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| Project elephant by Derrick Schokman So far as nature is concerned we in Sri Lanka live in an archipelago. We have spread ourselves across the land leaving small ecological islands in which wild elephants are inescapably marooned like the finches of Galapagos and the lemurs of Madagascar. Elephants cannot wander without running a deadly gauntlet through farmers fields and properties. The problem is not only that the elephant habitat is shrinking in terms of absolute size, it is also becoming fragmented into discontinuous zones or fault lines that cut across elephant movements. As the waters of an expanding civilization, so to speak, keep on rising around these eco-islands, wild elephants will become more vulnerable to extinction as victims of farmer’s guns and through isolation combined with genetic drift and in-breeding. Counter Their contention is that this eco-island syndrome is the cause of the ongoing human-elephant conflict. It has caused so much concern that several elephant drives have been attempted at great expense and little success to take elephants away from human settlements to the safe confines of protected areas. It would appear that any attempts to ameliorate this conflict is doomed to fail without people’s participation to implement suitable deterrent strategies in the form of new land use patterns, improvement of grazing and foraging facilities in elephant habitats, electric fences, frenches etc. Accordingly, it is proposed that to ensure their cooperation, communities living in close proximity and sharing wild elephant habitats should derive some tangible benefits from the presence of elephants. Benefits to improve their living conditions through the provision of clean drinking water, good sanitation and health-care, alternative energy sources etc. Funds for this purpose could be provided from revenues earned from eco-tourism. Key population It will comprise a herd of 125 to 150 wild elephants with a core of 50 effective adult breeding animals. More than one such unit could be clustered and managed as a megapopulation. Whether such an ambitious plan can be realised with the limited resources available is a moot point. But that does not stop us from wishing this ginger group of elephant conservationists good luck in their efforts to motivate the government. In the words of that great US President Abraham Lincoln. “With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed”. |
| Little
known Books on Ceylon — 6 Some Pioneers of the Tea Industry by P. F. Ariyananda This compact book of 61 pages has been authored by Sir Thomas Villiers, and published by Colombo Apothecaries Co. Ltd. in 1951. In a forward by Mr. H. A. J. Hulugalle he states, “The establishment of the tea industry in Ceylon is a story of faith and self-reliance which is not surpassed in interest by the work of pioneers in any other field of enterprise” When the coffee crash stunned the Planters of Ceylon there were a few merchants and planters of the day who with their faith in their ability to survive switched over to tea. Sir Thomas Villiers, one of the architects of the industry tells the story of these pioneers. According to Sir Villiers the first person who studied the question of tea planting were the Worms Brothers who owned Rothschild Estate, Pussellawa. However the real pioneer was James Taylor, planter from 1852 to 1892 as Superintendent of Loolecondera in Hewaheta. He was an exception to the general rule that he was never a proprietor. There is this illuminating document in the book whereby James Taylor accepted his appointment. Messrs G. & J. A. Hadden London I hereby engage myself to Mr. George Pride of Kandy, Ceylon for the space of three years to act in the capacity of Assistant Superintendent and to make myself generally useful at a salary of £ 100 per annum to commence from the time of my arrival on the estate and to have deducted from my salary the amount of money advanced for my passage and outfit. I am, Gentleman, The second chapter of the book dealing with Uva tells us how an address was presented to the Governor Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon by the planters of the area in February 1886 requesting him to make the Lower Badulla Road, passable at all times of the year by completion of bridges along this route. The occasion was an important one as the Governor has come to Badulla for the purpose of issuing a proclamation separating the Province of Uva from the Central Province. The other chapters of this very informative book deals with Railway Extension to Badulla, A. J. Rattle of Spring Valley and John Rattle of Glen Alpin, HO Hoseason of Demodera Group Hingurugama, Telbedde, Wewesse, Ury Group Plantations Gonakele and Dammera Group. These pages are followed by chapters on Moneragala District and Namunukula Valley, Passara, Hopton, Madulsima, Galoola, Poonagalla, El Teb and Pingarawa. In an Epilogue the author pays tribute to great Governor Sir Edward Barnes who encouraged planting. Sir Villiers closes the book with a quotation from Drake. “See that ye hold fast the heritage we leave you. Yea, and teach your children its value that never in the coming years their hearts may fail them, or their hands grow weak”. |
