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SUMMARY:&quot\;History of Language and Politics of Linguistic Identity: In
 do-Aryan and Dravidian Debate in Sri Lanka&quot\; - Sandagomi Coperahewa
DTSTART:20070517T160000Z
DTEND:20070517T173000Z
UID:TALK7289@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Su Lin Lewis
DESCRIPTION:The central concern of this paper is to locate the relationshi
 p between language identity and ethnic consciousness in the context of lin
 guistic history\, ideologies and language debates of the early twentieth c
 entury Sri Lanka. The historical linguistic research in the 1920-1930s sta
 ted that the non-Aryan influences - not necessarily Dravidian only\, but p
 re-Dravidian as well have been at work in the development of the Sinhala l
 anguage. These linguistic research and discoveries led to many controversi
 es among scholars on the issue of origin of Sinhala and its Indo-Aryan lin
 guistic character. In this period\, language became more important than re
 ligion and it shows the utilisation of language over religion as an identi
 ty marker. The Indo-Aryan vs Dravidian debate of the Sinhala language that
  appeared in the 1920s and 1930s was a good example for this sociolinguist
 ic situation. By focussing on this debate\, this paper discusses how the h
 istory of language and growth of linguistic consciousness generated new de
 finitions of linguistic identity and linguistic differentiation between th
 e Sinhalese and Tamils.
LOCATION:Boys Smith Room\, St. John's
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