Vedda language
Encyclopedia
The Vedda language is the language of the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka
. But communities, such as Coast Veddas
and Anuradhapura Veddas
, that do not strictly identify themselves as Veddas also use the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and or for religious chants, throughout the island.
When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, the language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana
. In 1990s self-identifying Veddas knew few words and phrases in Vedda, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially there was considerable debate amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect
of Sinhalese or an independent language
. Later studies indicate that Vedda language is a creole which evolved from ancient time, when the Veddas came in contact with the early Sinhalese, from whom they increasingly borrowed words and synthetic features, yielding the cumulative effect that Vedda looked like Sinhalese in many particulars, but its grammatical core, was still intact.
The parent Vedda language(s) is of unknown genetic origins, while Sinhalese is of the Indo-Aryan
branch of Indo-European languages
. Phonologically
it is distinguished from Sinhalese by the higher frequency of palatal sounds C and J. The effect is also heightened by the addition of inanimate suffix
es. Morphologically, the Vedda word classes are noun
s, verb
s and invariables, with unique gender
distinctions in animate nouns
. It has reduced and simplified many forms of Sinhalese such as second person pronoun
s and denotations of negative meanings. Instead borrowing new words from Sinhalese or other languages Vedda creates combinations of words from a limited lexical stock. Vedda also maintains many archaic
Sinhalese terms from the 10th to 12th centuries, as a relict
of its close contact with Sinhalese. Vedda also retains a number of unique words that cannot be derived from Sinhalese. Vedda has exerted a substratum
influence in the formation of Sinhalese. This is evident by the presence of items both lexical and structural, in the Sinhalese, which cannot be traced to either Indo-Aryan or neighboring Dravidian languages.
Ancestors of Vedda peoples migrated to Sri Lanka via the Indian subcontinent
during the prehistoric period. A number of Mesolithic
sites have been excavated containing human remains dated to 28,000 BCE. Anthropologists consider these skeletal remains to belong to a group ancestral to some of the surviving Vedda groups. There are also Megalithic burial sites, which were excavated at Kathiraveli
and Pomparippu dated to the 10th century BCE.Pre historic Sri Lanka experienced an intrusive early Iron Age (EIA) cultural diffusion from South India
prior to the recorded arrival of Prakrit language speakers in the 5th century BCE. The EIA is dated to 10th century BCE and is associated with the megalithic burial cultures of Pomparippu and other locations. Its counterpart is found in the Southern Tamil Nadu
region of India. Associated with the EIA culture are the introduction of the domesticated horse, iron implements, megalithic burial practices such as urn burials and tank-based paddy
cultivation. It is unknown as to the language(s) used by this EIA culture. It is unknown what languages were spoken by these early populations of Sri Lanka, prior to its settlement by Prakrit
-speaking Indian immigrant groups in the 5th century BCE. Linguists have tried to link these early Vedda languages to Dravidian languages
, Munda languages
or altogether independent language families. The Sinhalese term Vedda is a generic term denoting hunter-gatherers. In Tamil
they are known as Vedar, meaning a hunter. Cognate terms (Such as Bedar, Beda) are used throughout South India
to describe hunter-gatherers. Sri Lanka has had other communities such as Rodiya
and Kinnaraya
in its history associated with tribal and hunting-gathering life styles.
The earliest account of Vedda was written by Ryklof Van Goens (1663–1675) who served as a Director General of the Dutch East India Company
in Sri Lanka. He wrote that the Veddas' language was much closer to Sinhalese than Tamil
. Robert Knox
, an Englishman held captive by a Kandyan king, wrote in 1681 that the wild and settled Veddas spoke the language of the Sinhalese people. The Portuguese friar Fernao de Queroz, who wrote a nuanced description of Vedda in 1686, reported that the language was not mutually intelligible with the native languages. Robert Percival wrote in 1803 that the Veddas although seemingly speaking a broken dialect of Sinhalese, amongst themselves spoke a language that was only known to them. But John Davies in 1831 wrote that the Veddas spoke a language that was understood by the Sinhalese except a few words. These discrepancies in observations were clarified by Charles Pridham, who wrote in 1848 that the Veddas knew a form of Sinhalese that they were able to use in talking to outsiders, but to themselves they spoke in a language that, although influenced mostly by Sinhalese and Tamil, was understood only by them.
