Author: Rover - mworth8@gmail.com
Sinhala is a distinct language that evolved in-situ in Sri Lanka, and Tamil language evolved in India, but still, Sri Lankan Tamil is distinguishable from Indian Tamil. Sinhala has a more unique word repertoire than Sri Lankan Tamil, when compared to any other language in the world. In other words, almost no Sinhala will be identified by any Indian (or any other race), whereas most of Sri Lankan Tamil would be understood by at least 65 million Indians. Here the mechanisms that may have been important in the evolution and development these two languages are considered.
The roots of Sinhala is Indo-Germanic (Aryan) in origin but is very distinct from its Indian mother language. The reason for this is probably allopatry (evolving in isolation), which is an important mechanism in the evolution of new languages (as much as the evolution of new species). To gather a fairly substantial repertoire of unique words that the Sinhala language has, Sinhala must have evolved in isolation for over a long period of time in Sri Lanka. It may have both retained some ancestral words that have now gone extinct in its mother language, and also would have evolved unique words. Given the fact that there are so many disparate languages in the Indo-Aryan group of languages even within India were strict isolation is not possible, it is not surprising that Sinhala quickly evolved to be a unique language in isolation.
The most parsimonious explanation to the origin and evolution of Tamil would have been in India, as it has the greater population (that use Tamil) in India and the roots to other Indian languages (like Kannada and Malayalam) is quite distinct. There are only a fewer unique words peculiar to 'Sri Lankan Tamil' when compared to Indian Tamil; but a little bit more so with other south Indian Dravidian languages; and the Sri Lankan Tamil grammar is also slightly different from that of Indian Tamil. This too would have happened due to the isolation of Sri Lankan Tamil language, but to a lesser degree, when compared to Sinhala.
It is hard to imagine a scenario where Sinhala evolving in India and then, the whole population migrating over to Sri Lanka (without leaving many traces of this language in India); or that after part of this hypothetical population moved over to Sri Lanka, the ancestral population going extinct in India (I don't think in India languages would readily go extinct, evidenced by the number of languages that persists together). However the languages that persist today in India are closely interrelated to each other, and hence the roots of these languages are embedded very much in India. These alternative explanations are less parsimonious than the one mentioned above.
Hence Sinhala must have evolved in isolation over a longer period of time (it would be hard to determine how fast a language evolves as many complex factors are involved), when compared to Sr Lankan Tamil.
However, Tamil people have also lived in Sri Lanka for over a very long period of time, and they also have some words that are not used by Indian Tamils. For example, names with a –koon ending (like Gnanakoon) are not known from India. However, these names have even filtered into Sinhala names (like Tennakoon ect.). The grammar of Sri Lankan Tamil people is also distinct from that of Indian Tamils. This shows that isolation of the Sri Lankan Tamils from India have given rise to this.
All the natural languages in the world are closed systems, this means that you don’t need to go outside the rules of grammar of a given language to find explanations for meaningful statements that it can make. Grammar, in a given language, is a system in which words are put together to express something meaningful; contrary to popular belief, however in natural languages, grammar evolves a long time before writing, and most of the rules of grammar are based on speech/sound, rather than writing.
If grammar is based on sound/speech, can all of these languages use a single script to write in that language?! Yes in theory it can (we can write a Tamil sentence that is sounded out, using Sinhala letters right?), but the script must be flexible enough to write all these sounds effectively. Ancient Brahmi script was used to write in many languages, it was the root script for most of contemporary scripts in the Asian region, including surprisingly even perhaps Korean (Brahmi script also is the basis for the alphabetical order for Japanese Kana). However, some of the sounds, for example that you find in Sanskrit, cannot be written using Brahmi script, so another slightly different system developed, which is called Prakrit (but even for Prakrit, the roots are in Brahmi script). However, I should mention, despite this short coming, that early Sanskrit has also been written in Brahmi script.
