Swaminathan Suseendirarajah: :

Kelaniya University honours eminent professor of Linguistics

by Dr. Kandiah Shriganeshan

Emeritus Prof. Swaminathan Suseendirarajah, an internationally famed intellectual, formerly attached to the University of Jaffna was honoured with an Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Kelaniya in its 50th General convocation held on 17th June 2010.

Professor Suseendirarajah is undoubtedly the most prolific scholar in the field of Linguistics and widely respected by many a scholar from England, America, India, Malaysia and Russia. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Jaffna until Oct'99. His varied and well-documented contributions which appeared in learned academic journals both in Sri Lanka and abroad bear testimony to his wide and analytical knowledge in this field of scholarship. His research fields include variety of different disciplines like Hindu Cultural studies, and folklore, other than General Linguistics, Tamil Linguistics, and applied linguistics (teaching Tamil as a second language to speakers of the languages like Sinhalese, Chinese and Americans).

Prof. Swaminathan Suseendirarajah

As a Professor of Linguistics he has served his motherland to achieve peace and harmony through teaching Tamil and Sinhala in collaboration with Prof. W.S. Karunatillake and publishing books to teach these languages. Professor Suseendirarajah used to tell us in the mid of lectures that the Tamils should study Sinhala and the Sinhalese should study Tamil, and a day should dawn when a Tamil becomes a Professor of Sinhala and a Sinhala becomes a Professor of Tamil! He has consistently impressed upon the junior staff of his department on the importance of comparative study of Sinhala and Tamil and encouraged his students like Prof. M.A.Nuhuman, Dr (Mrs). R.Kailanathan, Dr. (Mrs). Ramesh to undertake comparative studies of Tamil and Sinhala for their doctoral degree. Wimal Swaminathan, a Sinhala Special degree graduate who was appointed as a lecturer in Sinhala at the University of Jaffna during his tenure worked on the common vocabulary of Tamil and Sinhala for his Master's degree.

"Prof. S. Suseendirarajah is a man of unobtrusive manner; he is unostentatious and shuns any kind of popularity. Simplicity is the main trait of this scholarly personality" Thus says Dr. (Mrs). A. Sivapalan, Senior Lecturer in English of the University of Jaffna (Sunday Observer, 07.11.1999). Though he is a modest intellectual and very much unknown to the common man, his name has been cited in the Marquis 'Who's Who in the World',U.S.A and also in the Dictionary of International Biography Cambridge, U.K. The Cambridge International Biographical Centre, England has also selected his name to be included in their latest publication '2000 outstanding Intellectuals of the 20th Century'.

Born on 9th October, 1933 in a coastal village of Myliddy, Jaffna to a well-educated family and being the seventh child of nine children of a leading educationist in the north, Prof. S. Suseendirarajah was nurtured in an atmosphere which instilled in him an eager quest for knowledge very early in life. His father, Late S. Swaminathan, a former Principal of the Saiva Teachers' Training College, Thirunelveli, Jaffna was one of the famous intellectual trio attached to it. The other two were Po.Kailasapathy, an outstanding scholar and the Vice Principal of the college and Eelathu Pandithamani Kanapathippillai, a famous literary figure and a lecturer at the college. All three influenced the educated people of Jaffna and elsewhere in and out of country very much then. Suseendirarajah enjoyed the rare opportunity of listening to their academic discussions during his tender age.

Having received primary education from Gnanodaya Vidyasalai, Myliddy South, Jaffna and Union College, Tellippalai he pursued his secondary education at Parameshvara College in Jaffna and St. Joseph's College, Bangalore in India. He obtained B. A. in Tamil in 1958 and M. A in Tamil in 1959 from the University of Madras.

He returned to Sri Lanka to work as a journalist at the Associated Newspapers Ltd, Lake House, Colombo for a brief period. Having self- motivated by his interest in higher studies he went to India again to pursue his post graduate studies at the Centre of Advanced Studies in Linguistics, Annamalai University, Tamilnadu in July 1960 under eminent scholars like Prof.T.P.Meenashisudaram, Prof.M.Sanmugampilai, Prof.S.Aguesthialingam and Prof.S.V.Shanmugam all of whom excelled in Dravidian Linguistics. He got through the Master's degree with a First class and secured Post-Graduate Diploma in Sanskrit and Certificates in Malayalam and Kannada. He had a rare chance of being appointed as a lecturer in Linguistics at the Annamalai University and gained three years' experience in teaching linguistics. In the meantime, he continued as a research scholar to work for Doctorate. He was the first to receive Ph. D. in Linguistics from Annamalai University, India. His doctoral thesis was highly commended by scholars like M.Andronov from Russia, a scholar in Dravidian Linguistics, Professor James W.Gair from the Cornel University, U.S.A., Professor R.E.Asher from the Edinburgh University, U.K. and Prof.R.Householder, Indianna University, U.S.A.

After such enthusiastic academic achievements he began his budding academic career as a lecturer in Tamil at the undergraduate Department of Jaffna College in1967 and served for three years. It was in 1971 he got into his favourite field of study and got appointed as a lecturer in Linguistics first at the University of Colombo and later at the University of Kelaniya as a senior lecturer in Linguistics. It was while at the University of Kelaniya that he undertook a research on Sinhala and Tamil Linguistics studies in collaboration with Prof. W. S. Karunatillake of the University of Kelaniya and Prof. James W. Gair of the University of Cornell, USA and published a very useful book titled 'An Introduction to spoken Tamil'. During this period he published extensively in national and international journals in General Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Socio Linguistics, Anthropological Linguistics as well as studies in Dravidian languages, both in English and Tamil. Prof. S. Suseendirarajah worked at the University of Kelaniya until instruction in the Tamil medium was scrapped in 1980.