The first systematic attempt at studying the Vedda language was undertaken by Hugh Neville, an English civil servant in British Ceylon
. He founded The Taprobanian, a quarterly journal devoted to the study of everything Ceylonese. He speculated, based on etymological
studies, that Vedda is based on an Old Sinhalese form called Hela. His views were followed by Henry Parker
, another English civil servant and the author of Ancient Ceylon(1909), who wrote that most Vedda words were borrowed from Sinhalese, but he also noted words of unique origin, which he assigned to the original language of the Veddas. The second most important study was made in 1935 by Wilhem Geiger, who also sounded the alarm that Vedda would be soon be extinct and needed to be studied in detail. One of the linguists to heed that call was Manniku W. Sugathapala De Silva who did a comprehensive study of the language in 1959 as a PhD thesis, which he published as a book: according to him, the language was restricted to the older generation of people from the Dambanna region, with the younger generation shifting to Sinhalese, whereas Coast Veddas
were speaking a dialect
of Sri Lankan Tamil that is used in the region. During religious festivals, people who enter a trance
or spirit possession sometimes use a mixed language that contains words from Vedda.Vedars or Coast Veddas consider themselves and are considered by the Sri Lankan Tamils as a caste
(kulam or jati in Tamil), rather than an ethnic group. Nevertheless there is considerable debate amongst Vedars and their Tamil neighbors to their status within the caste system, Vedars claiming very high status and their neighbors assigning somewhat lower status. Vedars use the Sri Lankan Tamil dialect
peculiar to that region called Batticaloa Tamil dialect in their day to day conversations. Vedar children also study in that language in schools. But during religious (Sadangu in Tamil) ceremonies, those who are possessed by spirits speak in a mixed language that they call Vedar Sinkalam(Vedar Sinhala") or Vedar Bhasai ("Vedar langugage") which is Vedda language of the interior Vedas. Vedar Sinkalam is mixed with many Tamil words, as people no longer know the language. At some point in the past that the people were bilingual in Vedda and Tamil, but that is no longer the case. Veddas of the Anuradhapura
region speak in Sinhalese, but use Vedda words to denote animals during hunting trips.In the late 1800s, Veddas of Anuradhapura did not identify themselves as Veddas to Parker and other British ethnologists. They self identified themselves as Vanniyas or people of the forest. But to James Brow an anthropologists who studied them in 1970s they readily identified themselves as Veddas. Parker recorded number of hunting terms used by the Vanniyas that were similar to what the Veddas of Bintanne region used.
Early linguists and observers of the language considered it to be either a separate language or a dialect of Sinhalese. The chief proponent of the dialect theory was Wilhem Geiger but he also contradicted himself by claiming that Vedda was a relexified
aboriginal language.
Veddas consider the Vedda language to be distinct from Sinhalese and use it as an ethnic marker to differentiate them from Sinhalese people.