It is pertinent to talk a little bit about King Asoka and his inscriptions, as he greatly influenced the establishment of Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka. Asoka’s inscriptions were written in Prakrit, to be precise, Magadhi Prakrit. Some think that Pali (the language of Theravada Buddhism) and Maghadi Prakrit are the same. And when Mahinda Thero, Asoka’s son who introduced Buddha Dharma to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Devanampiyatissa, he also introduced Pali to Sri Lanka. Though Pali was not significantly absorbed into Sinhala, the Sinhalese lay people maintain the Pali language as a religious oral tradition in the form of Buddhist gathas and sutras, and currently write and perpetuate these in Sinhala script.
The earliest inscriptions in Sri Lanka, before the evolution of the Sinhala script, are in Brahmi script; and both Sinhala and Tamil scripts evolved from this. Sinhala adopted a more circular style (some argue that this style was easier to be written on Palm leaves -Thalpath- without damaging them) the origin of this again occurred in Sri Lanka and Tamil script evolved into a more angular style, and the origin was in Southern India. (At a time when we are only talking about differences, I thought I should highlight what we share).
According to William Geiger, some of the unique sounds that are not seen in Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages arose in Sinhala during the 6th century AD. And these sounds were accommodated in its script, which had at this point evolved very close to its present form. Sri Lankan Tamil people, possibly very recently, perhaps due to the influence of mass media, have slightly adopted these sounds, but most still cannot pronounce these sounds. However, it is not present in their written grammar, as Tamil script cannot accommodate these sounds. So again we see a recent attempt by Sri Lankan Tamil people to adopt these Sinhala sounds, even when their script does not really allow it.
Considering that language is one of the causes for the ethnic tension between the two groups, it is high time that both ethnicities in Sri Lanka work together, enjoying the common origins that we share, appreciating things that we don’t share, and respecting the attempts at integration of some of the unique features of these languages. This is the best way to prevent terrorist groups like the LTTE that play to the lower instincts of people from gaining a foot hold in our Sri Lankan society.
This is a rewrite of one of my brief notes that appeared here. The bloggers Wijayapala, ReallyCold and Swarnajith Udana are acknowledged for highlighting a couple of issues that needed to be clarified.
I will refine and update the article on "separate homeland" later.
ReplyDeleteI admire your conclusion. This kind of thinking of highlighting what is common to us cab help our cause.
ReplyDelete"Considering that language is one of the causes for the ethnic tension between the two groups, it is high time that both ethnicities in Sri Lanka work together, enjoying the common origins that we share, appreciating things that we don’t share, and respecting the attempts at integration of some of the unique features of these languages. This is the best way to prevent terrorist groups like the LTTE that play to the lower instincts of people from gaining a foot hold in our Sri Lankan society."
Swarnajith Udana
Elegantly put Rover. I agree completely with your analysis. Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteWell done Rover. Finally I think I know who you are. You should write with your own name. why use a dog's name?!
ReplyDeleteFirst anonymous, Thanks, mate, let me know if you see mistakes.
ReplyDeleteSecond Annonymous. Thanks to you as well. I use the name Rover mostly to mean a person who goes everywhere, and because i like Land Rovers, not to mean a dog!
Anyway, it doesn't matter who I am, only the things that I say are important. Right?
Hello Moss 2007,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your input. I do not support the LTTE at all (if you read the link given in the paragraph before the last, you will see where I stand regarding this).
The idea behind writing this note was to show extremists of both sides to accept that 1. Sinhala is a language that origninated in Sri Lanka, 2. Tamil is a very old language that originated in India, 3. The historical interactions between the two groups (actually, I will be writing a separate note for this to explain this point better). All this was done to show the extremists of both sides the futility of engaging in a struggle when we have lived together for most of our history.
So through this, I am also arguing that LTTE ideals should not be followed blindly.
Hi Rover, good article, but I had doubts about he evolution of the circular style as happening in Sri Lanka. Check out the old-kannada letters - http://www.ancientscripts.com/old_kannada.html
ReplyDeleteThe la, ra, va letters show unmistakable similarities to the corresponding sinhala letters.