| The
Language Lobby Word for word! That’s equivoke for you! by Carl Muller Equivoke? Now, what sort of a word is that? is it descriptive of, say, Ewoks? An Equivoke is an assembly of Ewoks of the same size. Actually, it’s “wordplay” and that, as you know, can really hit the fan (like another thing I know of). Like that punny, Spoonery toast; “Here’s champagne to our real friends and real pain to our sham friends!” So that’s what it is to equivoke and that’s what equivoke is. Being at a loose and (O Lord, has it come loose?) I began subjecting the dictionary to a new form of torture. All this business of words and language should have a sort of “full treatment” in any self-respecting dictionary. What I wanted to know was whether, like herbivores and carnivores, there were verbivores. I wanted to know if Hilaire Bellooc was guilty of an equivoke when he hoped that his books would be read even if his sins were scarlet. Quite a scarlet-feverish thought. Right among the A’s found things that should rightly belong to some medical exhibition under the title “Obsucre Complaints”. There is Agnomen, Araphora, Antiphrasis and Asyndeton. The first, I am told, is an additional name or epithet. I can relate tothat. In the old days agnomens abounded like lambs in the springtime (well, they abounded, then bounded.) There was Ethelred the Unready and Attila the Hun and Hardy gave us Jude the Obscure. How interesting modern history would be with characters like Loopy Lenin or Succotash Stralin, Clinton the Cleaver and Minxy Lewinsky. Even Wodehouse used agnomens with glee and gave us Jill the Reckless and Pongo Twistkleton. You see what I mean? “Hey, who’s that fellow with the big
nose?” Having got that one away, I had to check out Anaphora which sounds quite Grecian and should have got Omar Khayyam quite excited. An anaphoea of wine and thou? That’s no way to chat up a girl, or is it? The trouble with these words is that they smack of one thing and mean quite another. To give you a clue, we have the sort of thing the Pima Indians do when praying for rain: Hi-iya naiho-o! The earth is rumbling... God knows what they were up to but they found it pretty potent to repeat words at the beginning of clauses for a sound rhetorical effect. It’s like the good girl who says, “No, no, no, I won’t!“ and then graduates to “No, no, no, I can’t!” and gets softer with “No, no, no, I couldn’t!” and finally, “No, no, no, I shouldn’t!” That’s when all the no, no, no’s are not going to do her much good but she’s got the anaphora pat and puts up a nice show of maidenly concern. Even Shakespeare had his withches get quite anaphoric when they cried, “Double, double toil and trouble.” while Walter de la Mare repeated, “Hapless, hapless I must be,” and Keats found it most effective to say: Shed no tear - O shed no tear! So poetic effect needs the anaphora... but what about the antiphrasis? is it something our nurses are striking over. Look at the following from the writings of the Roman Apuleius: “Ligitimate are all babes got out of doors.” Now what the hell did he mean by that? It sounds okay until you really begin to dissect it. Was he trying to say that all babies made indoors were illegitimate? What Apuleius did was use the common notions of legitimacy in a way that proved otherwise. I mean to say, who ever heard of an outdoor honeymoon? There is both irony and the comical in this statement and yet, the very use of the words in the sense opposite to the generally accepted meaning makes a pol sambol of reason. Suddenly, there’s this roar of laughter and that’s exactly the effect the writer wishes for. He has given tothe world an antiphrasis. Mind, this has nothing to do with sarcasm. Irony, yes, but nor the sort of sarcasm I had to put up with when I was in school. “Ah, Muller, please stand. A true breakthrough in the science of mathematics. If K is the unit vecter parallel to the z axis, how did you get P for the y axis? Of course, thats