Creole based on Sinhalese
The first comprehensive study of the language was undertaken by Manikku W. Sugathapala de Silva in 1959; he along with K. N. O Dharmadasa have put forward the view that Vedda is a Creole
. According to De Silva, Vedda is a Creole based on the original Vedda language with Sinhalese as the second most important contributing factor which is supported by Geiger view that Vedda is a relexified aboriginal language. De Silva concluded that although the Creole had borrowed profusely from Sinhalese vocabulary, its morphology was very distinct. He also concluded that Vedda still contains in its vocabulary terms that was unknown to the Sinhalese. He wrote that grammatically Vedda remained still distinct from Sinhalese. In 1990 K.N.O Dharmadasa wrote that irrespective claims about whether the Vedda form in use in the 1990s is an independent language or a Creole, the peculiarities of the language made it still a distinct linguistic form different from all varieties of Sinhalese. According to De Silva and Dharmadasa, when the colonization of island by various Indian settlers using common Prakrit
s in use in India began in 5th century BCE, some elements of the Vedda coalesced with the settlers and lost their language through language replacement. Where as more conservative elements maintaining a hunter gatherer lifestyle moved into the central highlands known in early literature as Malaya Rata
. Most Indian settlers colonized the North, Northwestern, Eastern and South Eastern lowlands of the country specifically Rajarata
and Ruhuna
, leaving the heavily forested central high lands to the ancestors of Veddas. With the collapse of the lowland dry zone civilization starting in the 9th century, descendants of the Indian settlers who had begun to speak Sinhalese moved in the central highlands. The trade and other connections made by the speakers of completely different languages such as Sinhalese and Vedda language(s) unknown genetic affinities gave rise to a period of use of a Pidgin
of the languages. There were borrowings of limited number of terms related trade and eventually daily life by the elites of the Vedda from Sinhalese that was eventually adopted the rest of the Veddas. The Veddas also seemed to have moved further way from Sinhalese contact by moving into inaccessible forests of Binttanne and now reforested former dry zone areas. This led to the arresting of the contact between the language communities thus allowing new Vedda language to stabilize and become an independent language. As a relict of this limited period of contact, Vedda maintains many archaic Sinhalese words that were in vogue during that period. These words have gone out of use in contemporary Sinhalese.
This effect is heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes such as pojja, gejja or raacca. These suffixes are used in tandem with borrowings from Sinhalese.
These transformations are very similar to what we see in other Creole languages like Melanesian Pidgin English and Jamaican English Creole. The preponderance of the palatal affricates is explained as a left over from days when the original Vedda language which had a high frequency of such phonemes.
These suffixes are also used in singular
and plural
meaning based from the verbal and non verbal context.
the dependence on verbal (and non verbal) context for semantic specification, which is accomplished by inflectional devices by natural languages is an indication of a contact language.
certain words that appear to be from original Vedda language do not have these suffixes, also animate nouns also have gender distinctions, with small animals treated as feminine (i marker) and larger ones masculine (a marker)
There are number of forms that are from the original Vedda language that don't have suffixes such as
Vedda inanimate nouns are formed by borrowing Sinhalese adjective
s and adding a suffix. Kavi is Sinhalese adjective for Kaviya the noun but where as Vedda noun is kavi-tana, where tana is a suffix.
.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. But communities, such as Coast Veddas
Coast Veddas
The Coast Veddas or Vedar or Veda Vellalar, by self-designation, form a social group within the minority Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. They are primarily found in small coastal villages from the eastern township of Trincomalee to Batticalao. Nevertheless they...
and Anuradhapura Veddas
Anuradhapura Veddas
Anuradhapura Veddas or Vedikula people of North Central Province of Sri Lanka are descendants of indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka who have adopted the culture, religion and language of the dominant Sinhalese residents of the province. By far they are the largest segment amongst the various...
, that do not strictly identify themselves as Veddas also use the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and or for religious chants, throughout the island.
When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, the language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana
Dambana
Dambana is a village within the Badulla District in Sri Lanka. It is closest to the town of Mahiyangana. It is known as the refuge of the indigenous Vedda people as well as their moribund Vedda language. It is well known for its eco-tourism projects. In 2010 it had population close 1000 individuals...
. In 1990s self-identifying Veddas knew few words and phrases in Vedda, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially there was considerable debate amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of Sinhalese or an independent language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...
. Later studies indicate that Vedda language is a creole which evolved from ancient time, when the Veddas came in contact with the early Sinhalese, from whom they increasingly borrowed words and synthetic features, yielding the cumulative effect that Vedda looked like Sinhalese in many particulars, but its grammatical core, was still intact.
The parent Vedda language(s) is of unknown genetic origins, while Sinhalese is of the Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
branch of Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
. Phonologically
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
it is distinguished from Sinhalese by the higher frequency of palatal sounds C and J. The effect is also heightened by the addition of inanimate suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es. Morphologically, the Vedda word classes are noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s and invariables, with unique gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
distinctions in animate nouns
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
. It has reduced and simplified many forms of Sinhalese such as second person pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s and denotations of negative meanings. Instead borrowing new words from Sinhalese or other languages Vedda creates combinations of words from a limited lexical stock. Vedda also maintains many archaic
Archaism
In language, an archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. This can either be done deliberately or as part of a specific jargon or formula...
