World coinage and purity of language
The 65 th death anniversary of Cumaratunga Munidasa
fell on March 2:
by K.A.I. Kalyanaratne (Member, Central Committee,
Hela Havula)
This essay deals with unplanned, shortsighted, incompetent handling
of word-coinage that marred the Sinhala language. It cannot be
considered as more meaningful and timely than when our literati
commemorate an extraordinary personality Munidasa Cumaratunga who
revived the Sinhala nation through his untiring industry aimed at
uplifting the Sinhala language, community and the country. His 65th
death anniversary fell on March 2.
 The users of the Sinhala language had been conscious of formulating a
methodology that could serve the formation of words, and enriching the
language, without diluting its intelligibility and marring its
inimitable qualities. A language is closely interwoven with the
thought-process of its users. More particularly a language that has
developed through the ages to commit its people's subtle nuances to
writing, should, for certain, develop a methodology to coin words to
help convey specific feelings and emotions, as well as, formal
expressions, based on new discoveries and experiences.
Ingenuity in word-coinage
Buddhism with its deep philosophical concepts, and advances made in
engineering and irrigation technology, sculpture and architecture, and
medical science that existed at the time, demanded a rich vocabulary to
express ideas with profound clarity. Our native physicians are fully
aware of the efficacy of the medicinal plant ƒ›÷~ˆ~ rû/~‹N ÷~‹ rû'.
. This plant is used for making medicines for breakages and
fractures. It is a climbing plant, edible when tender, having
four-winged stems. Our ancients named this plant basing on the three
words used in their parlance (~‹N+÷~‹+rû)
. This is a plant of the soil, expressed through words of the soil.
Dependence on native lexicons
The Sinhala language in its stages of development had the fortune of
possessing quite a number of lexicons. One such lexicon is `Ruwanmal
Nighantuwa' of the Kotte period. Prof. Vinnie Vitharana in his glossary
of geographical terms adopted 'nvl‰' from this lexicon to render into
Sinhala the geographical term (the calm wind belt bordering the
equator). The term coined was 'nvl‰ Yh' , based on the verbal root 'nv'
What the Composite Glossary of Geographical Technical Terms (Department
of Official languages, 1962) had provided for this phenomenon had been
'"h¤zˆh±K Ýyx' doldrem theeraya
Computer terminology
The issue of rendering words into Sinhala reached its culmination
with the publication of the Glossary of Technical Terms in Computer
Science (A Publications of the Department of Education, 1991). Scholars
proficient in both Sinhala and the computer science challenged the
suitability of the renderings found in this glossary. The glossary
renders `Disk' as 'Õ~ˆYx'. If this is the way technical terms are
rendered, one need not have a high-powered committee for the task. The
main criticisms against this glossary could be summarised as.
(a) Inconsistency in the coinage of words
(b) Inability to provide the different shades of meanings related to
computers
(c) Inability to provide Sinhala terms based on Sinhala verbal roots
This glossary only adds adjectives to the common term 'rù[jYx'
without visualising the flexibility needed to use the term in different
contexts. It is silent on such terms as computable, computant,
computational, computative, computator, compute, computerisation and
computerise.
Cumaratunga-concept of word-coinage
Late scholar Cumaratunga Munidasa expressed, in the Subasa journal
his concept of coining of technical terms, in the following manner.:
"The language is the most valuable possession of a nation. It should
fully portray the character of the nation. Just because immensely coarse
and rough words are found in Sanskrit or Wanga or Hindi, it is
unbecoming of the nation to borrow such coarse and rough words in the
same manner, without taking into consideration the character of both the
Sinhala people and their langauge. It is necessary to deeply study
whether we possess or not words that are quite akin to us." (Volume 2,
Issue No. 22, of 24th March, 1941).
Kalasoori D.V. Richard de Silva, presenting a paper on 'Coining of
Technical Terms' (Silver Jubilee of the Hela Hawula, 1966) spelt out the
three ways we should follow in any attempt to coin words, viz.
1.Coining of words taking cognisance of both the sound and the
meaning of the foreign word. Examples: '"y"nN{' for radio; 'Yñf§{' for
committee. 2. Coining of words taking cognisance of the meaning of the
foreign word. Examples: 'rƒŒj rl' for post-card; 'r£ r§{÷{' for
foot-board.
3. `Sinhalising' the borrowed word by enabling it to be declined (if
it is a noun) or conjugated (if it is a verb). Examples: 't¥¹Yª{' for
bank; '"z£ùx' for lorry.
study of morphology
It would thus explain that any attempt made to render borrowed words
into a language should, as an initial activity study the morphology of
that language. Only such a study would highlight the word-formations of
a language. Unlike most modern Western languages, Eastern languages have
their unique word-formations. It is such features that maintain the
character of each such language. Hence, attempts made sans such a study
would result in coining words that will remain forever as
foreign-bodies. They lack compatibility, synergy and symmetry.
The Sinhala language could be described as a veritable palimpsest,
revealing the nation's history, its technological advances, and vastness
of its civilisation, richness of this literature and exhaustiveness of
its vocabulary. Hence, to ignore such a repertoire of a nation's wealth
is, in fact, a heinous crime.
Sanskritisation
A study of the langauge and the attempts made to render new knowledge
into Sinhala reveal that for the last several years the process had led
to deforming the character of the nation's most valued possession. More
often than not it has been a steady process of `sanskritisation' of the
langauge.
This process has also been adopted in rendering technical terms into
Tamil. Those engaged had sought refuge in Sanskrit verb-roots to render
borrowed knowledge into the Tamil language. A memorandum of the
'Committee of educationist to the Government of Madras', in 1941, on the
coining of technical terms states thus:
"Though a common terminology may be possible in Northern India where
Hindustani and Sanskrit have mingled together very much and local
languages have been greatly modified by them, such a terminology would
be unsuited to the Tamil area where Tamils have preserved the purity of
their langauge. Words coined must have Tamil roots and suffixes to make
them intelligible to the Tamils."
The Departments of Swabhasha (1956) and Official Languages (1962)
were established to execute the Official Languages Act. However, that
hurried execution has severely marred the beauty of the language.
The executors had not been able to identify the salient
characteristics of the language, and visualise how an unplanned exercise
would affect its future.The Sinhala language possesses the desired
efficacy, strength, flexibility, and an exhaustive vocabulary to meet
the demands of this nature. Hence, Sinhala should not be made vassalage
of Sanskrit or any other langauge, for that matter. |
