The Sri Lankan Moors, Sona Tamil and changing language attitudes (II)

Sona Tamil and changing language attitudes among the Moors

The form of Tamil spoken by the moors (Sona Tamil) is not quite the same as the Tamil spoken by the Tamils of south India and Jaffna and has been considerably influenced by other languages such as Arabic, Hindustānī, Sinhala and Malayālam. It is however probable that the Sona Tamil speech has largely derived from a south Indian Tamil patois such as that spoken in Tanjore where the place of intervocalic g has been taken by h.

There exists number of phonological differences between proper Tamil and the Moorish variant. For instances, Sona Tamil has v in the place of standard Tamil intervocalic g.

[Cf. - Confer, Compare]

Cf. Son. T. mavan ‘son’ (T. magan)
maval ‘Daughter’ (T. magal)

However this appears to be development from intervocalic h as is suggested by the Arabic words Sahn, ‘dish’ and sahur ‘meal before the fast' being turned into savan and savar repectively in the sona dialect.

Sona Tamil has also dropped the peculiar r of Standard Tamil.

Cf.Son. T. mūnu ‘three’ (T. munru)

And has dispensed wit the Tamil rule requiring that the semi-vowel r be preceded by a vowel.

Cf. Son. T. rendu ‘two’ (T. irandu)
As for vowel changes, the initial i of Standard Tamil has become e in the Sona dialect.

Cf. Son. T. eracci ‘flesh’ (T. iraicci)

While the initial u has become o

Cf. Son. T. orava ‘relationship’ (T. uravu)

And i has become o

Cf. Son. T. pora ‘crescent’ (T. pirai)

Among the distinct Sona Tamil forms may be included ūdu ‘house’ (T. vīdu), bavru ‘stomach’ (T. vayiru) and osaram ‘tall’ (T. uyaram).

There also exist some significant morphological differences. Whereas Tamil being an agglutinative language forms the vocative by suffixing - e to the noun (Cf. magan ‘son’ which becomes magane), the Sona dialect inflects the noun with an e (Cf. mavan which becomes maven). The influence of other Dravidian speeches or dialects also cannot be denied. Cf. the Malayalam finite verb aticcu (as for instance in nan aticcu ‘I beat’) with the Sona Tamil aticca. Both these are apparently closer to one another than they are to the cognate Tamil from atittu. All this shows that the Tamil spoken by the Moors approaches a sort of creole speech, albeit considerably influenced by a Tamil dialect such as that of Tanjore which seems to have served as the principal laxities language.

The Sona vocabulary has also been considerably influenced by other languages. Sonahar kinship terms, for instance, have been influenced by languages whose speakers also belonged to the Islamic faith. The Moorish ummā ‘mother’, vāppā ‘father’, dātā ‘elder sister’ and nānā ‘elder brother’ differ considerably from their respective Tamil equivalents, ammā, appán, akkā and annā. Ummā is a loan from the Arabic umm ‘mother’ while vāppā appears to be a corruption of the Hindustānī bāp ‘father’. Dātā is probably a corruption of the Divehi data ‘elder sister’ while nānā may have arisen from the Oriya nanā which is used in the sense of ‘elder brother’. Sona tamil sāccā ‘father’s younger brother’ and sāccī ‘mother’s younger sister’ also differ from their respective Tamil equivalent sittappa and sitti, and appear to have been influenced by Hindustānī. Sāccā is very probably a corruption of the H. cācā ‘father’s younger brother’ while it is likely that sāccī has been constructed on analogy.

Sinhala influence has also been considerable. The suffix – e signifying the exclamation o in Sinhala amme (o, mother!) is often expressed as umme after the Sinhalese manner. Sinhala terms also figure significantly in the vocabulary of the moors with such words as goda ‘abundance’, bora ‘muddy’, kalabala ‘confusion’ and kabal ‘damaged’ being widely used. The Sinhala for ‘laziness’ kammäli – kama has been adopted in Sona Tamil as kammalitanam. The Sinhala vaduvā ‘carpenter’, pissa ‘madman’ and pacayā ‘liar’ have been adopted as vaduvan, pissan and pacen respectively.

Arabic words also figure significantly in the Sonahar vocabulary. These include common nouns such as salat ‘prayer’, ilm ‘knowledge’, sabr ‘patience’, qabr ‘grave’, jahl ‘ignorance’, safar ‘journey’, kitab ‘book’, nikah ‘marriage’ and talak ‘divorce’. However whether these Arabic vocables have entered the Moor language via a medium such as Hindustānī remains unascertained.