I also have doubts about your statement about Japanese script. As far as I know Kanji comes from Chinese script - which is even at a conceptual level totally different from Brahmi script.
Good article. Gives us a good idea of our language. One of the things that was missing in our school days was the evolution of Sinhalese language (Maybe it was there, but never bothered to learn it as the importance was less understood.). The conclusion was good, I wish that is true though, my belief is language is an excuse for fighting for a separate state.
ReplyDeleteThusitha
Thanks for shareing your knowledge of the language with us.
Anonymous - Thank you so much for highlighting your concerns, really appreciate this.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Japanese script, I made a mistake. Japanese script is based on Chinese scripts. But the order of the Japanese Kana is based on the Brahmi order.
I need to do a bit more research on what you say about beginning of the circular style of Sinhala script occurring in India. Will amend my note, after ascertaining this. Sure we may have borrowed some letters from some other script. Moreover, many of the rock-artists that worked on Sri Lankan Temple came from India. So we they may have introduced some of the scripts to Sinhala.
Hello Thusitha - I am really glad that you like this.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much more that our education system could do to prevent problems like terrorism dragging down our country to the gutter. We need to emphasize to our kids, our common origins, appreciation of diversity, liberal ideals ect. Given that our people are one of the a smartest in the world, doing this is so easy, if we have the will.
Hi Moss:
ReplyDeleteYou seemed to be frustrated since there is no uprising from Tamils against LTTE.
Therefore you seemed to think Tamils are a lesser ethnic group than us.
That was how Hitler thought, for this or that reason Jews were a children of a lesser God.
If you apply the criteria to all around then all races would fit to this.
Why there was no uprising against Stalin ism for seventy years?
Why there was not uprising against Hitler from German people?
Why there was no popular uprising in Sri Lanka against JVP?
Why there were only three or four uprisings against colonial powers in Sri Lanka?
Why there was no uprising from a Sihalese village people when a thug grabbed and dragged a young woman for raping in front of the whole village? This happened when Dayasena Gunasinghe was the Editor of Silumina.
I think that you have heard NandiMithra Jathakaya. Even animals like gentle treatment.
So do you think Tamils do not feel or care about the torture coming from their so called saviors?
We do not like war. We hate war. We hate war more since sometimes it is unavoidable.
We think this is one of those times. So we support this war.
We support annihilation of LTTE.
but we stand for Tamils and Sinhalese and all other groups.
We are pro Sinhalese and pro Tamil. We are for one Nation.
But we do not believe either of Sinhalese or Tamil is completely innocent of this conflict.
But we do not condemn general Sinhalese or Tamil public even though still both should share some guilt
We never stand for any Elam or even a council run by LTTE.
I hope that this would clear things up.
Your kind of thinking provides fertilizer for LTTE and some NGO propaganda. In one of the blog you would have been accused of as being LTTE, but I do not think so.
You and I both think the way we think is right, but I repeatedly look and analyze how I think! I change my ideas when I am convinced that I am wrong. But, abuse and filth turns me off.
Thanks! With best regards
SU
Hi Rover,
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you say about the uniqueness of the Sinhala language- it has Indo-Aryan (IA) roots but there certainly are a lot of non-IA features, and not all of those are even Dravidian. Certain words like "oluwa," "kakula" etc can be traced to no known language family and possibly may originate with the pre-Sinhala/Tamil Sri Lankan culture. Sinhala developed largely in isolation but with some influence from S. Indian language.
A great book with a theory of the origins of Sinhala is "Historical Phonology of Sinhala" by W.S. Karunatillake, whom I think is probably the best linguistic scholar of Sinhala out there. He traces the root of Sinhala to the Kalinga/Magadha region of India which used the same prakrit (shown in Asokan inscriptions). Interestingly there is a place called Gond in that region where I've heard the women tie sarees similarly as in Sri Lanka.