Sinhalese terms from the 10th to 12th centuries, as a relict
Relict
A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon.* In biology a relict is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas....
of its close contact with Sinhalese. Vedda also retains a number of unique words that cannot be derived from Sinhalese. Vedda has exerted a substratum
Substratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
influence in the formation of Sinhalese. This is evident by the presence of items both lexical and structural, in the Sinhalese, which cannot be traced to either Indo-Aryan or neighboring Dravidian languages.
History
| Ebb and flow of the Vedda in Sri Lanka (28000 BCE – 2000 CE) |
|
| First inhabitants of Ceylon, presumed ancestors of the Vedda | (28000 BCE) |
| Immigration of Iron Age Iron Age The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing... culture with unknown language |
(1000 BCE) |
| Introduction of Prakrits by Indian settlers | (500 BCE) |
| Withdrawal of Veddas to the Central Highlands Malaya Rata Malaya Rata is the mountain areas of central Sri Lanka. History says, Malaya Rata was ruled by local kings or nobles under the guidance of the kings of Anuradapura.- See also :* Provinces of Sri Lanka* History of Sri Lanka... |
(500 BCE – 900 CE) |
| Movement of Sinhalese into Central Highlands | (900–1600) |
| Genesis of Vedda Creole | (1100–1300) |
| Expansion of Vedda Creole into Uva Province Uva Province Uva is Sri Lanka's second least populated province, with 1,187,335 people, created in 1896. It consists of two districts: Badulla බදුල්ල பதுளை and Moneragala මොනරාගල மொனராகல. The provincial capital is Badulla. Uva is bordered by Eastern, Southern and Central provinces... , Rajarata Rajarata Rajarata is the name given to the region of Sri Lanka from which monarchs ruled the country from approximately the 5th Century BCE to the early 13th Century CE... and Eastern Province Eastern Province, Sri Lanka The Eastern Province is one of the 9 provinces of Sri Lanka. The provinces have existed since the 19th century but they didn't have any legal status until 1987 when the 13th Amendment to the 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka established provincial councils. Between 1988 and 2006 the province was... . |
(1300–1900) |
| Decline of Vedda Creole | 2000 |
Ancestors of Vedda peoples migrated to Sri Lanka via the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
during the prehistoric period. A number of Mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
sites have been excavated containing human remains dated to 28,000 BCE. Anthropologists consider these skeletal remains to belong to a group ancestral to some of the surviving Vedda groups. There are also Megalithic burial sites, which were excavated at Kathiraveli
Kathiraveli
Kathiraveli or கதிரைவெளி is a town in Batticaloa District, Sri Lanka. It is located about 75 km Northwest of Batticaloa....
and Pomparippu dated to the 10th century BCE.Pre historic Sri Lanka experienced an intrusive early Iron Age (EIA) cultural diffusion from South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
prior to the recorded arrival of Prakrit language speakers in the 5th century BCE. The EIA is dated to 10th century BCE and is associated with the megalithic burial cultures of Pomparippu and other locations. Its counterpart is found in the Southern Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
region of India. Associated with the EIA culture are the introduction of the domesticated horse, iron implements, megalithic burial practices such as urn burials and tank-based paddy
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
cultivation. It is unknown as to the language(s) used by this EIA culture. It is unknown what languages were spoken by these early populations of Sri Lanka, prior to its settlement by Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
-speaking Indian immigrant groups in the 5th century BCE. Linguists have tried to link these early Vedda languages to Dravidian languages
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
, Munda languages
Munda languages
-Anderson :Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows. Individual languages are highlighted in italics.*North Munda **Korku**Kherwarian***Santhali***Mundari*South Munda **Kharia–Juang***Juang***Kharia...
or altogether independent language families. The Sinhalese term Vedda is a generic term denoting hunter-gatherers. In Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
they are known as Vedar, meaning a hunter. Cognate terms (Such as Bedar, Beda) are used throughout South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
to describe hunter-gatherers. Sri Lanka has had other communities such as Rodiya
Rodiya
Rodi or Rodiya are one of the widely reported untouchable social group or caste amongst the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Their status was very similar to all the Untouchable castes of India with segregated communities, ritualized begging, eating off the refuse of upper castes and refusal for the...
