Variation and shift in Sri Lanka Malay

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Variation and shift in Sri Lanka Malay

• Umberto Ansaldo, Lisa Lim Sebastian Nordhoff
• Universiteit van Amsterdam
• X
• X
• X

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I. Profile

• Different degrees of endangerment (depending on
  locality)
• High degree of variation within communities
• - Relation between network type and variation
• - Diffusion and linguistic openness? (Foley
  2006)
• Instances of shift towards standard (Colombo/
  Kirinda)
• - Displacement (Errington 2003)
• (a) lack of territorial rights
• (b) identification with remote community
• - Contact-languages as doubly endangered
  (Garrett 2006),
• e.g. less coherent and robust (LePage
  Tabouret-Keller 1985)

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Sri Lanka Malay Linguistic history

• Migrations to SL from Indonesian/ Malaysia
• Portuguese rule (until 1656) - Slave Island?
• Dutch rule (1656-1796) political exiles,
  slaves, soldiers.
• British rule (1796-1948) soldiers
• Tight and loose-knit, open social network type
• The Lexifier Malay LF, predominant around
  15thC, along trade routes between S China and NW
  India
• The adstrates Sinhala, Tamil.
• Social equality among L1-L2-L3 speakers. (No
  substrate-superstrate in SLM)

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Structural highlights

• General typological shift - isolating gt
  agglutinative
• Radical restructuring involving morphological
  complexification
• Typological dominance in the feature pool
• Sinhalese SL Tamil (congruence) - Malay LF -
• (some Dutch, English, Port. elements - mostly
  lexicon)

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II. Variation in Upcountry case-system
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Observations and questions

• 4 different case systems are used within the same
  community
• not linked to gender, age, place etc.
• only REC is always coded in the same way
• all other semantic roles have more than one
  choice
• these choices can be mutually exclusive
• What is the basic/central/prototypical meaning of
  -yang?
• Toolbox glossing?
• Which system to present in the grammar as THE
  system? /
• How to integrate 4 different systems in such a
  basic domain as case?

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III. Shift gt endangerment

• SLM replaced by English in home domain
• With Sinhala Only policy
• Especially with Colombo community

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Shift gt endangerment gt revitalisation

• In recent years in Colombo
• Publications on Malay
• B.D.K. Saldin. 2001. The Sri Lankan Malays and
  their language.
• B.D.K. Saldin. 2000. A guide to Malay.
• M.H.N. Emran Deen. 2001. Bahasa Melayu. Book 1.

• Malaysias Institute of Malay Language Culture
  to get in touch with Malays in different parts
  of the world and teach them the real Malay
• Student scholarships from Malaysian High
  Commission to study in Malaysia job market
  openings
• -gt language classes in Standard Malay

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Shift gt endangerment gt revitalisation gtshift

• In Kirinda (Jan 2006)
• Plans to teach and use Standard Malay in school

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Views from the community

• Our educational upliftment is very very
  important. Because at the end of the day, the
  economy is what matters If you are economically
  in a strong position, well, everything else looks
  after itself.
• T. Azoor, President, Conference of Sri Lankan
  Malays (Colombo)
• What we should be striving for is to learn
  Standard Malay and to keep speaking Sri Lanka
  Malay at home.
• M. Hamin, Vice President, COSLAM (Colombo)
• Yes, Sri Lanka Malay is my language Yes, it is
  better to learn Standard Malay to get jobs.
• M.T.M. Rihan, 28 (Kirinda)

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Vulnerability index Ansaldo Lim (2006)based
on Hyltenstam Strouds (2005) factors for
vulnerability

• Low visibility
• Lack of political recognition
• Cultural stigma
• Low educational capital
• Health

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Ethnography of empowerment (Delgado-Gaitan 1994,
1996)

• Researcher is urged to intervene in advocating
  and creating conditions for the recognition of
  minority voices
• Linguistic human rights (LHR)
• (see Stroud Heugh 2004 for critical overview)
• Active differentiation from others, by claiming
  unique linkages of language and identity, for
  political leverage
• Local perception of relevant language, delimited
  by national territorial borders

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Linguistic citizenship(Stroud 2000 Stroud
Heugh 2004)

• Language as semiotic resource for
  (re)construction of agency and self-representation
  
• Language as economic resource and site of
  political and economic struggle
• Language as global resource to address
  local-global concerns
• Language as intimate resource as the foundation
  of respect for difference on a global level

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SLM gt Standard Malay

• Gain a useful economic tool
• Preserve and represent their subject position
  through an assumed global Malay identity
  (Pavlenko Blackledge 2004)
• Shift towards a recognized standard in which
  cultural and economic functions of language come
  together
• Globalization as a resource rather than a
  threat
• To enable a minority group to gain access to
  better education and enhanced political
  self-representation

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Dilemmas for the linguistic fieldworker?

• minority communitys (desire to) shift to more
  powerful linguistic variety
• endangerment - empowerment
• etc
• A shift of another kind -- a shift of
  orientation?
• From advocating linguistic human rights
• To promotion of mobility and standard in a
  community
• (see Lim Ansaldo 2006)

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Outlook, worries and puzzles

• Is the shift from SLM to Std. M. reconcilable
  with a view of language as intimate resource
  respect for difference?
• Can LC counter the decrease in linguistic
  diversity/ multilingualism?
• Or should we stop worrying about decreasing
  multilingualism?
• How is Std. Malay as L1 going to affect
  multilingualism in Sinhala/ Tamil? (remember SLM
  is a Lankan type, Std.M is not)
• How will a global Malay identity affect the
  interethnic relations of the Malay diaspora in SL?

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Selected references

• Delgado-Gaitan, C. 1994. Sociocultural change
  through literacy Towards the empowerment of
  families. In B. Ferdman, R-M. Weber A. Ramirez
  (eds). Literacy across languages and cultures.
  NY SUNY Press.
• Delgado-Gaitan, C. 1996. Protean literacy.
  Extending the discourse on empowerment. London
  Falmer.
• Lim, L. U. Ansaldo. 2006. Keeping Kirinda
  vital A short note on the endangerment-empowermen
  t dilemma in the documentation of Sri Lanka
  Malay. Ms. Universiteit van Amsterdam.
• Pavlenko, A. A. Blackledge. 2004. Introduction
  New theoretical approaches to the study of
  negotiation of identities in multilingual
  contexts. In A. Pavlenko A. Blackledge (eds).
  Negotiation of identities in multilingual
  contexts. Clevedon Multilingual Matters. 1-33.
• Stroud, C. 2000. Language and democracy The
  notion of linguistic citizenship and mother
  tongue programmes. In K. Lagère S. Fitchet
  (eds). Talking freedom Language and
  democratization in the SADC region. Windhoek
  Macmillan. 67-74.
• Stroud, C. K. Heugh. 2004. Language rights and
  linguistic citizenship. In J. Freeland D.
  Patrick (eds). Language rights and language
  survival A sociolinguistic exploration.
  Manchester St Jerome Publishing.