Unraveling the Sinhala word

Sunday Times.lk
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An accessible introduction to Sinhala Graphology.
Sinhala Akshara Vicharaya (Sinhala Graphology) by J.B. Disanayaka. Reviewed by
Sandagomi Coperahewa
Unraveling the Sinhala word
Professor J.B. Disanayaka is a leading authority on the subject of Sinhala language. His
latest book deals with Sinhala graphology. The Oxford English Dictionary (online)
provides the following meanings for the term ‘graphology’: The study of
handwriting; the art of science of inferring a person’s character, disposition and
aptitudes from the peculiarities of his handwriting; the system of graphic formulae the notation used for graphs; the study of written and printed symbols and of writing
systems.
Graphology, in its linguistic sense, is the study of the systems of symbols that have been devised to
communicate language in written form. According to David Crystal, world authority on the English
language and linguistics, graphology in this sense has nothing to do with the analysis of handwriting to
determine the psychological characteristic of the writer – an activity for which the same term is often
popularly used. The term graphology was coined on analogy with phonology.
This book is the first volume of a series on the contemporary literary usage and it provides a solid
background to the field of Sinhala graphology. Sinhala has a writing system that goes back to the third
century B.C. The present writing system is an outcome of various linguistic, historical, social and cultural
processes that were at work over two millennia. With the passage of time the Sinhala alphabet underwent
radical changes. In recent years, modern computer technology has also made a considerable impact on
Sinhala graphology.
This book is divided into 10 chapters and each chapter consists of 10 units. Chapter one deals with the
origin of the Sinhala language and its genetic affinities.
In chapter two, the author briefly explains the evolution of the Sinhala language, from Sinhala Prakrit to
the contemporary period and in chapter three, the history and evolution of the Sinhala letters from the
Brahmi period to the modern Sinhala script. Here he pays special attention to the evolution of the Sinhala
writing system and covers topics such as the impact of printing, typewriter and computers on the Sinhala
alphabet. However, he overlooks the topic of Sinhala shorthand writing.
The fourth chapter deals with the concepts related to ‘letters’. In this chapter, the author presents a
brief survey about the concept of akshara or akuru (letters) in Sinhala usage. As a linguist interested in
Sinhala folk usage, he provides various idioms related to the concept of letters: akurata veda, akuru
karanava, at akuru, gale ketu akura, mala pote akura, pansal akuru, mul akuru etc. Moreover, he
investigates some notions about the term hodiya (alphabet) and then provides a brief account on the
various writing systems of the world. This chapter also contains an account on the Brahmi and Roman
letters.
Various Sinhala alphabets from the 13th century to modern times are discussed in chapter five. Prof.
Disanayaka first deals with the alphabet of Sidat Sangarava and then describes various Sinhala alphabets.
This chapter also reviews the Sinhala alphabetical order and some current issues related to it. The
subsequent chapters are devoted to describing the phonological basis of Sinhala letters.
In this analysis, the author utilizes both the contemporary and traditional classification. Accordingly,
chapter six covers Sinhala vowels (pranakshara) and chapter seven deals with Sinhala consonant letters
(gatrakshara), with a classification of vowel and consonants. The eighth and ninth chapters present
another classification on Sinhala consonants on the basis of two parameters: point of articulation
(Sthanna) and manner of articulation (vilasa). The last chapter examines Sinhala letter shapes, sizes and
scale and provides much data for Sinhala typographers. However, in this chapter the author disregards
the graphical identity and expression of Sinhala letters. The book ends with appendices that present
useful diagrams and charts related to chapters and list of references.
Daily News - August 2006
http://archives.dailynews.lk/2006/08/09/art04.asp
Focus on books
Understanding the aspects of Sinhala letter
By : Professor Sunanda Mahendra ( [email protected] )
BOOKS: Though quite a number of books and learned articles have been
written on the subject of grammar, linguistics, and other related subject areas
pertaining to the structures of words and letters in Sinhala language, most of
them have been confined to learned individuals connected with those fields
over the years, especially those who claimed themselves as erudites of
grammatical rules and tools in etymology, phonetics, linguistics and
graphology.
Though we are constant users of words, phrases and terms in various manifold verbal patterns
over mass media and other channels of communication to address our own companions or
recipients, we little know the intrinsic meanings therein and the developments taken over the
years as to how we use demarcating them into groups and the ways and means of
understanding some of the latent rhetoric linked with the particular uses.
As such I presume the subject area called linguistics from its original patterns paved the way to
many more categories such as socio linguistics psycholinguistics. It is the duty of the linguists
to help the scholars to obtain knowledge as to how the uses came to be, and the changing
aspects connected with them.
Professor J. B. Disanayaka has been engaged in this venture over the last four decades or more
as a teacher of linguistics at the university levels and trained as a researcher in the most
modern techniques at home and abroad dedicating his lifetime to this study with a holistic view
on the uses as connected in the fields of folklore uses and other aligned areas perhaps
untouched by other scholars.
