Browsing by Author "Rajaratnam, K."

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The influence of Tamil language on Sinhala Hybrid Words
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Rajaratnam, K.
Code mixing in an important phenomenon where people of multicultural and multilingual society interact everyday. Though Sinhala language is from Indo Aryan family ,it has been very much influenced by the Tamil language which belongs to the Dravidian language family. This paper attempts to explore the quantum of impact over Sinhala language by Tamil. Code mixing can be occurred in different levels. however this research is restricted to only at the lexical level, specially focused on Hybrid Words. Some instances for Hybrid words from Tamil into Sinhala language are as follows: müttu karanawa (to joint) tallu kereanawa (to push) mattam keranaea (to level) murandu venava (to be stubborn) These verbs are from Tamil language. Though Tamil language have been less open to the Sinhala language, how could Sinhala language influenced by the Tamil language will also be discussed in this research.
Merit and Demerit of the Grammatical Method of Vīracōliyam
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Rajaratnam, K.
Vīracōliyam is one of the major treatises on Tamil grammar,prosody and poetics. It has been widely accepted that this treatise is assignable to the 11th century A.D. Chronologically Vīracōliyam is the second grammar belonging to the Tamil grammatical tradition with Tolkāppiyam (1st century AD) as its sole extant antecedent. Vīracōliyam came a thousand years after Tolkāppiyam ; when the whole language situation and the approach to Tamil grammatical description had changed. The author of Vīracōliyam observed these changes and marked the beginning of distinct trend in Tamil grammatical thought. However he was taken over by the Sanskrit models and failed to explain the basic taxonomic differences between Sanskrit and Tamil. Therefore Vīracōliyam is considered as a spoilt work and lost its place in the Tamil grammatical tradition. However there are some special features in this grammar. Vīracōliyam introduced a new grammatical thought in the Tamil grammatical tradition. Tolkāppiyam concentrates only on literary Tamil. However Vīracōliyam has drawn its attention also to the spoken Tamil. Furthermore it is the only grammar had written by a Buddhist scholar in the Tamil grammatical tradition.Therefore this paper attempts to explore the merit and demerit of the grammatical method of Vīracōliyam.
Tamlish in popular tamil media
(University of Kelaniya, 2011) Rajaratnam, K.
In the last few decades Tamlish -switching of code from Tamil to English- has been becoming an attractive phenomenon among the Tamil native speakers of Sri Lanka. Code mixing takes place especially among the younger generation of this society. Tamlish is used frequently in popular Tamil media and they communicate with the masses effectively. People use Tamlish for many reasons. The lack of knowledge in vocabulary of both codes might be the main reason. However, social pressures, prestige and honor related to English in our country, the difficulty of getting proper vocabulary, especially for technical terms could be some other reasons. This research is based on the data collected from “SMS Galaata” a television program of Shakthi TV, which is one of the popular Tamil television channels of Sri Lanka. This research is restricted since it deals only with the above mentioned program. However, one of the findings is the emerging trend of code mixing at lexical, syntactical and phonological levels. For example, Verb: try pannu (to try), dedicate pannu (to dedicate) Adverbial blend: sweet-aa (sweetly), quick-aa (quickly) Phrases: Line busy taane? (Telephone line is busy, Is that so?) Hello anna unga voice super. (Hello, elder brother. your voice is excellent) This paper attempts to explore the linguistic features of code mixing and the linguistic domination of English over Tamil language in the mass media.