When the Tamil stream of studies at the Kelaniya University was shifted to the Jaffna University in 1980 Suseendirarajah opted to move to the University of Jaffna and joined the Department of Tamil. He felt the importance and need for a separate department for the study of linguistics. He organized linguistics studies in Jaffna and through his efforts a new department emerged in 1983. Initially it was named as the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies. Later in 1992 it was recognized as the Department of Linguistics and English and a chair for Linguistics was created. He got the chair and became the founder Professor of Linguistics in 1984 in Jaffna. He was promoted to the post of Senior Professor in 1992. In the University of Jaffna, he had been the Head of Department of Tamil and also the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies wherein apart from Linguistics, Christian Civilization, Islamic Civilization and English Language were units of studies.

During his career at the University of Jaffna Prof. S. Suseendirarajah supervised the research work of many postgraduate students. He was also the examiner of doctoral dissertations in Linguistics and Tamil studies submitted to the Universities of Monash (Australia), Annamalai, Kamaraj, Barathithasan (Madras, India). From 1972-1980 he was one of the consultants of the Government Schools Text Books Committee. When the Lexicography Unit of the Faculty of Arts, University of Jaffna, set up a link program with the University of Tanjavur Prof. S. Suseendirarajah supervised the compilation of Sri Lankan Tamil Lexical items. These items have been included in the Greater Tamil Lexicon published by the Tamil University of Tanjavur.

Apart from the academic services within the university curricula and syllabi, Professor also contributed his intellectual services to the society by editing the thoughts and writings of Po.Kailasapathy, a prominent scholar in Saiva Siddhanta in Jaffna along with Mr. A.Sabaratnam, a freelance writer and the book was published by the University of Jaffna under the title 'Kailasapathy Chinthanaikal' (Thoughts of Kailasapathy). His attempt to analyse critically the works of Pandithamani Kanapathippillai showed his quest for objective and his critical approach was treated as a discipline. All these works were compiled by Dr. Kandiah Shriganeshan (the writer of this article) under the title Eelathu Pandithamani (published by Kumaran Printers).

Professor Suseendirarajah was appointed as a member of various committees at the Jaffna University namely the Research Grants Committee, Selection Committee for Professors and the University Publication Committee. His voice echoed in every sitting of higher bodies of the University of Jaffna in relation to maintaining high standards. His methodical precision and clarity of language had been singularly helpful to many of his colleagues. Many junior academics of various fields in the Faculty of Arts have sought his advice and guidance in methodology for their post graduate research work.

Suseendirarajah is a life member of the Linguistics society of India and the Dravidian Linguistics Association, Kerala. He has written six books, more than 50 research articles, and four book-reviews and has edited two books. Some of his selected articles in Tamil and English were collected and edited by his students namely K.Balasubramanium, K.Ratnamalar and R.Subathini and Some Tamil articles were also edited by Dr.S.Rajaram and R.Subathini and published as a Commemoration Volume to mark his sixty fifth birthday in 1999. The M.D.Gunasenas Publishing Company published another book titled 'An Introduction to Literary Tamil' co-authored by Prof.S.Suseendirarajah and Prof.W..Karunatillake.

After retirement, Prof. Suseendirarajah moved to Colombo and worked in different language projects. He worked as a consultant in the trilingual Dictionary Project of the Department of Officials Languages, Government of Sri Lanka and authored two books titled Spoken Tamil and Written Tamil. He has also worked as a consultant in the English and Tamil Glossary work in the same department. Prof. helped the Institute of Human Resource Advancement of the University of Colombo as a consultant to organize learning Tamil as a second language at three levels: Basic Course in Tamil- Spoken Tamil, Intermediate Course in Tamil -Written Tamil, and Advanced Course in Tamil leading to Diploma in Tamil. It is noteworthy that over one thousand students are learning Tamil as a second language in this Institute under the Directorship of Dr.Hiriboragame.

Having served for more than 40 years in various esteemed positions, and being an examiner for doctoral dissertations, a member in the Sri Lanka Text book Advisory Board for several years and a consultant for many a language course, Professor Suseendirarajah is still playing a big role in propagating the use of Tamil linguistics and cultural studies in our educational fields at the age of seventy-seven. Having led an exemplary life as an eminent academic, a teacher and a researcher par excellence who fought for the cause of upholding high standards in university education, Professor's remarkable scholarship, high quality of research, and uncompromising stand on keeping principals would be followed by his students forever.

To such an eminent scholar, honourary awards were showered upon after his retirement. First the University of Jaffna honoured him with a degree of Doctor of Letters in 2000. Then the national award, "Deshanethru" was awarded to him in 2008 by his Excellency the President for his overall contribution in the field of language, literature and arts and this honour was treated as an honour made to Tamil linguistic research in Sri Lanka.

Recently, the University of Kelaniya showed its admiration by awarding him another degree of Doctor of Letters for his contribution in the field of Linguistics in general and promoting peace and harmony through bilingual lingual language programmes in particular. The Tamils of this nation is proud to see one of our intellectuals is honoured by the intellectuals of our brethren university. Let us keep this spirit to make the country go forward and achieve peace and harmony.

The writer is Head and Senior Lecturer in English, English Language Teaching Unit, Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna