{"id":120708,"date":"2021-11-28T17:07:47","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T00:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=120708"},"modified":"2021-11-28T17:10:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T00:10:21","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-27-b2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/11\/28\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-27-b2\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 27 B2"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Language became\nan important element in the formation of new states in Europe in the 19th<\/sup>\ncentury. The emphasis was to be on the mother tongue, the language spoken in\nthe home. The first International\nStatistical Congress of 1853 raised the question of including language in\nthe    Census and the 1873 Congress\nrecommended that language be included. Analysts observed that asking\nsuch a question would itself generate linguistic nationalism. It forced people\nnot to select just a nationality, but a nationality connected to language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hobsbaum pointed out that in Europe national language was almost always\nan artificial construct. Most of the time people spoke dialects, not\nstandardized language. French was the language of administration from about\n1853 but even in 1789 it was spoken mainly in the central regions. It was not\nspoken at all in the north and south of France. Only 18% spoken high French. The same applied to German and Italian. In\nGermany there was High German which included local dialects such as <\/strong>Schwabisch.<\/strong> When Italy was formed only 3% spoke\nsophisticated Italian. Israel rejected\nYiddish and created a new variant of Hebrew as the national language  of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language was thereafter used as a unifying and emotional symbol of these\nnew nation states of Europe. The Tamil Separatist Movement latched on to this.   The Tamil Separatist Movement announced The Tamil-speaking\npeople in Ceylon constitute a distinct nation with its own language.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jaffna Peninsula was a part of the Rajarata during the Anuradhapura\nkingdom. It was known as Nagadipa. The language was Sinhala. The Tamil language\nwas introduced to Jaffna much later, in the 18th and 19th centuries. Landless,\nlow caste laborers, from Tamilnadu, were brought into Jaffna Peninsula by the Dutch\nand British in the 18 and 19 century to work on the tobacco plantations in Jaffna.\nThe Tamil settlements in Jaffna started then.  It is unlikely that they were Tamil scholars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil language was\nentrenched in Jaffna by the\nAmerican Missionaries\nwho descended on Jaffna in 1816.\nThe American Board of Commissioners for\nForeign Missions, based in Boston, started Christian missionary\noperations in Jaffna in 1816.   They\nencouraged Tamil studies with special emphasis on Tamil literature. They wanted also to upgrade the Tamil\nlanguage used by the inhabitants of Jaffna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Mission in Boston therefore\nwanted all subjects taught in Tamil in the mission schools of Jaffna.  Batticotta seminary, Vaddukoddai, the\nflagship school of the American Mission, placed much emphasis on Tamil language\nand literature. Tamil composition was encouraged   and there were exams on Tamil studies.\nBatticotta set up a Tamil class in 1828 to train Tamil teachers.  The Batticotta seminary, it is held, was\nresponsible for the emergence of a Tamil intellectual elite and a Dravidian\nidentity   in Jaffna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teachers were American. Christian missionaries\ntrained in biblical Hebrew arrived and began learning Tamil, observed Shulman. <\/strong> There\nwas G.Dashiel for Sanskrit and P.K.Haselltine for Tamil.   H.R.Hoisington, a graduate of Cambridge\nUniversity, who arrived in 1836, and became principal in 1845, mastered Tamil\nand Sanskrit, [presumably after he arrived in Jaffna]  A system of Tamil shorthand for the Tamil\nlanguage was invented by Rev Fr P Dunne, principal of St Patrick\u2019s College(1889-1901)   in 1900, he published a concise Tamil –\nEnglish Dictionary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient Tamil texts were printed for the first\ntime in the Mission press in 1835.    The Mission started a newspaper \u2018Morning\nStar\u2019 in 1841. It had four pages, two each in English and Tamil. In 1853 there\nwas the \u2018Vithyatharpanam\u2019 with two equal sections in Tamil and English.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arumuka Navalar\n(1822-1879) was known for reforming Hinduism, not Tamil language   but he contributed to the revival of Tamil by\nmaking Tamil the language of the Saivite revival. He promoted literacy and\nTamil studies. This was an important\ncontribution to the development of modern Tamil studies both in Ceylon and\nSouth India, said K.M. de Silva. He\nwas one of the early adaptors of modern Tamil prose, introducing Western\nediting techniques. He\nadopted a simple and lucid style of Tamil prose writing, added de Silva. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to\ninformation held on the internet, Arumuga Navalar produced approximately\nninety-seven Tamil publications\nof which twenty three were original writings. There were also forty   edited versions of works on grammar,\nliterature, liturgy, and theology that were not previously available in print, as well as\neleven commentaries. Commentaries on grammars included Kandihai Urai on the\nNanool.  