Robert Knox - the Sinhala language exporter?

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

Strangely or not so strangely words too are a commodity that are subject to the process of import and export. Usually they accompany the item that is imported or exported and that word begins to be used without having to coin a new word for it especially if it goes easy on the native tongue (eg. seeni , and paan).

Other than this process rarely do people bother to import or export long lists of words from one country to another mainly since there is no commercial gain in such a transaction.

Perhaps Robert Knox goes down in history for not only drawing the curtain away from the obscure stage of the Kandyan kingdom of the 17th Century dominated by Rajasinghe - the Second, but as the first human to export Sinhala words to the West. At Garraways, the famous coffee shop in London, encouraged by Robert Hooke, Secretary of the Royal Society he sat down and attempted compiling all these words into a book, which alas, he never saw in print since the merciless Maraya intervened.

My interest in this list of words was kindled after reading the very well researched book, ?Knox?s words? by Richard Boyle, a book sent to me by author himself (I assume) but had been just languishing in my library.

Boyle himself owns to an interesting background. A famous film producer and script writer, now domiciled in Sri Lanka, he has devoted two decades to research into the colonial history of Lanka during British times.

In 2000 he had begun assisting the Oxford English Dictionary in the revision of the entries for words of Sri Lankan origin. Though not mentioned anywhere in the data of him I like to think that he is a descendent of a Robert Boyle who according to the contents in the text comprised the group that met at the coffee house listening with rapt attention to Knox?s adventures or miserable life in our highlands as a state prisoner.

John Simpson, Chief Editor of Oxford English Dictionary has this to say of the research.

?Boyle?s research has admirably highlighted Knox?s contribution to the origins of Sri Lankan English and has provided much material for the updating and revision of this aspect of the OED?.

More interesting than Boyle?s research is the way that Knox had set about the work. Though he lived among our hills and ravines for nearly 20 years he never learnt to read and write the Sinhala language.

As a mobile prisoner, he moved among the lower segments of society in the very rural areas away from the capital Mahanuwara and had to make ends meet for his survival. So it is natural that he had no inclination for academic or literary pursuits and to put it rather bluntly he was in no mood to do a study of the language of his captors at whose hands, his ship captain?s father had undergone a miserable end and his youth and middle age got wasted.

But in the course of his life here and perpetual travelling to sell caps and find a route of escape he did pick up the language. In fact at Arippu where he sailed out in a Dutch ship it has been reported that two Sinhala speaking men, betel-chewing, claiming to be English had turned up and asked for help.

So Knox evidently had been conversant in Sinhala. In his preface to Knox?s book, Dr. Hooke writes, ?He (Knox) could have given you a complete dictionary of their language, understanding and speaking it as well ad his mother tongue?. His English, he kept in touch with by conversing with the 10 other captives most of whom opted to talk Sinhala by marrying Sinhala women and settling down on the mountains.

It is obvious that it was Dr. Hooke, a scholar who had encouraged Knox to list the words picked up here, words that Knox had picked up from the day to day conversation of the Kandyan villagers.

No court or high flown or text book language involved. These core words are an index to the type of words he had picked up - ambalama, betel leaf, bo-tree, Buddha, dissava, gaur (gavara or ox), iluk (reed), kabaragoya, kangany, kitul, kurakkan, murunga, perahara, pooja, polonga, rillow, talipot, vedda, torana, vihara.

The total of the 736 words include those separately listed plus the words used in his ?Historical Relations of Ceylon?.

That Knox however had been careless about the list is shown by the fact that many words used in the book are not in the list and this lethargy can be explained by Hooke?s growing illness that ended with his death.

Otherwise the two of them, in that far away coffee house had been almost on the brink of discovering the Indo - European roots of a language ?spoken in a distant island of Asia? thus preceding professionals in the field by a good stretch of time.

Here is Paulusz himself on the subject, ?Hooke was a classical scholar. Latin was the language he used in most cases when he wrote a treatise. From Knox he discovered many similarities between the Sinhala and Latin...... he was groping his way towards tracing the links between the Sanskrit - Greek - Latin languages, as announced in 1786 by Sir William Jones and afterwards developed by the brothers Grimm through the affinities between the Sanskrit and the Indo - European or Indo - Germanic tongues?.

This scholarly adventure began almost a 100 years later after the Garraway adventure. The list of words itself compiled so had been lost (with the death of both Hooke and Knox) and it was two centuries later that Donald Ferguson had stumbled on Robert Knox?s Sinhala vocabulary in the British Museum library.

Ferguson had found them stacked in a bundle of papers belonging to Dr. Hooke. some words had been written by Hooke as Knox read them out and some by Knox himself. Hooke had followed a certain pattern of using English vowels to write the Sinhala words which Knox had ignored and written the way he wished. The sheets comprised four foolscap papers cut into two.

Knox delved into business and travel again, even engaging in slave trade conveniently forgetting his own status as a captive harvesting Kollara?s fields at Legumdeniya off Gampola. Mastering his ship, ?Tonqueen Merchant? in the oceanic waters to and fro from Africa and India he however took care never to come to Ceylon again.

The betel-chewing habit he cultivated here, had however remained and he would have replenished his stock of areca and betel from India.

The dictionary of Sinhala words, now that Hooke was dead would have eventually trailed its way to the museum.

Knox had exhibited a wish to have the words compiled and printed as a second book now that his first book on Ceylon had made such a triumphant debut in England while earning translations into other languages too and going on to inspire intensive travel literature as Defoe?s Robinson Crusoe. But his plans as regards the word compilation never materialized.

It is rather interesting to note that though about 300 plus years have lapsed since the compilation of these words used in the island, that they yet continue to be used in the same way.

A word that is rather surprising is Kangani (overseer) which many erroneously consider sprouted with the plantation economy, but it had been used even during Knox?s stay in the island pertaining to an overseeing officer, himself.

(For further reading on the subject, read ?Knox?s Words? by Richard Boyle.)