An Overview of Sri Lanka's Multilingual Heritage

Prof. Sandagomi Coperhewa

This article is based on the speech about “An Overview of Sri Lanka's Multilingual Heritage” was delivered by Prof. Sandagomi Coperhewa who is a professor of University of Colombo in Modern Sinhala Usage and Grammar, Sociolinguistics, Language and Communication, at the UCSC auditorium under Enhancement program for the 1st year students of UCSC undergraduate program on 12th September 2018. As I understood, this lecture was mainly based on How Sri Lanka became multicultural & multilingual &, how to live with that.

Let's talk about language of Sri Lanka first,

Sinhala

From the origins, Sinhala is an Indu-Arya language which came from India but geographically separated from other Indu-Aryan languages.

Tamil

 Tamil is a Dravidian language which uses mainly Tamil and Muslim population of Sri Lanka. Tamil enjoyed a 'prestige' status in Sri Lanka after 12th century.

English 

 English was the official language of Sri Lanka from 1815 to 1956. As a colonial language, English continued to be the official language even after Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948.

Lesser known languages 

• Vedda Creole
• Portuguese Creole
• Sri Lanka Maley
• Rodi
• Sri Lanka Telugu (Ahikuntika)

Religious & Classical languages

• Pali
• Sanskrit
• Arabic
• Latin 

When we look at the history of Sri Lanka we can notice that the multilingualism has been there since the earliest times. 

As recorded in Mahavamsa, along with Buddhism came the Pali language, the language of the Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist monks became bilingual.

From 3BC to 21BC Sinhala written literary culture became more gain ground. It was based on Sinhala, Tamil, Pali & Sanskrit. In that era, the most considerable books has been written like Amawathura, Muwa dew da wata, Kaw Silumina, Saddharma Rathnawaliya, etc. According to the Mahavamsa Abhayagiri Vihara & Jethawana Vihara has became the knowledge centers of Sri Lanka of many languages like Sinhala, Pali & Sanskrit.

After the Polonnaruva period Tamil was studied in the seats of monastic learning. 

        example:-"Pawasathi saka magada elu demala kaw"

In this line of 'Giraa-Sandesa', the word 'magadha' is in Pali & 'demala' is in Tamil.

It also borrowed many Tamil words to the literature of Srnhala.

       example:-kannadi, ammaa, akkaa, padi, idam 

Classification of the borrowed words to Sinhala from other languages according to the 'Sidath Sangarawa'.

Nishpanna :- indigenous words

Thathsama :- similar with other language words

Thathbhawa :- derived  words from other language words.

In the 5th century Chinese monk Fa-Hsien(337 – c. 422) has came to Abayagiri monastries and started studying Sinhala, Pali and Sanskrit. Fa-Hsien has translated many books in Pali, Sanskrit to Sinhala. 

In 15th century, in the Kotte period Thotgamuwe Sri Rahula Thero has called 'Shad-Bhasha Parameshwara' which has the meaning of Master of six languages. I think there can be local and international languages too in those. Because in that period Kotte Kingdom had many international relationships according to the history.

In 16th century Alagiyawanna Mukaweti who wrote the book 'Subhashithaya' was the language translator between the Portuguese and the Sithawaka Kingdom. In Subhashithaya there's an another multilingual poem line,

"Demala saku magadha mahasalu satata dada".

In the late Kandy Kingdom, Nayakkar Period, the kings were from South India. So the Tamil language became more fluent among the Kandian people as same as the Portuguese or English among the Southern people. As a result of that there are some of the historical agreements that were signed by the ministers of the Royal Council like Ehalepola & Molligoda were in Tamil. And 'Paththirippuwa', 'Maaligaawa' are borrowed to Sinhala from Tamil in that period.

It was very important to mention that British were not able to subjugate the Kandian Kingdom if Sir John Doily wasn't in the country. He managed to learn Sinhala and other local languages from us and be able to be the major role of making Sri Lanka a Colony of them.

A British, Leonard Wolf, who wrote 'The Village in the Jungle'('Baddegama') is also a best example of the multilingual culture that Sri Lanka had. British and other Colonials also used the multilingual knowledge to their missionary work too. In case of that the first proper Sinhala-English dictionary was made by Rev.Benjamin Clough, a missionary. That's why we do most of the official works in English.

Conclution

Every language has it's own beauty. Sinhala is spoken and written differently. English is not a colonial language anymore. It is an international language that we all should learn well. We should learn fluently at least two languages accept our 1st language to live with multilingual heritage of our country.

-Asela Kotagama