“From dethroning English to planning for a Trilingual Society”

Language and Social Process in Sri Lanka 1956 - 2011:

Keynote Address by Sunimal Fernando at the 9th International Language and Development Conference on ‘Language and Social Cohesion’ on October 18, 2011 held in Colombo

Part I - The Socio-Linguistic Landscape of 1956 and the need for the dethronement of English

The impudence of Colonial rule

English has been present in Sri Lanka for over 200 years. But by 1956, it was estimated that only about eight percent of the people were able to read or speak English. Though the British had controlled the coastal areas for 152 years and the whole country for 133 years, it is to their shame that they had failed to deliver English language skills to 92 percent of the population, and that too in a small country like ours.

Displaying a total contempt for social justice, fair-play, social equity and human rights despite the high moral ground often deceitfully occupied by them in public discourse, they had shamelessly introduced English, an alien language, as the language of administration to Sri Lanka, a country that is home to the two languages with the oldest literary tradition in South Asia, namely Tamil and Sinhala, thus denying access to government sector employment, the expanding professions and technical services, and thereby to upward social and economic mobility to 92 percent of our people.

Social equity and the need for language reform

A small Westernized, urbanized, anglicized elite with English as their weapon - a mere eight percent of the people - uprooted from the social and cultural mainstream of Sinhala and Tamil speaking Sri Lankan society - a community of culturally displaced internal refugees - controlled the avenues of upward mobility and monopolized the administrative, professional and technical services of the country.

The fact that this state of social inequity had been allowed to continue for as much as eight years after independence in 1948 surprised most people (in the mid 1950s). It only required the institutional support of a culturally rooted social reformist party like the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and a band of charismatic leaders rooted in the soil of the country to give leadership to the Sinhala and Tamil educated rural middle classes in a mass movement to replace English with Sinhala, and later with Sinhala and Tamil, as the languages of administration in the country.

These were the political processes that resulted in the replacement of English by Sinhala in 1956 - 55 years ago and thereafter through the Tamil Language Special Provisions Act of 1958 by Sinhala and Tamil.

Preventing a violent social upheaval

The dethronement of English as the language of administration in the country and the concomitant shift to Sinhala and later to Sinhala and Tamil prevented a situation that would certainly have escalated into a violent upheaval led by the expanding Sinhala and Tamil educated rural middle classes against the eight percent English speakers who controlled the destinies of the people.

The language reforms of 1956 and thereafter are an important landmark in the recent history of the country: One that prevented the explosion of a carefully designed time - bomb fabricated around language policy which the British had left behind to shatter the peace and tranquillity of the newly independent nation following their departure.

Translating Legal and Constitutional Provisions into Action - a lack of commitment

While this potential threat to social cohesion was annulled by the language reforms of 1956, on account of the lack of purpose and commitment with which succeeding governments implemented the statutory provisions for the use of Tamil, first for its reasonable use since 1958 and then from 24 years ago for its use as an official language together with Sinhala, the country saw the widening of the fault lines separating the Sinhala and Tamil people to the point at which it took a violent turn in the last 30 years: a differentiation that need not have proved to be anything as sharp as what it later came to be.

Social distancing grows due to administrative lethargy

Gradually from 1956 the social and political distancing of the Sinhala and Tamil speaking segments of non-English speaking Sri Lankan society became increasingly sharper and more aggressive.

This has not been due to any serious shortcoming or deficiency in the country’s constitutional or legal framework in relation to language. Rather it has been due entirely to the lack of passion and determination with which the legal and constitutional provisions relating to language have been translated into practical programmes, projects and activities.

No passion, no commitment, no output

For instance although the official government policy is to evolve a bilingual public service in the shortest possible time, statistics go to show that at the present rate of training of the public service to function in both languages which is 1.5 percent of the public service trained per year, it will take over 100 years to evolve a bilingual public service in the country.

Similarly although the country has for a long time been boasting of a programme of teaching the second national language (Sinhala to Tamil and Tamil to Sinhala) to all children in schools, it is estimated that the bilingual teaching programme has only around 4,000 inadequately trained teachers whereas the school system would need at least 23,000 well trained teachers to achieve this task with any degree of success.

Thus from 1956 onwards, the lethargy and lack of purpose with which the legal framework of language planning in relation to the use of Tamil in Sinhala majority areas and Sinhala in Tamil majority parts of the country was transformed into action plans has seriously and increasingly affected the social integration of the Sinhala and Tamil speaking people.

No neglect of English teaching after 1956

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the changes in language law in 1956, English continued to be taught in our schools with the same intensity as before - five hours a week for 10 consecutive years to all children in the public school system. Indeed there were, as in the past, diverse levels of competence within the English teacher community. But the importance given by the system to the teaching of English was not in any way deterred.

But English no more a qualifier for upward mobility

There was no great urge to learn English on the part of the ever more socially mobile population of the country as the need to qualify in English for employment had been done away with.

The country’s speedily expanding government service, the professions and the technical services were occupied by those qualified in Sinhala or Tamil. Upward social and economic mobility was very much possible for those qualified in Sinhala or Tamil. Jobs were available in plenty for those qualified in Sinhala and Tamil.

The dethronement of English heralds the forward march of the people

It can be stated with both pride and confidence that over 95 percent of all persons occupying the highest positions in the public service, the professions, the corporate sector and the technical services - the cleverest and most accomplished in the land today - are persons who received their education in Sinhala or Tamil and came from rural and small town homes where English was not spoken. All the great achievements of our country in almost every conceivable field in at least the last three decades have been accomplished by those who benefitted from the dethronement of English in 1956.