and Kinnaraya
Kinnaraya
Kinnaraya or Kinnarayo also Kinnara are a social group or caste amongst the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. Like the Burakumin of Japan and Paraiyar of the neighboring Tamil ethnic group in Sri Lanka as well as Tamil Nadu state in South India they were segregated from the mainstream society yet played a...
in its history associated with tribal and hunting-gathering life styles.
The earliest account of Vedda was written by Ryklof Van Goens (1663–1675) who served as a Director General of the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
in Sri Lanka. He wrote that the Veddas' language was much closer to Sinhalese than Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
. Robert Knox
Robert Knox (sailor)
Robert Knox was an English sea captain in the service of the British East India Company. He was the son of another sea captain, also called Robert Knox....
, an Englishman held captive by a Kandyan king, wrote in 1681 that the wild and settled Veddas spoke the language of the Sinhalese people. The Portuguese friar Fernao de Queroz, who wrote a nuanced description of Vedda in 1686, reported that the language was not mutually intelligible with the native languages. Robert Percival wrote in 1803 that the Veddas although seemingly speaking a broken dialect of Sinhalese, amongst themselves spoke a language that was only known to them. But John Davies in 1831 wrote that the Veddas spoke a language that was understood by the Sinhalese except a few words. These discrepancies in observations were clarified by Charles Pridham, who wrote in 1848 that the Veddas knew a form of Sinhalese that they were able to use in talking to outsiders, but to themselves they spoke in a language that, although influenced mostly by Sinhalese and Tamil, was understood only by them.
The first systematic attempt at studying the Vedda language was undertaken by Hugh Neville, an English civil servant in British Ceylon
British Ceylon
British Ceylon refers to British rule prior to 1948 of the island territory now known as Sri Lanka.-From the Dutch to the British:Before the beginning of the Dutch governance, the island of Ceylon was divided between the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy, who were in the midst of a war for...
. He founded The Taprobanian, a quarterly journal devoted to the study of everything Ceylonese. He speculated, based on etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
studies, that Vedda is based on an Old Sinhalese form called Hela. His views were followed by Henry Parker
Henry Parker (author)
Henry Parker was a British engineer in colonial Ceylon during the Victorian era. He was attached to the Irrigation Department from 1873 to 1904. During his work as engineer he developed an admiration for the skills displayed by the ancient Sinhalese at the time of the construction of their...
, another English civil servant and the author of Ancient Ceylon(1909), who wrote that most Vedda words were borrowed from Sinhalese, but he also noted words of unique origin, which he assigned to the original language of the Veddas. The second most important study was made in 1935 by Wilhem Geiger, who also sounded the alarm that Vedda would be soon be extinct and needed to be studied in detail. One of the linguists to heed that call was Manniku W. Sugathapala De Silva who did a comprehensive study of the language in 1959 as a PhD thesis, which he published as a book: according to him, the language was restricted to the older generation of people from the Dambanna region, with the younger generation shifting to Sinhalese, whereas Coast Veddas
Coast Veddas
The Coast Veddas or Vedar or Veda Vellalar, by self-designation, form a social group within the minority Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. They are primarily found in small coastal villages from the eastern township of Trincomalee to Batticalao. Nevertheless they...
were speaking a dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of Sri Lankan Tamil that is used in the region. During religious festivals, people who enter a trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
or spirit possession sometimes use a mixed language that contains words from Vedda.Vedars or Coast Veddas consider themselves and are considered by the Sri Lankan Tamils as a caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
(kulam or jati in Tamil), rather than an ethnic group. Nevertheless there is considerable debate amongst Vedars and their Tamil neighbors to their status within the caste system, Vedars claiming very high status and their neighbors assigning somewhat lower status. Vedars use the Sri Lankan Tamil dialect
Sri Lankan Tamil dialects
The Sri Lankan Tamil dialects or Ceylon Tamil dialects form a group of Tamil dialects used in the modern country of Sri Lanka by Sri Lankan Tamil people that is distinct from the dialects of modern Tamil spoken in Tamil Nadu and Kerala states of India...
