Abstract:
Language mixing is a common linguistic phenomenon practiced in bilingual or
multilingual contexts. People who live in a bilingual or multilingual
communication environment usually have a tendency to use two or more codes
while communicating with each other. Most of the Sri Lankan Muslims are
native speakers of Tamil Language. This study explores the way of using
Sinhalese and Tamil mixed codes by Muslims and the sociolinguistic factors in
relation to the cause. The selected sample, to carry out this empirical research
was collected from Muslims in Atulugama area. The data presented in this paper
were collected through observations, questionnaires, personal interviews,
recordings and analysed descriptively. These people use Sinhalese words and
word phrases even when equivalents exist in Tamit. They tend to borrow lexical
items from Sinhalese when speaking in their mother tongue. For example:
prehiccd kata: solld Wdna:m, ahamdQ. maldgeddrd PO:lJgd, na:n mahageddrdkku
po:rdn. So the structure of their own language has changed. It is obvious that
there is an impact of the Sinhalese Language on Muslim Tamit. The study
provides insight into the mixing strategies used by Muslims, and this research
will be benefited to sociolinguists, and for further research on language studies.
