Junior Research Symposia

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Sinhalese

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    The Impact of Tamil Lexicon on the Sinhalese Language
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Bandara, H.M.S.M.; Pathmasiri, P.S.S.; de Silva, Y.G.H.S.
    Sinhalese and Tamillanguages are used as official languages in Sri Lanka. It is apparent that both these languages have had a great amount of influence on each other. Linguistics borrowing into both languages can be identified as a phoneme for this constant influence. This research discusses the usage ofTamilloan words in Sinhalese language. Data were compiled by observing the speech of Sinhalese native speakers and written documents. According to the findings of this study, it was found out that some of these Tamil loan words have replaced their corresponding Sinhalese words. Further, it is pointed out that in addition to be borrowed, some Tamil words have come to Sinhalese as derived words. According to it is discovered that a great number of Tamil borrowings are used in the Sinhalese language and their origin may not be apparent.
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    The Difficulties Related to Cases Encountered by Sinhalese Native Speakers in Learning Tamil as a Second Language
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Yomali, G.; Dissananyake, S.; Jayathissa, H.
    Many Sinhalese native speakers learn Tamil as a second language. However speakers of Sinhalese language often make mistakes while learning Tamil. The aim of the research is to bring into discussion the problem faced by Sinhalese native speaker in learning Tamil in relation to the differences in cases. Case is special grammatical category whose value reflect the grammatical functions performed by noun or pronoun in a phrase, clause or sentence. Data were collected by analysing Tamil-Sinhalese translation carried out by second year students of university of Kelaniya reading translation. Further Tamil Grammar books were used as in order to gather further data. Speakers of Sinhalese language often make mistakes while learning Tamil especially on Dative marker, Referential ease marker, instrumental case marker and Sociative case marker etc. The Dative case marker is "ukku", in spoken Tamil where as in in Sinhalese it is "ta". The Referential ease marker is "ittei", in spoken Tamil where as in in Sinhalese it is "laga, gen". The Sociative case marker is "oodei", in spoken Tarnil where as in in Sinhalese it is "ekka". The instrumental case marker is "aalei", in spoken Tamil where as in in Sinhalese it is "gen, ta". Those cases are not corresponding in Tamil and Sinhalese languages. Therefore it will be difficult to learn Tamil as a second language. To overcome this problem it will explain the similarities and the differences between these two languages. Native speakers don't have profound knowledge about case inflexion fail to speak the language fluently. Therefore cases should be inquired and improving knowledge thorough this. It is observed that it would help to understand the difficulties that Sinhalese students face while forming a Tamil sentence.
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    Weaknesses of Google Translation; A Study Based on Sinhalese and English Languages
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Wijesinghe, A.; Kaluarachchi, S.S.; Weerangani, S.
    The process of translating words or text from one language into another is known as translation. It communicates the meaning of a source language text into a target language. It is used for legal, official, literary works ... etc. Nowadays there is a popular systematic service for translation called "Google Translation". Being an easier and quicker method than manual translation, Google Translation plays a major role in the translation field. It is a multilingual statistical machine translation service provided by Google to translate texts or speeches from one language to another. The aim of this study is to identifY the problems that can be seen in this translation service and the study is based on translating from Sinhalese to English and vice versa. Data were collected by analysing a set of Sinhalese and English sentences translated using the service. When translating trom Sinhalese into English, errors are seen in sentence structures, major reason for which is the structural differences between the two languages. The syntactic structure of the Sinhalese language is SOY, whereas the structure of English is SVO. It is apparent that this structural difference cannot always be properly comprehended by this program. Furthermore, it is identified that synonyms, homonyms and homophones used in the Sinhalese language cannot be properly translated using this service. The diglossic characters of the Sinhalcse language is yet another aspect which creates problems in "Google Translate". Translating a complex sentence with a main clause and a subordinate clause also appears problematic since identifYing the subordinate clause is not easy for the program. Accordingly, this study points out that in order to provide a better service, these issues have to be properly addressed.
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    Tenses in Tamil and Sinhalese in Written Language
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Maithripalal, H.K.D.P.B.; Mallawaarachchi, M.A.S.P.K.; Kaushalya, A.S.R.