His intention is to clarify scientifically how the Sinhala letter evolved and is placed in its modern
context undergoing the changes over the years.
Repertoire
The latest addition to the repertoire of books written by him on this subject is titled Sinhala
Akshara Vicaraya [which he titles in English as Sinhala Graphology, 2006, Sumitha
Publication].
This is an attempt in ten chapters split into small units for the sake of better and clear
understanding with examples to outline the areas such as the origin of language, development
of a language, etymological and structural aspects of words, the types of letters, the evolution of
an alphabet in comparison with other linguistic groups the special terminologies denoted to
letters as they change from time to time and the changing aspects of words depending on the
situations, events, experiences and patterns and the resultant uses and the formations of new
letters and how they came to be written.
All these are taken into consideration with special reference to the use of Sinhala letter and the
formation of verbal patterns via this evolution. He makes the reader feel at the outset that the
subject is not at all a high-flown pedantic exercise though some have tried to make it look so,
indicating it as a specialised area in darkness confined to pundits.
He raises some of the common issues pertaining to the use of the words and phrases and
examines them in this background and tries to respond to such issues as to the origin of the
Sinhala language examining the verbal patterns over the centuries to address whether it has
any connection to Indian languages or stemming out of an Indian language or solely originated
in the Sri Lankan soil by the pre-Vijaya generation of settlers.
For this, he makes use of the various available sources, such as rock edicts and inscriptions, and
earliest textual writings. His mainstay of opinion seems to be the liberal acceptance of the
change of linguistic patterns from time to time, as a neutral phenomenon giving vent to many
new words and mixed verbal patterns, which cannot be made to look a purified from its original
stance.
Thus the term ‘living language’ [jivabhashava] is introduced more meaningfully to the
modern day reader. In this venture he compares the various ways and means of the change of
other languages in their respective social conditions in a historical perspective. Thus the
changes that took place in Latin and Roman context are traced side by side with those of the
Indian context.
He categorises some words into groups as used in Pali, Vanga [Bengali], Oriya and Sinhala, and
examines subjectwise how this phenomenon takes place. For example, he takes the term Suriyo
[sun] in Pali, Surjo in Vanga, Surjiya in Oriya, Suriya or Hiru in Sinhala.
Linguistic groups
In this manner he subdivides words into linguistic groups connecting them to nature
[svabhadhramaya] parts of the body [sariranga] animal world [satva lokaya] human world
[manushya lokaya] plants [vraksha lata] colours [varna] indicating that the development of a
letter depends on the cross cultural aspects as well.
As the lineage of the Sinhala letter is of Indian origin, it is inevitable that it has this inter cultural
aspect of affiliation which inevitably becomes a significant factor in this study.
He also makes use to the full, some of the views held over the years as to the use of the mixture
of Pali and Sanskrit words in Sinhala language as against the pure Hela terms, making
references to the pioneer findings of scholars such as Geiger [A grammar of the Sinhalese
language] and Paranavitana [Early Brahmi Inscriptions].
He focuses attention on the uses of words and the changing nuances of the same as they come
to be used by special groups of people in professions and social categories.
This book too gives new insights to such areas as morphology [pada vicharaya] syntax [vakya
vicharaya] semantics [artha vicharaya] a subject which is becoming more popular in the field of
mass communication as linked to the use of language and semiotics [sagnavedaya] and the
modern use of words and letters for the computer era.
Perhaps some other scholars of allied areas could take over from Disanayaka some of these
aspects as intensive research areas in creative communication meanings in literature, a study
which is now stagnant with pseudo-modernistic trends misunderstood by the trend setters
especially via newspapers and minor iconoclastic groups called ‘kandayam’.
Disanayaka takes the reader into a classification of the Sinhala letters and the uses of Sinhala
language as observed in the earliest stages of its evolution in our country tracing the forms as
found in the earliest texts to Sigiri Graffiti where a clear cut creative use of the poetic diction is
observable. This he names as Sigiri Sinhalaya.
Then he turns to more modern aspects which cover provinces such as the dialect used in the
hill country naming them as Udarata Sinhalaya. He also classifies the uses of words and phrases
into two broad categories such as the more poetical uses or rhetorical uses called kavlekiya and
more prosaic and worldly verbal usages termed as levlakiya.
Then his attention is drawn towards the contemporary use of language where mass media play
a vital role called Samakalina Sinhalaya.
While classifying the language structures as utilised by the masses over the years in this
manner Disanayaka enters into a more modernistic territory taking the contemporary uses as
most controversial from a puristic standpoint where he makes the reader feel that it is the duty
to face the computer and internet technology resourcefully and place them in that perspective
without turning the clock back and shows how it could be done illustratively [pp349 - 380].
Though a lot of hard linguistic searching had gone into the contents of this book to illuminate
the graphological aspects of the Sinhala letter which is the focal point, is not only a contribution
to the main subject of linguistics, but also to the allied areas such as folklore, ritual,
communication, sociology and creative expressions in popular culture.