“There was information the Arabian language
too, was being used in Muslim-majority areas in the eastern province, […] roads and lanes are being displayed only in the Tamil and Arabian languages there. Extremist forces are trying to promote the use of the Arabian language among the Muslims,” Colombo media reports cited Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) central committee member, Ven. Passaramulla Dayawansa Thera saying earlier this month. The very Sinhala language itself evolved in a similar process of Buddhism introducing a religious language, Pali, to overlap with the proto-Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tongues prevailing in the island. Later, a myth was created that the Sinhalese came with their language from North India to get ‘polluted’ by ‘South Indian invaders’, responded an academic in the island.
too, was being used in Muslim-majority areas in the eastern province, […] roads and lanes are being displayed only in the Tamil and Arabian languages there. Extremist forces are trying to promote the use of the Arabian language among the Muslims,” Colombo media reports cited Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) central committee member, Ven. Passaramulla Dayawansa Thera saying earlier this month. The very Sinhala language itself evolved in a similar process of Buddhism introducing a religious language, Pali, to overlap with the proto-Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic tongues prevailing in the island. Later, a myth was created that the Sinhalese came with their language from North India to get ‘polluted’ by ‘South Indian invaders’, responded an academic in the island.
The government has a responsibility to stop Muslims using Arabic before the country’s unity is adversely affected, the Sinhala Buddhist monk was further cited in Colombo media.
If the Tamil-speaking Muslims in the island have started adding Arabic in their public usages and if there are claims that the Muslims are descendants of Arabs, there must be valid political, social and cultural anthropological pressures and reasons for it, the academic commented, adding that the larger and fundamental issues have to be understood rather than further extremism coming from a misplaced State formation of colonial legacy in the island.
Unlike classical Tamil and modern Tamil that have accommodated all the major religions of the world and have come out with original literature on them, the Sinhala language unfortunately is linked to only Buddhism and with much reluctance to Christianity. The Sinhalese have to understand the lacuna in their linguistic heritage, the academic said.
There is a popular tendency in the Sinhalese today to look at any Tamil or Dravidian element in their language and cultural heritage as ‘later arrivals’ that have come with ‘South Indian invaders’. In recent times, this pronouncement is repeatedly stressed like a maniacal campaign, whenever any Sinhala writer explains the presence of anything that is Tamil or Dravidian in the island.
The Sinhalese have to question seriously why can’t it be the other way round, the academic said.
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