    Tarnil and Sinhalese are the major languages in Sri Lanka. Sinhalese belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and Tamil belongs to the Dravidian language family. Tenses play a main role in a language. Tenses express the time distinctions through all languages. The main purpose of this paper is to bring out the similarities and the dissimilarities between tense in the Sinhalese language and Tamillanguage. The data were gathered by books. Thus the present research aims to discuss the similarities and dissimilarities between written Tarnil and Sinhalese tenses. Sinhalese has two main tenses. They are Past Tense and NonPast Tense. Non- Past Tense includes Present Tense and Future Tense. But Tamil language has three main tenses. They are Past Tense, Present Tense and Future Tense. Verbs in Sinhalese and Tamil languages conjugate according to person (I st person, 2nd person, 3rd person), number (singular, plural) and gender (male, female).When verbs conjugate in Tamillanguage it differs according to human and non - human being. This is different from Sinhalese language, because main categories are living things and non - living things in Sinhalese language. Therefore in Sinhalese language, animals and human beings consider as a one category. But in Tamil language animal and human beings are consider as two categories. Accordingly a number of similarities and dissimilarities between tenses in the two language are identified. Further it has been discovered that these dissimilarities create difficulties for second language learners.
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    Issues Faced by the Third Year Undergraduate Students in Practicing Interpretation for Translation Methods
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Keerthiwansha, N.W.B.S.
    Interpretation is the process of converting an expression delivered in source language into a comparable meaning in a target language either simultaneously in real time or consecutively when the speaker pauses after completing one or two sentences. "Interpretation" is a compulsory subject unit for the third year undergraduates who are reading translation methods in university of Kelaniya Sri Lanka. The unit is being taught for two semesters and the skill of interpretation is tested by a practical session. It covers Sinhalese to English interpretation and vice versa, and the lecture hours cover the theory components and conduct practice sessions by interpreting the Hansard reports. By this study, it was expected to find out the most prominent issues encountered by the undergraduates practicing interpretation. Therefore, a questionnaire was provided to the third year undergraduates who are currently studying interpretation to make a list of issues according to the responses recorded on the questionnaire. Meanwhile, five undergraduate students studying interpretation were interviewed to record their individual issues and they were given few sentences to interpret to identify the issues they face when interpreting these particular sentences. The results indicated that for many undergraduate students, it is difficult to interpret a long and complex statement with speed, while, some have expressed certain difficulties in interpreting technical words, and several students have mentioned difficulty in memorising complex sentences. Significantly, the different sentence structure between Sinhalese and English has created several confusions when interpreting complex sentences. Moreover, homonyms seem to confuse them when a sentence with the same word with different contextual meanings is given to interpret. As a consequence, students tend to have a lesser interest in choosing interpretation as their career path. Thus, possible suggestions were made for the identified issues to assist the students to practice interpretation more effectively and increase the number of students who are interested in becoming interpreters in the futUre.
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    A Comparative Analysis on Cases in Sinhalese and Tamil Languages
    (Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Hearth, H.M.N.D.; Ranathunga, R.A.U.M.; Amarasooriya, Y.W.S.N.
    The Sinhalese language which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and the Tamil language which belongs to the Dravidian language family have been co-existing and interacting in different social situations and contexts for a long time. As pointed out by linguists, a large number of differences as well as similarities can be seen between the two languages. The purpose of this study is to comprehensively analyse the differences in cases between the two languages. Primary data were collected through self-observation and analysing a given set of sentences translated from Sinhalese into Tamil by students reading translation studies at the University of Kelaniya. The books 'Pe:chchuth Thamilukku Arimuham' and 'Pe:chhuth Thamilum Eluththuth Thamilum' by S. J. Yogaraja and online lessons were used as secondary resources. A case is a form of a noun, adjective or pronoun that expresses a semantic relation of a word to the other words in a sentence. In this study it was observed that the Sinhalese speakers who do not have clear knowledge on the case inflection of the Tamil language find it difficult to write or speak fluently in Tami!. On the other hand, since one case suffix in Tamil represents several suffixes of Sinhalese, various problems occur in translation. Therefore, the failure to identify the differences in cases can result in defective translations. According to above findings, a number of dissimilarities regarding cases can be identified between both languages. Further, it is noteworthy that they cause difficulties in learning Tamil as a second language and translation.