Mine is better than yours

Although Sri Lanka is a tiny island, it is always can be seen as a multilingual country. Our multilinguality is not as massive as in India, but still some serious issues come out in relation to our comparatively small number of languages in use. Some problems arise between languages and some surprisingly come within a same language. Inferiority complex is quite complex by its name and it becomes harder when happens linguistically.

Majority language of a country holds enormous powers. It is natural that minority language speakers feel inferior when his/her environment is full with the majority language. But going unnoticed, every one of us feels same in some occasion when our ‘form’ of speech does not fit in some language situations. That’s why we sometimes feel awkward when we hear some strange usage of our own language. For example, various jokes have been made upon certain provincial dialects of Sinhalese. No wonder how the speakers of those dialects feel inferior when they hear those jokes.

Strong tendency

While strong multilingualism developed a great degree of tolerance of the differences that existed between people groups, there was also a strong tendency to develop prejudice against other languages and people groups. Recorded history clearly indicates that standardization of literature, grammar, and speech was always pursued in multilingual countries with great vigor. Because the “standard” was viewed to be better than the variants, people developed certain prejudices against those languages and dialects that did not fit their conception of what a standard should be.

Even in one of the earliest works in Sanskrit, Natya Sastra, we read about various groups of people who spoke different languages within India. We read also about the prejudices people groups and socioeconomic classes had towards each other and how these prejudices got revealed through the references the characters in the traditional plays made about the languages or dialects various people groups used.

It is a reality of life that in these modern times people in some multilingual countries continue to exhibit strong prejudices against other languages and people groups than their own. Such prejudices in modern times are related to the socio-economic competition among the various groups to get the best and largest space for them in the socio-economic and political life of the country.

We notice a universal tendency to rationalize one’s behavior. Pride in one’s language, the feeling of inferiority regarding one’s own language, and the prejudices against another language are always rationalized. Some of these rationalizations focus on the linguistic structure, some on different terms (such as: oyaa vs ohe, kiyanawa vs Dodanawa, mokatada vs makkateyi) , and some others on a wide spectrum of extra-linguistic considerations.

Socialization process

The tendency to feel proud or inferior about one’s own language or prejudiced against another language may be learned as part of the socialization processes of a people group. The society feeds such notions into the minds and hearts of men and women early in their life.

Our school curriculum is not neutral. It glorifies one language over another, sometimes with impunity, and often with the approval of the governmental authority and educationists. Pride in one’s own languages is treated as an element of patriotism. Speeches delivered on formal occasions such as political gatherings, literary meetings, religious preaching and celebrations, the “amazing discovery” statements made by the prestigious people and scholars, and such other means help increase our pride in our languages, while, at the same time, fostering an indirect resistance to and disrespect for other languages.

There is a vastly developed area of linguistics called Language Planning and to my knowledge, there are many bright scholars available in Sri Lanka. Conducting research and implementing them into action are two wide ends I know, but I must say that time has arrived!