With this \u2018recovery, editing, and publishing\u2019 of\nancient works, Navalar laid the foundations for the recovery of lost Tamil classics<\/a>.. However, Jane Russell stated that Tamils were not\nconversant with classical Tamil even at 1946.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil language, in the meanwhile was in difficulties in its\nhome state of Tamilnadu. By the end of the 14th century, Tamil had lost its dominant position in\nTamilnadu. Tamil\nnever regained that sovereign position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 1364,\nthe Tamil kingdom in South India was conquered by the Vijayanagara kingdom of\nKarnataka.  Tamil kingdom was thereafter\nadministered by Vijayanagara officials from present day Andhra Pradesh.  Tamil was displaced by Telegu, the language\nof Andhra Pradesh. The kingdom\nwas thereafter administered in Telegu. The Nayakkar kings of the Udarata\nkingdom who came from Tamilnadu spoke Telegu, not Tamil and were known as\nAndhras. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil kingdom later splintered into small,\nweak kingdoms, known as the kingdoms of Madura, Trichinopoly, and Tanjore, with\nMadura going under the Muslim Nawab of Arcot in 1734.  Telegu continued to dominate. There was a\nTelegu literature in Madras in the 19th century  and\nthe British   rulers recognized Telegu.\nTelegu manuscripts numbering 3335 collected during British rule were sent to\nHyderabad in 1960. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil language was rescued and re-instated\nin Tamilnadu by the Christian missionaries who arrived in Tamilnadu from the\n17th century onwards .They had to learn Tamil to convert the natives to\nChristianity and in the process they helped to revive Tamil language and\nliterature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leading personalities in this were two\nItalian Jesuit priests, Roberto de Nobili (1606-1656) and Constanzo Beschi\n(1680-1742) also German Lutheran priest B. Ziegenbalg\n(1682-1719). They collected Tamil manuscripts,  \nmade translations and compiled grammars. G.U.Pope (1830- 1857) a Wesleyan\npriest, translated many Tamil texts into English and British Civil Servant\nF.W.Ellis (1810-1819) made a large collection of Tamil manuscripts. Rev. Robert\nCaldwell introduced the notion of a separate group of Dravidian languages in\nhis \n\u2018A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages<\/a>, \u2018(1856).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madras also had it native researchers, notably\nCaminat Aiyar, who spent a good part of his life scouring the Tamil country for\nmore manuscripts and editing them. Caminat Aiyar brought to light ancient,\nlargely forgotten master works of Tamil literature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British administration in Madras helped in\nthe recovery of Tamil. From 1820 onwards they supported the campaign to foster\nand reform Tamil language and literature. Publications of lost classics was a\nvalued colonial period activity, observed Shulman. Language teachers were given secure jobs. The first section of Tolkapiyam was\npublished in 1847 in Madras. But most\nof the manuscripts found could not be dated.  Some would have been recent, said Shulman.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rev. P.Percival (Wesleyan then Anglican)\nwas appointed first Professor of Vernacular Literature at Madras University in\n1857. He knew both\nTamil and Telegu. The first section of Cilapattikaranam was printed by Bower and Muttiaya\nPillay in 1868 and was part of the curriculum for students of Tamil in\ngovernment colleges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American mission in Jaffna   went to Tamilnadu to help revive the Tamil language\nthere. Tamils scholars trained at Batticotta were sent to help upgrade Tamil\nliterature in Madras. The very early texts had gone out of circulation by the\nmiddle of the 19 century and were in need of \u2018recovery. Manuscripts of Manimekalai, Cilapattikaranam\nfor instance were missing. A bundle of palm leaf manuscripts were discovered in the\nlibrary of the Tiruvavatutirai mutt in 1883. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jaffna Tamil\nwho was most active in this was C.M. Thamotharampillai (1833-1901)\nThamotharampillai learnt Tamil under his father, a first generation Christian,\nwho had briefly attended Batticotta. Thamotharampillai also studied at\nBatticotta where he did a Tamil translation of the Book of Genesis from the\nBible. He graduated from Batticotta in\n1852. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thamotharampillai advertised in Madras for\nTamil manuscripts, obtained them, edited and published them, using his earnings\nto do so.  He collated manuscripts,\nnoting variant readings. He\npublished around 13 Tamil manuscripts including \u2018Veerasoliyan\u2019. He published several works which were\nconsidered lost, where only parts of the manuscripts   were found in olas here and there.  These included ‘Ilakkana vilakkam’   and, more importantly, the third part of\nTholkayam, the \u2018Porulathikaram.\u2019 Thamotharampillai \u2018searched high and low\u2019 and\nbrought this manuscript to light in 1885. