{"id":111499,"date":"2021-02-09T17:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T00:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=111499"},"modified":"2021-02-09T17:00:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T00:00:36","slug":"the-sorry-fate-of-our-2500-year-linguistic-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/02\/09\/the-sorry-fate-of-our-2500-year-linguistic-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"The sorry fate of our 2500 year linguistic heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

I remember the days before 1956, when the official\nlanguage of the country was English.  Most\nof the Sinhala schools in villages had classes up to 8th<\/sup> standard\nand those who wanted to do higher studies in English had to go to collages in\nthe main cities.   All most all the\ngovernment officials other than low-ranking workers were English educated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things have changed remarkably after the introduction\nof the Official Language Act, paving the way for the majority community,\nespecially those who lived in villages including myself to move forward.  The Official Language Act of 1956 replaced\nEnglish as the language of the country with Sinhala. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the introduction of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment\nto the Constitution in 1987, stating the official language of Sri Lanka is Sinhala\u201d while Tamil\nshall also be an official language,\u201d with English as a link language\u201d, followed\nby the 16 Amendment in 1988, the status of the Sinhala language maintained for\n32 years from 1956 to 1988 as the country\u2019s\nofficial language started\ndiminishing gradually while that of English language appears to be regaining\nslowly but surely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per the 16th Amendment made in\n1988, Sinhala language, in effect, is no longer the Official Language or the\nlanguage of administration throughout Sri Lanka. It is only an Official\nLanguage, in the sense that it is the language of administration in seven\nprovinces other than the Northern and Eastern Provinces, whereas Tamil can be\nthe language of administration throughout Sri Lanka in addition to its Official\nLanguage status, since there is no limitation imposed on its application as in\nthe case of Sinhala. Sinhala is no longer the language of administration\nthroughout Sri Lanka.\nhttps:\/\/island.lk\/16a-removed-sinhala-as-countrys-official-language\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, International Schools are popping\nup everywhere and national languages are no more the medium of their education.  Sinhala, we hear in TV channels (including\nthe national channels) and we read in printed media now is not the Sinhala we\nlearnt but a mixture of Sinhala and English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after 64 years of the replacement of English as\nthe language of administration of the country, the highest court of law of the\ncountry is still conducting its investigations and delivering their judgments\nin English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting to note how the Law Collage stopped its medium of\nlegal education, Sinhala, in 2010 after 25years, when the Ministry of Justice\nwas under Rauff Hakeem. Soon after this change, an abnormal number of law applicants got admission to the law collage\nfrom a specific community. Most recently, there was an attempt by the current minister to\nrecruit 150 Tamil (Sinhala is not a requirement) speaking lawyers to police department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Making the situation worse, Council of Legal Education has issued a\nGazette Notification upgrading English, the link language, as the mandatory\nmedium of legal education commencing from 2022, thus preventing the use of\nSinhala for the purpose of legal education, anymore, anywhere within the country.  This rule is applicable not only to Law\nCollage but to all the universities, the Open University and the Kotelawala Defence\nUniversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gazette Notification No 2208\/13 dated 30\/12\/ 2020,\nunder the subject Council of Legal Education Ordinance\u201d, the following new\nrules 28A have been introduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

28A.   (1)  All\ncourses conducted at the Sri Lanka Law College shall be conducted in the English\nMedium<\/strong>.           <\/p>\n\n\n\n

              (2)  English shall be the mandatory medium of\nexaminations and shall be introduced in the following manner-<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  (a) Preliminary Year, commencing from the\nyear<\/strong> 2022<\/strong>– a minimum of three (3) subjects to be answered in the English\nmedium;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b) Intermediate Year,\ncommencing from the year<\/strong> 2023<\/strong>– a minimum of five (5) subjects to\nbe   answered in the English medium;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   (c)\nFinal Year, commencing from the year<\/strong> 2024<\/strong> – all subjects to be\nanswered in the English   medium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) The Council may,\nconsidering the medium of instruction at any university established or;deemed\nto be established under the Universities Act, No. 16 of 1978, the Open\nUniversity of Sri Lanka or the Kotelawala Defence University, at its\ndiscretion, grant exemptions to any person who has obtained a Bachelor of Laws\nDegree (LL.B) from any such university, from the application of this rule until\nthe year 2025<\/strong>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law is a scheme of control backed by the state for the\nprotection of social interests. Unlike engineering and medicine, the law is social engineering\nand social medicine. Hence it is the responsibility of the state to\nensure its free availability to its citizens to understand their rights and\nduties and to act according to the law.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the new rule 28A is in action, imposing further\nlimitation of the use of Sinhala (the language of the 74.9% of the population,\naccording to the 2012 censes) in the legal system throughout the country, the\nentire legal proceedings including hearing of court cases will be in English\nviolating the constitutional provisions and rights of the ordinary citizens. The Council of Legal\nEducation consists of 14 members chaired by the Chief Justice.  Out of 14members, six are appointed by the\nMinister of Justice. Thus any legal action against this injustice may not be\npossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By chasing away our 2500 year linguistic\nheritage to the backyard, what patriotism are we trying to protect? The nation “Sinhala” lives only\nuntil its “language” is alive. The day the Sinhala Language becomes dead\nthat would be the funeral date of Sinhala nation!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda I remember the days before 1956, when the official language of the country was English.  Most of the Sinhala schools in villages had classes up to 8th standard and those who wanted to do higher studies in English had to go to collages in the main cities.   All most all the government officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}