Language Barriers

When looking at the root causes of the Sri Lankan conflict, one issue that comes up time and time again is language. According to The Constitution, Sri Lanka’s national languages are Sinhala and Tamil but it seems that ‘national language’ and ‘official language’ mean different things. The Constitution has two separate sections for these, the latter of which reads “The official language of Sri Lanka shall be Sinhala. Tamil shall also be an official language. English shall be the link language.” From the wording alone, it is not surprising that this is still a very problematic area where discrimination and inequality prevail.

Today, Sri Lankans have the right to an education in either Sinhala or Tamil, but they are not required to learn both which means that from a very early age, communities are being divided by language barriers. That is not to say that Sri Lankans are monolingual. On the contrary, many Tamil people have learnt Sinhala, especially those living in the Southern province and the majority of the Muslim community is also fluent in both Tamil and Sinhala, as well as English. But the average Singhalese person has neither the need nor the desire to learn Tamil and communicates in either Sinhala or English.

Of course, there are a few exceptions. Dilini Rajapakse is a Singhalese woman and holds a degree in the Sinhala language. But the subject she teaches at the Poramadulla Central College in Hangurankette is an unfamiliar one for the majority of the Sinhalese students. Dilini teaches Tamil from grade six to nine, having pursued her own personal desire to communicate with her Tamil and Muslim peers: “I had an interest in learning Tamil since I was a child. Unfortunately when we were schooling we were not taught Tamil as a second language. I went to the library and learnt the Tamil alphabets by myself. When I was doing so I got the chance to enter the Campus. There we had many Tamil and Muslim friends. We were with them a lot and we also shared our food.”

Teaching Singhalese students to use the Tamil medium potentially has long term and far reaching benefits. As language is such a vital component to a person’s identity, being familiar with different languages will inevitably create more understanding and respect between the different communities that make up the multicultural fabric of Sri Lankan society. However, this cannot be achieved while the education system fails to address this need and furthermore, learning a language from grades six to nine is hardly an adequate period of time for students to grasp sufficient understanding and proficiency.  The lack of trained Tamil teachers has proved to be a problem when addressing this issue and according to Acting Principal of Poramadulla Central College, P.B Rajanayake, this is the reason they recruited a Singhalese Tamil language teacher. “Actually we appointed this Sinhala teacher to teach Tamil because we do not have a Tamil medium teacher. This teacher was not appointed to teach Tamil in this school but knowing that we do not have teachers for Tamil she took the responsibility to teach according to the knowledge she has gained personally. It is a great service for the students of our school.” 

In the past it has also been said that following Independence in 1948 when the education system was reviewed and deliberation was taking place regarding bilingualism in schools, it was decided that the ratio of Sinhala and Tamil medium schools meant that far more Tamil teachers would be given jobs in Sinhala schools than vice versa, so the idea was abandoned.  But today it seems that people are becoming more and more in favour of bilingualism, whether it is for peaceful co-existence or for increased trade potential A survey conducted in 2006 showed that 65.5% of the civilians have strongly agreed that people, especially those working in government organizations, should be fluent in both national languages. But perhaps more importantly, children in schools are showing a genuine interest in learning both languages but unless policies are put in place and teachers are trained, the language barriers that divide this nation will remain firmly in place.