Sinhala in education, literacy and the media and the role of English in the wider context. The final section describes some important recent developments in language planning in Sri Lanka and suggests some ideas for continuing research on language policy planning. This monograph demonstrates the linguistic, political and ethnic character of language planning in a South Asian post-colonial setting.

Keywords:

• Sri Lanka
• language policy
• language planning
• language conflict
• language standardization
• Sinhala
• diglossia
• language rights

Acknowledgements

I began to work on this topic during my postgraduate studies as a Commonwealth scholar at Lancaster University, UK (2003–2004). I must, therefore, thank Dr Mark Sebba and Dr Uta Papen at the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language for their comments on an earlier draft of this monograph. I gratefully acknowledge the comments made by the anonymous reviewers. Thanks are due to the editors of this series for their help in preparing this monograph. I must thank Ms. Kanchana Chandrasekera, Department of Geography, University of Colombo, for preparing maps for this monograph. I am also thankful to Mr Dulip Herath, LTRL, University of Colombo for providing information on computers and language technology research in Sri Lanka. The material for this monograph was collected at the following libraries and archives:

• the Sri Lanka National Archives,

• the National Library of Sri Lanka,

• University of Colombo,

• Lancaster University,

• University of Cambridge.

Notes

A national language is the language of a political, cultural, and social unit. An official language, in contrast, is simply a language that may be used for government business (Holmes, 1992, p. 105).

On 22 May 1972, Sri Lanka became a free, sovereign, and independent republic within the British Commonwealth.

Some scholars suggest using Sinhala for the language, and Sinhalese for the people who speak it, or using Sinhala as the adjective (Sinhala Culture) and Sinhalese as the noun (we are Sinhalese) (Disanayaka, 1998, p. 6). The origin of the name goes back to the myth of origin, as recorded in the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa. According to this myth of origin, the Sinhalese are said to be descendants of an Indian prince, named Vijaya, the grandson of a Sinha, literary lion.

(1) Language purification, (2) language revival, (3) language reform, (4) language standardization, (5) language spread, (6) lexical modernization, (7) terminology unification, (8) stylistic simplification, (9) interlingual communication, (10) language maintenance, (11) auxilary-code standardization (Nahir, 1984).

There were, and still are, two main theories in vogue; they may be referred to as the North-Eastern and North-Western hypotheses (M.W.S. De Silva, 1979).

Tamil language has influenced the structure and vocabulary of Sinhala to such an extent that some scholars were erroneously led to believe that Sinhala belongs to the Dravidian family of languages (Gnanaprakasar, 1936; Gunawardhana, 1924). However, according to historical linguistic evidence, it is true that non-Aryan influences – not necessarily only Dravidian, but also pre-Dravidian as well – have been at work in the development of the Sinhala language (Geiger & Jayatilaka, 1935).

Literary Sinhala utilizes two different alphabets: Miśra Sinhala (mixed Sinhala) and Śuddha Sinhala (pure Sinhala). The ‘pure’ Sinhala alphabet has been used mainly for versification by classical writers.

The script of these cave and rock inscriptions is the same as that of the most ancient historical inscriptions of India, the most notable of which are the Asokan inscriptions (Paranavitana, 1967).

Wijesekera (1965), however, suggests that the Veddas are not the aboriginal people of Sri Lanka, but rather that they migrated to the island from South India in prehistoric times.

Dr U. Ansalado, Assistant Professor, Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication, has launched a project (2004–2007) for comprehensive documentation of the Sri Lanka Malay varieties under the title ‘The documentation of Sri Lanka Malay: Linguistic and cultural creolization endangered’ (see http://www.onderzoekinformatie.nl/en/oi/nod/onderzoek/OND1301812/).

Sinhala has a number of words that also exists in Pali, but not in Sanskrit (Geiger & Jayatilaka, 1935, p. xix.)

Census Reports dated prior to 1901 classified the population into seven groups, i.e.: (i) Europeans, (ii) Sinhalese, (iii) Tamils, (iv) Moors, (v) Malays, (vi) Veddas (vii) others. The Census of 1901 further divided the Sinhalese into low-country Sinhalese and Kandyan Sinhalese. The 1911 Census introduced more races and divided Tamils into Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils, and divided Moors into Ceylon Moors and Indian Moors (see Sarkar, 1957, p. 190).

The July 2001 census was not conducted in areas controlled by the LTTE.

The pirivena is a monastic college that provided education for monks. In modern times it has been transformed into a more substantial centre for academic pursuits.

Kaduwa literally means ‘the sword’; it is Sinhala slang for English, common among Arts undergraduates.

A few years after the Colebrooke Commission, Lord Thomas Babington Macualay's famous minute (1835) on education and colonial language policy in India also pointed out the intent: ‘… to form a class Indians in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect; a class who could serve as interpreters between the government and the masses, and who, by refining the vernaculars, would supply the means of widespread dissemination of western knowledge’ (cited in Phillipson, 1992, p. 110).

The extent of English influence is confirmed by the founding of:

• St Thomas’ College in Colombo (1851) and of Trinity College in Kandy (1872) by the Anglicans;

• Jaffna Central College (1870) and of Wesley College in Colombo (1874) by the Methodists;

• St. John's College in Panadura (1891) by the Church Missionary Society and

• St. Joseph College in Colombo (1891) by the Catholics.

The influence of missionary linguistic work on the process of modernization in Sinhala still needs to be studied in detail.

Language renovation may involve language purification, i.e. the removal of foreign (lexical) influences or the adherence to the classical forms and lexicons of language (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2003: p.214).

Swa = own, bhāshā = language (Swabhāshā = own language), Sinhala, or Tamil.

The SLFP constitution, drafted in 1951, adopted Sinhalese and Tamil as official languages.

The Federal Party was dedicated to ‘the attainment of freedom for the Tamil –speaking people of Ceylon by the establishment of an autonomous Tamil state on the linguistic basis within the framework of a Federal Union of Ceylon’ (Kearney, 1978, p. 529).

S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike had allowed a transitional period of 5 years, with January 1961 as the date when the Act would be implemented in full.

The Marxist parties originally supported linguistic parity.

It is useful to compare Cumaratunga's notion of purity with the notions of eighteenth century English grammarians and also with Maraimalai Adigal's tanittamil movement in Tamilnadu, from 1930 to the 1950s.

In 1947, Ven. Yakkaduwe Prajnarāma, an oriental scholar from the Vidyālankāra Pirivena, Colombo, made this suggestion in order to bridge the gap between spoken and written forms, and this idea was supported by Martin Wickremasinghe, one of the foremost novelists and literary critics of that time; it was also supported by a group of university teachers in the 1960s (Dharmadasa, 1977).

After comparing all the existing typewriter keyboards, D.A. Jayakody, (a member of the committee) and L. L. Perera, (an independent expert from the Official Languages Department) worked out a basic design for a standard keyboard for a Sinhala typewriter (GOSL, 1959a). [Keyboard design was not a problem unique to Sinhala (Zhao, 2005).].

According to a survey conducted in 2000, there were only 166 translators available throughout the country. Out of that group, only 44 persons were able to translate from Sinhala into Tamil while only 108 persons were able to translate from Sinhala into English and a mere 14 persons were Tamil–English translators (Daily News, 2007a).