With pride and dignity:

Say it in Sinhala

“Amma anna poosa” “No baby, It is a cat”

By Samangie WETTIMUNY

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Recently a friend of my close relative had to get her eight year old daughter admitted to another school because according to her the school which she previously attended though one of the best Girls’ colleges in Colombo( Or rather the best), did not make her child talk in English! Ironically the school through out her history has been producing well educated students proficient in English.

The girl later ended up in an international school which is far inferior to her previous school in every sense. Though English is the language the parents used at home, and that is quite sufficient for the child to improve her language skills, the mother was not satisfied.

In fact the stark truth was the mother did not want her child to know Sinhala at all despite their Sinhala origins. It is doubly ironical as the mother belongs to a family who proudly claims that the Sinhalese are Aryans unlike their rivalry group and who becomes very emotional when talking about the threats encountered by the Sinhalese as a community!

I do not know why those ‘ardent lovers’ of the Sinhalese cannot understand the importance of the mother tongue in that context? It is the mother tongue which gives us identity. It is the epitome of culture.

As commonly said for the Sinhalese Sinhala is a repository of the Sinhala culture. Anyway the problem is not your inability to converse or do other transactions in your mother tongue or your fluency in English, but feeling ashamed to talk in your mother tongue and pretend you do not have a sufficient knowledge of it!

There is another fine story of a family who wanted to give their daughter in marriage to a family who knew no Sinhala at all. They ‘launched’ their ‘mission’ when the girl was in her early twenties but to no avail.

They missed many a fine guy who were proficient in English simply because of that ‘No Sinhala at all’ mania. Finally as the girl reached her late thirties they could not but help give her in marriage to ‘someone’. So she ended up tying the knot with a man whose entire family knew no English at all!

If you belong to the extremist group who believes that respecting your mother tongue means stopping transacting in English , that would be the greatest injustice you do to your mother tongue as by means of respecting it you become a frog in the well not knowing what happens around you.

But it is not solely for that English is being used in the country. It is the Language of power, wealth and might. The parents who originally come from an English speaking background want their children to continue with it.

The others in their attempt to climb the social ladder want their children to learn English. In either case it is perfectly alright if their motive is not to look down on their mother tongue.

“People feel so embarrassed to make mistakes while talking in English. Or if their teacher says you have to improve your English the students feel very uncomfortable. But they do not mind making mistakes in Sinhala” said a retired school principal. In fact sometimes they feel great to say that they do not know Sinhala. “Ape doota sinhala baha. Grammar varadiyata mai liyanne” once a mother told me quite proudly.

“Is it a reason to be proud or to worry?” I was puzzled as her Exam was round the corner. “Sinhalane, yantham pass vunath athine” she added and it made me even more puzzled. Ironically the woman belonged to a Lower middle class family who knew no English at all and it was her Sinhala education which enabled her to get at least an appointment as a teacher!

Also in offices we have always seen employees’ desire to write letters to administration in English even if it is not quite necessary.

“Once a person came to me to get a leave chit approved. There he had written “I want to take leave for an argent Need” company manager Nadeeka said “Somebody had written the letter and he had copied it without knowing what the content is!” “ I asked him “Argent need ah” Then he went on “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”.

Of course “yeah, yeah, yeah” seems to be the pet word of many. “Perhaps that may be the only word they know in English and they love to repeat it” says Sujeewa who came across a funny incident recently.

At her office there’s a girl who pretends she does not know Sinhala well. “But she does not know any English also but pretends she knows. Once she had to answer a phone call where she found a foreigner at the receiving end.” Sujeewa went on.” She could only say “yeah, yeah, Yeah”. She never had to talk to a foreigner over the phone before. So earlier she somehow managed to switch over to Sinhala. On this particular day she was properly punished!

“Most of the Sinhala words written in public notices, bill boards and posters are grammatically wrong. But no one takes it serious” a teacher who teaches Sinhala to G.C.E A/L students told me sadly as if she has sensed the over hanging ‘danger’.

Have you ever heard of parents who even punish their small children if they fail to respond in English? Well, twenty five year old Dinali has a fine one “At home some would talk to their children in Sinhala. But when they are among a crowd they want the child to respond in English.

Once at a party seeing a cat a child said “anna poosa” and the mother got wild. The child too small to know why the mother frowned continued “ayi, amma poosa thamai”. As she said the mother had continuously pressed the child to say “Mama, There’s a cat”, but the child has refused.

In fact those babies can be painful at times. That is why it is even said “innocent as a new born babe”. More innocent the child, more the trouble. If you call it “poosa” at home now can that same ‘fluffy thing’ become “ cat” soon after you left home! Don’t you think that your child is more rational?

Once a Sri Lankan lady who lives abroad told me that we never get to know the importance of our own language until we start living in a foreign country. “There sometimes though we do not get a chance to use Sinhala often we never feel inferior to converse in it. Of course there are also people who pretend that they have forgotten their Sinhala soon after they left Sri Lanka.

“Mostly the problem is with the second generation.” she added seriously. The children who are born there neither belong to Sri Lankan culture nor to that culture. In a book which I recently read the writer had referred to them as ‘ak mul nathi minissu.’ As she said the parents have to be very careful. They should try to keep their children in contact with Sri Lankan customs and the language as much as they can though they live several miles away from their mother land.

Some feel elated to say that they do not know what the latest Sinhala songs are. “ I never watch Sinhala films” another said. There is also a group who hates Sinhala novels. To which category do you belong? This is the time for self assessment.

But what do you think of Sinhala artistes and scholars in the language who talk high of Sinhala traditions and mother tongue in public but play a different role behind the scene.

They normally want their children to forget Sinhala and would sent them to international schools purely to make their children forget the mother tongue. (It is perfectly alright to send children to international schools if the parents wish to do so.

What is dangerous is to have such ‘evil’ intentions) Salesmen or shop keepers would always love to have a set of customers who converse in English whether the former know the language or not. They would prefer to ‘brutally assassinate not only the king, but the entire royal family’ than talking in Sinhala.

There are even bookshops which are reluctant to encourage the writings of Sinhala writers. Also in those bookshops what are being prominently displayed are the English books. Sinhala books are kept in insignificant places.

Understanding the important role played by the mother tongue in the upbringing and development of the child, February 21 was declared as the International Mother Tongue Day in 1999.

Back in 1953 in its report “The Use of Vernacular Language in Education” the UNESCO has emphasised on its importance. “If we start speaking other languages and forget our own, we would not be we, we would be clones of an alien people:we would be aliens to ourselves.”

Are the Sinhalese gradually heading towards this? “Clones of an alien people.” Well, they would finally end being such a group if they fail to change their line of thought. You have to learn English not because you feel ‘shy’ to converse in your own language but because all prestige, knowledge and might are centred around it.

If you feel free to blame your Colonial masters for ruining the culture and the resources of the country, do the same to yourself for being a ‘Neo Colonial agent’ if you are one such.n