PRESERVING MINORITIZED VOICES IN A BORDERLESS WORLD: A DOCUMENTATION OF INDIGENOUS VEDDA ORAL TRADITIONS FOR CULTURAL HOMOGENEITY AND EQUITY

Abstract

The Vedda language, spoken by Sri Lanka’s indigenous Adivasi community, is endangered due to the dominance of regional languages such as Sinhala and Tamil in relation to the Vedda community. This study aims to investigate the history of the Vedda language, as well as language contact and shift, to determine its status. A qualitative sociolinguistic study with a descriptive perspective, this study makes use of theory, namely, the GIDS by Fishman, Language Contact Theory by Thomason and Kaufman, and Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory by Giles. The unit of analysis in this study is structured in terms of lexicon, suffixes, and language contact phenomena, as well as functional domains in regions such as Dambana, Rathugala, and Pollebadda. It is evident that extensive interaction for many centuries has resulted in considerable borrowing and relexification. Although Vedda has certain characteristic morphological traits, such as particular suffixes for animates (-atto) and inanimates (-pojja), most of its lexical items are borrowed from Sinhala and Tamil. Following the Fishman paradigm, intergenerational transmission is severely affected because the young generation speaks only Sinhala for economic reasons. Conclusions drawn from the research indicate that Vedda is critically endangered due to the lack of institutional support and narrowing down of its functional areas. The theoretical implication of the research indicates that there will be pressure exerted by dominant languages on indigenous languages, while practical implications of the research indicate the need for preservation of indigenous linguistic diversity of Sri Lanka.