Sri Lanka Malay: unique contact language

Muhaj HAMIN

It is well known that Malays are not indigenous to Sri Lanka. Scholars differ in their views as to their earliest date of arrival. The Chulavamsa, where the word Javaka itself occurs, provides us with the earliest reference to their arrival in this country. The Culavamsa records that a Javaka Prince Chandrabanu, invaded Sri Lanka twice. The first was in 1247 A.D. and the second in 1258 A.D.

Traditional Malay dance. Picture courtesy: Google

In Sri Lanka, the Javakas or Malays who have domiciled themselves in this island during those early times, including those who arrived with the invader Prince Chandrabanu, would undoubtedly have been assimilated to the indigenous population of Sri Lanka. The arrival of the Malays on a large scale took place during the time of the Dutch. Dutch activities in Java and counter activities of the Javanese led to the arrival of more Malays in Sri Lanka including some members of the Javanese royalty who had rebelled against the Dutch. They were exiled to Sri Lanka in 1723. These Javanese continued to live in Sri Lanka until the British drove away the Dutch in 1796. Many royalty and soldiers opted to return to Java while others became domiciled in this country.

Well-known for loyalty and bravery

The present Sri Lanka Malays are, therefore, the descendants of both Javanese royalty and soldiery. Being well-known for their loyalty and bravery, they had no difficulty in continuing to pursue their vocations under the British who enrolled them in the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. When this Regiment was disbanded in 1873, the Malays joined such services as the Ceylon Police Force, the Prisons Service and the Colombo Fire Brigade, among others. Today the Malays have integrated themselves amicably in the complex social structure of Sri Lanka. Yet they do have their own problems and do not have the articulate means of drawing the attention of the government to the predicament in which the community is placed. Often they are identified with the Sri Lanka Moors due to the shared religious identity. But ethnically, linguistically and culturally they are distinctly different from the Moors.

Many of the present day Sri Lanka Malays are not very conversant in their own language. Their conversation, even at home, is conducted in English, Sinhalese or Tamil. Malay is only a spoken dialect today. Being a small community living in areas where the majority population is Sinhala, Tamil or a mix of Sinhala/Tamil or Moor, the Malays conduct their affairs in English, Sinhala or Tamil or in two or more of these languages. Their education too is obtained in one or the other of these languages. Therefore, is the mother language of the Sri Lanka Malays - English, Sinhala, Tamil, or Standard Malay? None. Let me remind you that our mother language is ‘Sri Lanka Malay’ now and forever, provided it survives endangerment.

Research project

Until recently the Sri Lankan Malays were of the notion that their mother tongue was a concoction of bazaar Malay. On July 16, 2006, Dr. Umberto Ansaldo and Dr. Lisa Lim (University of Amsterdam) presented a lecture on the topic ‘Language documentation and description: Sri Lanka Malay’ under the auspices of the Volkswagen Foundation’s initiative for the documentation of endangered languages (DoBeS). The event was organized by COSLAM and was held at the Nagarodaya Hall, Colombo 8. The aim of their talk was to introduce the research project they had been conducting in Sri Lanka for the past few years and to share some thoughts on the status of the Sri Lanka Malay language.

They stated that the ancestors of the Sri Lanka Malays did not speak Malay as we know it today because at that point it did not exist. They spoke many different languages (or dialects or varieties) of Indonesia and the Malay-archipelago. All these varieties of Malay belong to the Austronesian family. But in Sri Lanka they encountered other languages that do not belong to this family. Namely: Sinhala (of the Indo European family) and Tamil (Dravidian). In such a situation of language contact, a fairly common occurrence is language admixture, that is, speakers learn features of each respective language and mix them. Sometimes, especially where you have a new social group emerging with speakers of originally different varieties, a new language with a new grammar is created. Sri Lanka Malay is such a language. It is a creative product that arises through the highly multilingual skills of the community.

Endangered language

S. L. Kekulawala in a paper written by him in 1986 entitled ‘Kinship Terminology in Sri Lankan Malay - A contribution to the study of language universals,’ through a complex analysis based upon the theoretical insight afforded by Professor Joseph Greenberg, Language Universals, Mouton and Company, The Hague, 1966, states that Sri Lanka Malay is a hybrid. Sadly though, according to the findings of Dr. Umberto Ansaldo and Dr. Lisa Lim, Sri Lanka Malay is endangered.

A language starts being endangered when it is no longer transmitted by parents to their children. Other reasons for languages being endangered are: (a) decline in functions of use, (b) lack of educational support, (c) lack of prestige, and (d) shift to other languages.

Linguists can be involved in helping to revitalize a speaker population of an endangered language by (1) publishing pedagogical grammars with audio tapes, dictionaries, newspapers, etc, and (2) having courses taught in schools and community colleges, evening classes for adults, programmes on the radio, television, etc. The onus of revival falls on the community alone and parents must continue passing on their mother language to their children in the home. The gratitude of the Malay community should go to Dr. B. A. Husseinmiya and B. D. K. Saldin for their numerous books on Sri Lankan Malays, Dr. Lisa Lim and B.D.K. Saldin for compiling the SLM Kamus (Dictionary), Dr. Umberto Ansaldo and Dr. Lisa Lim for their related research, and, recently, Dr Sebastian Nordhoff for his book of three volumes on ‘A grammar of Upcountry Sri Lanka Malay’. In this book he says that ‘Sri Lanka Malay is not a dialect of Standard Malay but a language in its own right. It differs greatly from Standard Malay in many aspects to the extent that Standard Malay and Sri Lanka Malay are mutually unintelligible’.

Other communities

There are many other authors who wrote books on this subject and there are many other Malays who are in the process of writing books on the Sri Lanka Malays, both in the English and Sinhala languages. We also hope to translate some of these books into Tamil to enable the other communities in Sri Lanka to understand the heritage of the Sri Lanka Malays.

It has now been established that Sri Lanka Malay is a unique contact language in the world and the aspiration of the Sri Lankan Malays should be to save it from endangerment and carry it forward for our future generations. The onus of this responsibility falls directly on our young and the purpose of this symposium today is to educate them on the importance of our mother language and to appeal to our young Malays who are in high positions in both the private and public sectors to contribute generously to save and propagate our mother language: ‘Sri Lanka Malay’.