peculiar to that region called Batticaloa Tamil dialect in their day to day conversations. Vedar children also study in that language in schools. But during religious (Sadangu in Tamil) ceremonies, those who are possessed by spirits speak in a mixed language that they call Vedar Sinkalam(Vedar Sinhala") or Vedar Bhasai ("Vedar langugage") which is Vedda language of the interior Vedas. Vedar Sinkalam is mixed with many Tamil words, as people no longer know the language. At some point in the past that the people were bilingual in Vedda and Tamil, but that is no longer the case. Veddas of the Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura
Anuradhapura, , is one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka, famous for its well-preserved ruins of ancient Lankan civilization.The city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies 205 km north of the current capital Colombo in Sri Lanka's North Central Province, on the banks of the historic...
region speak in Sinhalese, but use Vedda words to denote animals during hunting trips.In the late 1800s, Veddas of Anuradhapura did not identify themselves as Veddas to Parker and other British ethnologists. They self identified themselves as Vanniyas or people of the forest. But to James Brow an anthropologists who studied them in 1970s they readily identified themselves as Veddas. Parker recorded number of hunting terms used by the Vanniyas that were similar to what the Veddas of Bintanne region used.
Classification
Dialect of Sinhalese or Independent languageEarly linguists and observers of the language considered it to be either a separate language or a dialect of Sinhalese. The chief proponent of the dialect theory was Wilhem Geiger but he also contradicted himself by claiming that Vedda was a relexified
Relexification
Relexification is a term in linguistics used to describe the mechanism of language change by which one language replaces much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, with that of another language, without drastic change to its grammar. It is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles,...
aboriginal language.
Veddas consider the Vedda language to be distinct from Sinhalese and use it as an ethnic marker to differentiate them from Sinhalese people.
Creole based on Sinhalese
The first comprehensive study of the language was undertaken by Manikku W. Sugathapala de Silva in 1959; he along with K. N. O Dharmadasa have put forward the view that Vedda is a Creole
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
. According to De Silva, Vedda is a Creole based on the original Vedda language with Sinhalese as the second most important contributing factor which is supported by Geiger view that Vedda is a relexified aboriginal language. De Silva concluded that although the Creole had borrowed profusely from Sinhalese vocabulary, its morphology was very distinct. He also concluded that Vedda still contains in its vocabulary terms that was unknown to the Sinhalese. He wrote that grammatically Vedda remained still distinct from Sinhalese. In 1990 K.N.O Dharmadasa wrote that irrespective claims about whether the Vedda form in use in the 1990s is an independent language or a Creole, the peculiarities of the language made it still a distinct linguistic form different from all varieties of Sinhalese. According to De Silva and Dharmadasa, when the colonization of island by various Indian settlers using common Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
s in use in India began in 5th century BCE, some elements of the Vedda coalesced with the settlers and lost their language through language replacement. Where as more conservative elements maintaining a hunter gatherer lifestyle moved into the central highlands known in early literature as Malaya Rata
Malaya Rata
Malaya Rata is the mountain areas of central Sri Lanka. History says, Malaya Rata was ruled by local kings or nobles under the guidance of the kings of Anuradapura.- See also :* Provinces of Sri Lanka* History of Sri Lanka...
. Most Indian settlers colonized the North, Northwestern, Eastern and South Eastern lowlands of the country specifically Rajarata
Rajarata
Rajarata is the name given to the region of Sri Lanka from which monarchs ruled the country from approximately the 5th Century BCE to the early 13th Century CE...
and Ruhuna
Ruhuna
Ruhuna is a region of southern Sri Lanka. It was the centre of a flourishing civilization and the cultural and economic centres of ancient Sri Lanka, Magama, Tissamaharama and Mahanagakula , were established here....