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He handed over manuscripts that he was not\nusing to others to process. Thamotharampillai\u2019s\ncontribution to the Tamil language in discovering and publishing lost\nmanuscripts is well recognized in Tamilnadu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri Lanka, on the other hand,   Sinhala maintained its status as a sovereign\nlanguage up to 1815. Sinhala continued in use thereafter, throughout British\nrule.  Sinhala literature and Sinhala\ngrammar were carefully preserved and looked after by generation after generation\nof bhikkus and laymen during this period. Complete manuscripts of major Sinhala\nwritings, such as Mahavamsa, Jataka pota, Vittipot, and   Kadaimpot\nwere available in plenty, in good condition, in personal and temple collections\nin the 1930s. Unlike Tamil,  Sinhala\nlanguage, Sinhala grammar, Sinhala literature did not collapse.No outside\nintervention was needed. The Christian missionaries only had to prepare\nSinhala-English dictionaries for their own use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) was a Danish specialist on languages. In 1816, Rask left Denmark to\nlearn about languages in the East and to obtain manuscripts for the Royal\nLibrary, Copenhagen. He went to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Persia,   India and then Ceylon. Godakumbura says that\nRask learnt Sinhala in the three months he stayed in Madras. From Madras Rask\narrived in Jaffna in November 1821 and learned Sinhala from C.E.Layard, the CCS\nofficer stationed there, using the Sinhala version of the New Testament of the\nBible. He came down to Colombo and collected  \nSinhala manuscripts to take back to Denmark. There is no mention of Tamil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that Rask did not study Tamil, though he was\nin Madras and Jaffna, indicates that Tamil did not have a high position at the\ntime. The\nSouth Asian collection of the Royal Library, Copenhagen, today has 1127 manuscripts in Sanskrit, 310 in Pali, 169 in Sinhalese, 97 in\nTamil, and 13 in Urdu.  It has 2640\nprinted books in Sanskrit, 860 in Hindi, 690 in Urdu and 180 in Sinhalese.\nThere is no mention of Tamil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil Separatist Movement declared that\nthe Tamil language had an unsurprised classical heritage. The Ceylon Tamil of the British period held that there was a wonderful\nTamil literature. Tamil is seen as the classical language which produced the\noldest literature of the Dravidian languages, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceylon Tamils announced that Tamil is one of\nthe longest-surviving classical languages in the world. It was described it as\n“the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous\nwith a classical past.” The variety and quality of classical Tamil\nliterature has led to it being described as “one of the great classical\ntraditions and literatures of the world”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nSri Lanka, Simon Casie Chetty produced \u2018The Tamil Plutarch<\/a>\u2019 (1859) A Summary Account\nof the Lives of the Poets and Poetesses of Southern India and Ceylon. In this\nbook Casie Chetty said that Tamil is peculiar to part of India, which was\nformerly under Chera, Chola and Pandiya kings and of those of the eastern and\nnorthern provinces of Ceylon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Tamil occupies the most distinguished\nrank. It is one of the most copious, refined, and polished languages spoken by\nman. Few nations on earth can perhaps boast of so many poets as the Tamils.\nPoetry appears to have been the first fixed form of language amongst them; they\nhave not a single ancient book that is written in prose, not even the books on\nmedicine. There were three different Sangams, or Colleges at three different\nperiods, for the promotion of literature, concluded Casie Chetty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the reality is\ndifferent. Actually, we don’t even know the original\nname for the two greatest Tamil literary works – Tolkappiyam (just means\n“an ancient classic”) and Thirukural (“divine verses”),\nsaid analysts. Like most of Indian history, we just know these things from\nsecondary works written by others, but a lot of things are unknown. The Sangam\ntexts were lost or became irrelevant in the mediaeval times and came to be\nrediscovered in the 19th century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Hindi and English are the two official\nlanguages of India .In Tamilnadu, the home of the Tamil language, Tamil   ranks\nthird, below Hindi and English. The rank order of the most spoken languages in\nIndia is Hindi, Bengali, Telegu, Marathi and Tamil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil is recognized as an official language\nonly in Sri Lanka and Singapore.  Tamil\nis   recognized as a minority language in\nSouth Africa, Malaysia and Mauritius. Tamil is used as one of the languages\nof education in Malaysia, along with English, Malay and Mandarin. (Continued) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Language became an important element in the formation of new states in Europe in the 19th century. The emphasis was to be on the mother tongue, the language spoken in the home. The first International Statistical Congress of 1853 raised the question of including language in the    Census and the 1873 Congress recommended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120708","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=120708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}