The end of the Sinhala language?
S. PATHIRAVITANA
Men have suspected all along that women have a secret code of
communication by which they share their thoughts and feelings. Of
course, this has been only a suspicion. But now, there’s conformation
coming (of all places) from China where this has been in practice for a
long period over time.
The last of the women, perhaps, who knew this secret writing and
practised it from her childhood has just died in her 90th year. Nushu,
as this script has been known, is a system of graphics similar to the
Chinese ideographs and Yang Huan-yi from the Hunan Province has been
practising it from her childhood.
She had acquired fame in her lifetime not only among the linguists
but in general as the woman who knew the ‘secret code of women
unreadable by men,’ so much so ‘Nushu country’ has now become famous for
the secrecy exercised by the women that the tourists make it a must to
visit the place.
What exactly were the secrets the women exchanged is not known, but I
have heard children using a kind of secret language just in case to
mislead any adult within earshot. And just before e-mailing came into
prominence we had Telex which had the annoying habit of contracting
simple words and forming sentences like this, “tks 4 ur tlx,” not to
mislead or misguide the unwary, but to cut costs.
Whatever happened to Telex? Whatever it was, it was soon replaced by
a cheaper system known as faxing, and faxing became for a short while
the standard electronic system of instant communication for the space
age until it sought refuge inside computers to die a quiet death.
And talking of dying reminds me that many of the languages, which
were once outstanding and upstanding are now seriously in total danger
of extinction. Gunadasa Amarasekara, for instance, announced publicly
some time ago that Sinhala may not last this century.
He predicted such a dismal future for an ancient language like
Sinhala because I think he was dismayed on seeing that government after
government since 1956 were surreptitiously withdrawing the support it
was giving Sinhala only to give back the throne to the former ruler -
English.
Mr Amarasekara, however, has some support from linguists all over the
world who also affirm that nearly half the six thousand languages in use
at the beginning of the 21st century will become extinct at the end of
it by not being put to use or by parental neglect, because parents
desire better prospects for their children and let any cultural identity
go hang.
That may well happen if the current trend in tastes for more modern
languages persists. For there is a tide in our affairs driving us to get
ahead, to seek a better style of living with more modern comforts and
this could be done not with a language like Sinhala but a language with
an international status like English. You can gather this from what the
international linguists are saying about this trend.
‘Children,’ they say, ‘are efficient language learners, but they also
learn quickly which language tools get them ahead and which do not. They
will not learn a language simply because their parents or grandparents
wish them to; they learn a language to use it.’
This world trend began not just the other day or after 1956 receded.
It goes back to around the time the Portuguese landed here.
As those who have been watching the language scene tell us,
‘Languages have disappeared throughout history, but the scale of
language death in modern times is unprecedented. Linguists estimate that
about half the world’s languages died out in the 500 year period from
1460 to 1990.’
Although these were adverse trends in modern times, in some countries
like India languages co-exist peacefully with the languages of migratory
people for centuries. Due, perhaps, to India’s recognition that
co-existence is a maxim for good living.
In Sri Lanka, due to various conflicts, both the language and the
religion of the country suffered from one of its periodic declines. It
was so bad that even the tradition of ordaining monks (upasampada) had
disappeared. Welivita Sri Saranankara Thera had a formidable task in
restoring Buddhist ordination and rescuing the language from further
decline.
The turn around he achieved in about 1750 is today remembered
gratefully by some people but not by our leaders. The achievement of
Saranankara Thera is worth recalling. The disappearance of the
Upasampada tradition did not deter him. He ordained himself as a monk
and set about his reforms.
On the language side he began right at the beginning - the Sinhala
alphabet. He brought out a book calling it the Nam Pota, introduced the
alphabet and by stringing together three and four letters at a time
produced a list of names of the towns and villages surrounding the city
of Kandy and went on to name the places of historical and religious
interest throughout the entire island.
When I was driving one day through the interior of the surroundings
of Kandy I was pleasantly surprised when I came across Sagama the first
of the names in the Nampota. ‘So, there is actually a place called
Sagama,’ I told myself and went on to discover the others that followed
- Pasgama, Arattana, Madanwala and so on which I still can recall from
memory.
If you go to the temple like me for your first lessons, you come away
with a little Geography and History too. Dipping into the Nam Pota
recently I discovered that many of the place names in the North and East
and NorthWest are in their original Sinhala forms.
For instance, all the little islands off Jaffna have names like
Thanni Divayina, Agni Divayina, Puwangu Divayina, (Punguduthiv) Kara
Divayina and places like Naga Kovila, Kadurugoda Viharaya
(Kantharoddai), Tellipola, Mallagama, and so on.
Siri Sankara Thera’s next achievement is better known and that is the
restoration of the Upasampada tradition which he persuaded the then king
Kirti Sri Rajasingha to obtain from the then Siam, in acknowledgement of
which we have today the Buddhist sect Siam Nikaya. But to come back to
the imminent extinction of Sinhala predicted by Mr Amarasekara; total
extinction is unlikely, however.
Sinhala will go on for some time more and die after trying to digest
too many foreign words and phrases. I am afraid a worse fate is in store
for it. Towards the end of the century we may not have a Sinhala
language, only a Sinhala patois to judge from current trends.
There will be linguists then like J.B. Disanayaka who will be
scratching their heads and wondering whether to give the stamp of
approval for the new Sinhala ‘language.’ And since linguists by their
training have a very Buddhist like attitude to the transitory nature of
all vernaculars may end up by saying, ‘anicca’ and give it their
blessings.
Any doubts or hesitations they may have would be resolved by pointing
to the scribbles on the mirror wall of Sigiriya and posing the question,
‘Is there anyone today who can understand those scribbles without Dr
Paranavitana at his side?’ The answer no doubt will be silence.
It would be a pity after all if we would cave into these new trends
without a fight. In his writings on Sigiri graffiti, Paranavitana is
full of admiration for Sinhala the way it fought back foreign invasions
not by bans and prohibitions but by assimilation.
It could digest the toughest of Sanskrit words and reduce them to an
amazing subservience. The list is endless, but here are just a few
Sanskrit words still doing that work for Sinhala - chakravarti
-/sakviti, narendra -/nirindu, yauvana -/yovun and even the common cold,
which in Sanskrit is semprathikshaa is hembirissava in Sinhala.
So let us heed the warning of another lover of language C.J. Moore,
who tells us that in Europe, “...we find effective strategies for the
promotion of [endangered languages like] Basque, Catalan, Breton,
Cornish, Gaelic, Irish and Romansch, to scratch only the linguistic
surface of the continent.
“Elsewhere Hawaiian, Maori, indigenous Mexican and other Latin
American tongues have all prospered with the right attitudes and support
with English and Spanish as a main language.
“Without language there can be no understanding of ourselves, let
alone of the world around us. So, surely, endangered languages merit at
least the same attention and outcry as endangered species.”
Who will be finally king of languages?
1. Chinese 1.2 billion
2. Arabic 422 million
3. Hindi 366 “
4. English 341 + 2nd language speakers 418 million
5. Spanish 322 “
6. Bengali 207 “
7. Portuguese 176 “
8. Russian 167 “
9. Japanese 125 “
10.German 100 “
(Source: Encarta) |
