Focus on Books :

Sri Lankan film chronicle

by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra

Titled in Sinhala as Sri Lankeya Cinema Vamsaya (Sarasavi publishers, 2005) is the largest and most up to date voluminous record laid down in Sinhala giving almost all the details pertaining to the making of Sri Lankan cinema inclusive of such details as the names of producers, directors the cast and other information such as the year of production with necessary pictures as relevant to a complete fact file type of text.

The young Sinhala journalist Nuvan Nayanajit Kumara the indefatigable compiler has been surveying over a period of nearly 20 years of his life (1986-2005) unravelling almost all the sources pertaining to the subject in order to compile this volume running to 767 pages.

If a film fan or an enthusiast is interested on knowing the number of films made in Sri Lanka (Sinhala Tamil and English) and the number of times a particular actor or actress had participated or the number of films made by a particular director, his directory gives meticulous details including, as Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne said at the launching ceremony even, the date of birth of actresses which reveal the age factor are jealousy preserved as secrets in the trade are hunted in this survey.

Anyway coming on to a more serious point, the main intention is to impart knowledge and information on all aspects of the Sri Lankan film industry enabling the sincere understanding of paths and by paths of the same over the years.

In many ways this is not a mere record of the history of films but a complete compilation with a preface to the making of films in our country and the socio-communicational background factors that lay embedded in the long journey that is still on going.

One would come to know that the nature of the earliest Sinhala Tamil and English language films made in the country. Then comes that list of films made as documentary and news which also had a certain degree of impact on the development of the local film industry.

There are also several other productions that included the films with voices dubbed and borrowed from various foreign language sources especially the hindi and the Tamil works and foreign langauge films made locally. A list of those films is also included as a parallel stream of study which has added an extra dimension to the compilation.

On reading the text of the compiler Nayanajit, I found the genesis of the personal or the private film ownership on the part of the cine magnates in our country could go into another volume of research material. How they managed to build the film industry is laid down in a manner that could be researched more by the author.

Then comes a long list of films which were made in the country which won awards at home and abroad with all the records neatly arranged providing information in the best possible manner.

It is believed that quite a number of local film periodicals, books, monographs, souvenirs, brochures, documents and journals have paved the way for the development of the film industry as it is visualized today. A long list of these data too is given as culled from various archives, libraries and private collections.

Some of the rare photographs possessing a historic significance connected with the development of the film industry are also laid down with an eye catching manner. This I felt is a brilliant review of past cine literature on the part of a scientific researcher cum investigator.

In this direction the compiler's discipline is multifaceted. At times he is a commentator and at times he is a historian and a scribe who attributes his findings to the relevant source referred to with honour due to a person or a source.

This is one factor that is undermined by most compilers and pretend that all what finds belongs to him or her. Nayanajit shows not only his honesty and ability but also the respect to others in his field or research and survey. Hand in hand goes the accounts connected with the film festivals over the years which too paved the way for the building up of a cine culture a subject that is taken seriously by the cine enthusiast.

Film studies have come to stay as a serious discipline in social sciences and humanities. The student who so wants to further his studies in the subject area has to be equipped with sufficient information on various areas of his selected spectrum.

This is the type of compendium that would basically provide such material at his beck and call. All in all, this is not a mere heap of papers printed with a collection of details but also with an encyclopedic insight. A commendable effort.

###############

Light-hearted humour

Anguished English, An anthology of accidental assault upon our language, Author: Richard Lederer, A laurel book published by Dell publishing Group Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York 10103, 177 pp

"These may be the hilarious pages available these days to the word drunk admirer of verbal frailty... A ludicrous boutique of infelicity," says The Boston Global commenting on Lederer Anguished English Richard Lederer PhD, an English teacher at St. Paul's school in Concord, New Hampshire, has published more than 500 articles and books about English langauge and literature.

This book is an anthology of bloopers collected by Lederer. The author, in his simple survey, presents language errors made by different language users. His blundering community encompasses copy writers, students, sign markers, lawyers, politicians, and even church rectors.

These errors are not a collection of errors deliberately designed by the author for pedagological purposes but an anthology of authentic mistakes, errors, blunders and slips of the tongue by both native and non-native language users.

The hilarious collection of errors recorded by the author amuses laymen. For a linguist, this will give an insight into the multiplicity of causes for language errors. All these errors collected by the author have been recorded under four sections: Schoolishness, The blunderful world of bloopers, Inspired Gibberish and Grammar Gaffes.

Among these errors there are phonological, morphological, syntactic and orthographical errors.

Phonological errors

"Language lovers have bewailed the state of pronunciation and articulation in the United States," says the author writing an introduction to the chapter where he illustrates how mis-pronunciation can create humour.

"My house is robbed call the please" cries a neighbour when he wants somebody to call the police. (page 174)

"Mobel and I have entered the bridge torment, says a girl referring to a tournament.

"I am in love with a girl neck store says a boy when referring to a girl who lives next door". The author records a typical American exchange -

A - jeet jet
B - no jew
A - sgo

The dialogue when it is translated into sensible English, goes like this:

A - Did you eat?
B - No, did you?
A - Let's go, (Page 172)

Morphological errors

Errors of this nature are common among both native and non-native speakers. The inexperienced langauge learner thinks that all words with the same stem bear same meaning.

This is one of the misconceptions that cause morphological errors.

Some examples from Lederer's Anguished English justify the above findings.

A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene angel writes a student who loves geometry. A young scholar defining adolescence writes "Adolescence is a stage between puberty and adultery."

Syntactic errors

Wrong word order in sentences can distort the meaning of them. This also produces something that the writer never intend to write Lederer has a large stock of examples.

'Some sources said, shortly after his death, Mao Tse Tung had expressed a wish that his body be cremated.'

'A patient was referred to a psychiatrist with a serious emotional problem'.

Orthographical errors

Misspelled words in sentences too can create unintentional humour.

In Petersburg they manufacture iron and steal.

Every morning my father takes exercise to strengthen his abominable muscles.

Thomas Gray wrote allergy written in country church yard.

This is not only a book that provides the reader with light-hearted humour but also a collection of resources that can be used in contrasting error analysis in classroom teaching.

S. A. Kularatne
 

..................................

<< Artscope Main Page