Distinctly Hindustānī loans in the sona speech include namāz ‘prayer’, bāṅg ‘summons to prayer’, dādhi ‘beard’, havā ‘craving’, mahallā ‘locality in connection with a mosque’, pardā ‘islamicaly proper female attire’, sunnat ‘circumcision’, qabrastān ‘graveyard’ and jumerāt ‘Thursday’. Etimological change from these Hindustānī is also not unknown. For instances, H. pasand ‘liking’ has come to assume the sense of ‘beautiful’ in Sona Tamil, possibly through an intermediate sense of ‘desirable’. A number of Hindustānī loans (e.g. mahallā, jumerāt) appear to have gained wide currency only in recent times, a development largely attributable to the activities of the Delhi- based tabliq jamaat missionary movement, while others (e.g. vāppā, havā, pasand, sunnat) seem to go back to an earlier period and may have been acquired as a result of the close connections the Moors have had with the subcontinent.

As for literary activity, available evidence would suggest that the Moors have traditionally belonged to a fairly literate society, which is however not surprising considering the emphasise their Islamic faith places on the acquisition of knowledge. In the olden days, the literate of the Moors was generally in Arabu-Tamil i.e. Tamil in Arabic script, which seems to have been borrowed from the Dravidian-speaking Muslims of South India. The Arabu-Tamil script comprised of Arabic characters, with a few letters improvised to denote Tamil sounds unknown in Arabic such as c,p,o and e. in a later times, with the circulation of printed books, the Arabic script was gradually superseded by the Tamil script with or without the use of diacritical marks.[Some aspects of the Muslim Society of Ceylon, A.M.A.Azeez, Vol.I (1968)]

Among the few surviving of specimens of indigenous Arabu-Tamil literature may be included the khasful ran’an qalbil jān, an Arabu-Tamil journal published in Colombo during the later part of the nineteenth century (1889-1890). Writing one’s language in Arabic script or modified form of it has been characteristic of many Muslim peoples of the east. This still obtains among the Urdū-speaking Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. It also formerly obtained among the Malays (who employed an unvocalized Arabic script known as Jawi before its supersession by the Latin script) and the Turks of Ottoman period (who employed a modified Perso-Arabic script).

The Moors whose ancestor were an Arabic-speaking folk do not seem to have had that strong linguistic consciousness and sense of attachment to Tamil that has traditionally characterised Tamil folk, and today we find the Moors gradually eschewing Tamil and adopting Sinhala in its place – mainly due to socio-cultural factors. As far back as 1886, the Tamil language newspaper Muslim Naisen edited by M.C.Siddi Lebbe advocated that in the circumstances obtaining, the Muslims should acquire a knowledge of Arabic, Tamil, English and Sinhala.

Today it is very evident that the Moor youth of the predominantly Sinhalese areas are fast acquiring a new linguistic identity. Sinhala has come to play a significant role in their day to day life and is gradually displacing Tamil in the process. This has already occurred to a significant extent in the Sinhalese-Majority Central, Western and Southern Provinces. This process largely attributable to formal to formal education in the Sinhala vernacular. The vast majority of Moor students in the Sinhala majority Provinces (i.e. all provinces except the Northern and Eastern provinces) receive their education today in the Sinhala medium. The need for instruction in the Sinhala vernacular was felt as early as the 1950s, especially by the Kandyan Moors.

The Report of the Kandyan Peasantry commission notes of the Muslims of the Central and Uva provinces: “the Muslims regard themselves as Kandyan peasantry and have so claimed before us”. “In representations made before us on behalf of certain groups of these Muslims, the request has been made that their education should be in Sinhala, in preference to Tamil”. “they realise and consider that their future is so closely linked with the Sinhalese peasantry midst whom they live, that it would be in their future interest and betterment if Sinhalese became their medium of instruction. Thus in all respects, except the preservation of their religion, customs, and manners, their wish is to be regarded as part and parcel of the Kandyan peasantry”.

It should also be pointed out that during the fifties; Moorish leaders like Badiuddin Mahmud and Razik Fareed were some of the most fervent advocates of the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy which sought to make Sinhala the sole official language of the country, replacing English, despite the fact that the Moors were for the most part a Tamil-speaking people. Nowadays it is not uncommon for Friday sermons (bāyān) before the congregational prayer (jumma) Friday prayer to be delivered in Sinhala in number of urban, sub-urban and many other rural areas in the Sinhala-speaking districts. Some interest has also been evinced in the Urdū language (the lingua franca and dominant speech of the Muslims of the Indian sub-continent), especially on the part of the Moor youth.