, leaving the heavily forested central high lands to the ancestors of Veddas. With the collapse of the lowland dry zone civilization starting in the 9th century, descendants of the Indian settlers who had begun to speak Sinhalese moved in the central highlands. The trade and other connections made by the speakers of completely different languages such as Sinhalese and Vedda language(s) unknown genetic affinities gave rise to a period of use of a Pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
of the languages. There were borrowings of limited number of terms related trade and eventually daily life by the elites of the Vedda from Sinhalese that was eventually adopted the rest of the Veddas. The Veddas also seemed to have moved further way from Sinhalese contact by moving into inaccessible forests of Binttanne and now reforested former dry zone areas. This led to the arresting of the contact between the language communities thus allowing new Vedda language to stabilize and become an independent language. As a relict of this limited period of contact, Vedda maintains many archaic Sinhalese words that were in vogue during that period. These words have gone out of use in contemporary Sinhalese.
Grammar
In Sinhalese, indicative sentences are negated by adding a negative particle to the emphatic form of the verb, whereas in Vedda, the negative particle is added to the infinitive. In Sinhalese, all indicative sentences whether negative or affirmative, exhibits two tenses – past and non past, but in Vedda a three-term tense system is used in affirmative sentences, but not in negative. Sinhalese pronouns have number distinction, but Vedda does not have number distinction. The Vedda verbal and nominal inflexions are similar to Sinhalese but are not identical. Vedda also exhibits a gender classification in inanimate and animate nouns.Phonology
Although in phonemic inventory Vedda is very similar to Sinhalese, in phonotactics it is very dissimilar to Sinhalese. The usage of palatal affricates ("C" sounds similar to "ch" in church, and "J" sounds similar to "j" in judge) is very high in Vedda. Some comparisons:| English | Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|---|
| earlier | issara | iccara |
This effect is heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes such as pojja, gejja or raacca. These suffixes are used in tandem with borrowings from Sinhalese.
| English | Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|---|
| weight | bara | barapojja |
| eye | asa | ajjejja |
| head | isa | ijjejja |
| water | watura/diya | diyaracca |
These transformations are very similar to what we see in other Creole languages like Melanesian Pidgin English and Jamaican English Creole. The preponderance of the palatal affricates is explained as a left over from days when the original Vedda language which had a high frequency of such phonemes.
Morphology
Formerly distinct Vedda nouns have two types of suffixes, one for animate and another for inanimate.Animate nouns
The animate suffixes are –atto for personal pronouns and –laatto for all other animate nouns and – pojja and -raaccaa for personified nouns. Examples are- deyyalaato (god)
- pannilaatto (worm)
- meeatto( I or we)
- irapojja (sun)
- giniraaccaa (fire)
These suffixes are also used in singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
meaning based from the verbal and non verbal context.
- botakandaa nam puccakaduvaa huura meeatto (Sir, I killed the elephant though)
- meeattanne kiriamilaatto kalaapojjen mangaccana kota eeattanne badapojje kakulek randaala indatibaala tibenava (When our great grandmother was walking in the forest there was a child conceived in that one’s womb.)
the dependence on verbal (and non verbal) context for semantic specification, which is accomplished by inflectional devices by natural languages is an indication of a contact language.
certain words that appear to be from original Vedda language do not have these suffixes, also animate nouns also have gender distinctions, with small animals treated as feminine (i marker) and larger ones masculine (a marker)
- botakanda (elephant)
- kankunaa (deer)
- karia (bear)
- hatera (bear)
- okma (buffalo)
- kandaarni (bee)
- mundi (monitor lizard)
- potti (bee)
- makini (spider)
- ikini (louse)
Inanimate nouns
Inanimate nouns use suffixes such as –rukula and –danda with nouns denoting body parts and other suffixes such as -pojja, -tana, and -gejja. Suffixes are used when the words are borrowed from Sinhalese.- ayrukula (eye)
- ugurudanda (throat)
- veedipojja (street)
- kirigejja (coconut)
- kavitana (verse)
- giniracca (fire)
There are number of forms that are from the original Vedda language that don't have suffixes such as
- galrakki (axe)
- caalava (pot)
- bucca (bush)
Vedda inanimate nouns are formed by borrowing Sinhalese adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s and adding a suffix. Kavi is Sinhalese adjective for Kaviya the noun but where as Vedda noun is kavi-tana, where tana is a suffix.