I think I disagree with Geiger that the unique sounds in Sinhala arise in the 6th century CE. I think they had existed before and were perhaps accommodated into the script in that century. Sri Lankan Tamils cannot pronounce some of these sounds well, and they have not been accommodated into the script, but there nevertheless is evidence that these unique sounds influenced the SL Tamil dialect from an early date to distinguish it from Indian Tamil (i.e. SL name "Jeyaraj" vs Indian "Jayaraj"). Believe it or not but a lot of Indian Tamils have a hard time understanding Sri Lankan Tamil.
The oldest Tamil script was Brahmi, which in S. India evolved to the now-extinct Vatteluthu, but the modern script derived from Grantha.
Hello Wijayapala,
ReplyDeleteGlad that you read what I wrote, and thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree with all of what you have said, except perhaps the contradiction regarding Geiger.
Thanks for suggesting Karunatilleke's book. This should be interesting.
"but the modern script derived from Grantha."
I didn't go into too much details about this. Yes, but the root for Grantha is also Brahmi script right? Sinhala script was also influenced by Grantha. Though Devangari script is normally write in Sanskrit, Grantha script was used by some Tamils to write Sanskrit.
Ah, so addictive this stuff. Hate to see all these people with such deep cultures, tradition and ancient wisdom hating each other. It was very disappointing to see Moss's comment about Tamil.
Anyway, the point is now clearer I think, Sinhala and Tamil shared a common script.
Rover said...
ReplyDelete...Given that our people are one of the a smartest in the world, doing this is so easy, if we have the will.
March 16, 2009 10:09 PM
Sorry Rover but just where do you, or anyone else, get off saying their people are one of the smartest in the world?
That is a clear suggestion of ethnic supremacy and that sort of talk is racist, inflammatory and always leads to trouble... like the troubles in Sri Lanka where extremists on both sides endlessly point to their inherent ethnic superiority .
Say your people are amongst the better educated, say they are hard working and honest, say they are a good people with a rich history of artistic, architectural and literary accomplishment but don't say they are among the smartest as it smacks of the same attitude the Nazi's instilled in the very followers that enabled many of the worst the atrocities of WW2.
A little humility goes a long way in solving problems... the GoSL, the Diaspora and the TNA could all use a good dollop of it.
++$++
Hello Miss Information:
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment. Then again how can we say we are the most hard working?
We may say that we are better educated given that we have some measured index to back it up. Then again our evaluation depends on the chosen index and
it happens that we are top in that index not because of our superior genes but because of policy framework and the environment.
There may be some attributes that have been evolved through centuries particular to ethnic groups, but this particularity is due to the environment they happened to evolve in. This might have changed the genes a little bit. Then again this could have happened to any ethnic group, had they lived in that particular environment.
Thanks!
Swarnajith Udana
Hello Miss Information, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteYou have misrepresented what I said.
I said OUR PEOPLE (meaning Sri Lankans, not distinguishing between Tamils and Sinhalese) are ONE (so there are others as well) of the SMARTEST (smart can be defined in many ways -lets not go there-, anyway it could be the ability to learn and understand as well, I used the word here in that context).
Humility is always good, and should be what we need to strive for.
The Nazi comment is uncalled for. Consider the full context of the article, not just a sentence. And even that sentence, you misunderstood.
Miss Information,
ReplyDeleteI also said at the end of the article (not the comment):
"Considering that language is one of the causes for the ethnic tension between the two groups, it is high time that both ethnicities in Sri Lanka work together, enjoying the common origins that we share, appreciating things that we don’t share, and respecting the attempts at integration of some of the unique features of these languages. This is the best way to prevent terrorist groups like the LTTE that play to the lower instincts of people from gaining a foot hold in our Sri Lankan society."
Since I am the author of the article, I think you should interpret what I say in the context of the article, without assumptions not dwelling too much on the semantics of my comments.