Pronouns
Examples of pronouns are meeatto (I), topan (you), eyaba (there), koyba (where?). Compared to Sinhalese which requires five forms to address people based on status, Vedda uses one (topan) irrespective of status. These pronouns are also used in both singular and plural denotations.| Sin Singular | Sin Plural | Vedda Singular/Plural |
|---|---|---|
| obavahansee | obavahaseelaa | topan |
| ohee | oheelaa | topan |
| tamusee | tamuseelaa | topan |
| oyaa | oyallaa | topan |
| umba | umballa | topan |
| thoo | thopi | topan |
Numerals
These are found in definite and indefinite forms. ekama one (def.) and ekamak once (indef.) They count ekamay, dekamay and tunamay. Vedda also reduces the numer formations found in Sinhalese.| English | Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|---|
| two persons | dennek | dekamak |
| two things | dekak | dekamak |
| twice | deparak | dekamak |
Negation
Another example of simplification in Vedda is minimisations of negative meanings found in Sinhalese:| Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|
| naa | koduy |
| epaa | koduy |
| baa | koduy |
| nemee | koduy |
| nattaN | koduy |
| bari | koduy |
Lexicon
Many of the Vedda words are directly borrowed from Sinhalese or Tamil via Sinhalese while maintaining words that are not derivable from Sinhalese or its cognate languages from the Indo-Aryan language group. Vedda also exhibits a propensity for paraphrases and it coins words from its limited lexical stock rather than to borrow words from other languages including Sinhalese. For example:| Sinhalese | Vedda | English |
|---|---|---|
| nava | maadiyanganalle dandDukacca (vehicle of the ocean) | ship |
| vassa | uDatanin mandovena diyaracca (water falling from above) | rain |
| tuvakkuva (loan from Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... ) |
puccakazDana yamake (shooting thing) | gun |
| upadinava | baDapojjen mangaccanvaa (come from the belly) | to be born |
| padura | vaterena yamake (sleeping thing) | bed |
| pansala (loan from English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... ) |
kurukurugaccana ulpojja (spike making kuru kuru sound) | pencil |
Archaic terms
Vedda maintains in its lexicon Archaic Sinhalese words that are no longer in daily usage. These archaic words are attested from classical Sinhalese prose from the 10th century until the 13th century, the purported period of close contact between the original Vedda language(s) and Old Sinhala leading to the development of the Creole. Some examples are- devla in Vedda means Sky but a 10th century Sinhalese exegetical work called Dhampia Atuva Getapadaya, it is used in the meaning of cloud.
- diyamaccca in Vedda meaning fish is similar to diyamas found in a 10th century monastic work called Sikhavalanda.
- manda in Vedda means near or with. This word is attested in the 12th century eulogy called Butsarana.
- koomantana meaning wearing apparel is similar to the Sinhalese word konama found in the 13th century work Ummagga Jatakaya alternatively komanam in Tamil is a loinclothLoinclothA loincloth is a one-piece male garment, sometimes kept in place by a belt, which covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks.-History and types:Loincloths are being and have been worn:*in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted...
, a cloth worn by early Veddas.
Substratum influence in Sinhalese
According to Geiger and Gair, Sinhalese language has features that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages. Some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of parent stock of the Vedda language. Sinhalese has many words that are only found in Sinhalese or it is shared between Sinhalese and Vedda and cannot be etymologically derived from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Common examples are Kola in Sinhalese and Vedda for leaf, Dola in Sinhalese for Pig and offering in Vedda. Other common words are Rera for wild duck and Gala for stones in Toponyms found throughout the island. There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhalese such as Olluva for head, Kakula for leg, bella for neck and kalava for thighs that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The author of the oldest Sinhalese grammar, Sidatsangarava, written in the 13th century have recognized a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhalese. It lists naramba (to see) and kolamba (ford or habor) as belonging to an indigenous source. Kolamba is the source of the name of the commercial capital ColomboColombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
.
Cited literature
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External links
- Vedda chiefs speech in Vedda at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- Vedda chiefs speech in Vedda at YouTube