the chemical synmbol for phosphorous, isn’t it? I bow to your genius. However, this must be curbed for your own good. What will I do? How will I support my family if you were to oust me and take my place?” ...and on and on while the rest of the class snorts and chuckles and I stand, wall-eyed, listening to his biting words. That was not antiphrasis. That was decidedly anti-Muller! A thin of antiphrasis would be seen in such a description; “It was a lovely wedding. Everything went beautifully. The bestman lost the ring and the bride’s father slapped a choirboy. Everyone agreed it was a splendid wedding. Even the organist dropped his music sheets and we all left the church to the strains of “Rock of Ages.” The bride was giggling like mad and the priest sneezed and lost his false teeth. Such a lovely wedding!” Antiphrasis is to tie up a yellow moon with lovers and lunatics. It is when a bomb destroys Parliament and the dustbin of a boutique in Nawala Road Antiphrasis is to count the cost of a stay in a Roman tavern: “Landlady, my bill.” Our next. A word is Asyndeton which is, once again, a sort of literary foible. Quite James Joycey and Updikish. Have you read John Updike’s “The Play of Memory?” There are lines that offer brainfag in a chafing dish. Last night You make it out if you can but don’t forget, Updike has won America’s National Book Award and the O. Henry Prize Story Award. Oh, I know of lots of authors who detested commas and sundry punctuation marks. Gertrude Stein, vigorous lesbian, ignored punctuations altogether and said that she found question marks and exclamation points “positively revolting.” E. E. Commings abhorred punctuations and grammar. You will note that he always referred to himself as “e e cummings”. Asyndeton goes one better. it is the omission of conjunctions. Try that and you will be a dab hand at sending telegrams. Or you could write to your local MP: “Dear Mr. Bakmeewewa — great regret write inform election promises made not kept we pretty pissed you cannot do small thing only took vote went Parliament don’t even come see happening here all you fellows same we getting tired your games waiting another election giving kick up find somebody else attend needs hope you making money wont for long thats promise.” Not bad at all. Can adda couple of anaphoras too, to heighten the effect and say Blinking Bakmeewewa that will give him an agnomen to cheer about. Of course antiphrasis will never register in the Honourable skull! So sadly, I’ll call it a day. But this is fun and what is more, we are getting our teeth into words which are connected with writing and speech. More next time. |
| Book Review R.K. de Silva’s book on newspaper engravings First he gave us Illustrations & Views of Dutch Ceylon 1602 - 1796; Early Prints of Ceylon 1800 - 1900 followed. Now, after comprehensive and thorough research based in the libraries of Britain, Sri Lanka and several other countries, Dr. R. K. De Silva is ready to launch his new publication, 19th Century Newspaper Engravings of Ceylon - Sri Lanka. To use the cliche, R. K. de Silva is no stranger to academics, students or lovers of art. He is known as an authority on whatever category of art he chooses to dabble in and his two previous books are valuable reference. The new book promises to be equally enthralling and informative. Combined with its launch is an exhibition of original wood engravings reproduced in the book. The launch will take place on September 27 at The Serendib Gallery at Rosmead Place at 5.30 pm while the exhibition will be on from September 26 at the same venue. The 412 page book is a comprehensive collection of illustrations which come from the pages of Britain’s Illustrated London News and the Graphic as well the lesser known Muniandi, which Dr. de Silva notes was a humorous journal published in Colombo for a brief three years from 1869. Much of the engravings found in Sri Lanka are not available for public viewing or reference due to the fact that they are in a fast deteriorating state. The ones carefully preserved abroad are equally inaccessible to most Sri Lankans. Dr. de Silva’s latest book has done well to document them and present them in a compact, interesting and knowledgeable manner. The pictures appear along with the original captions and texts - some translated into English - which accompanied them. The author also gives additional information or brings information up to date. An introduction gives a reader an insight into the methods “generally adopted in the 19th century to illustrate newspaper”. The earlier wood-engravings and much later photo-engravings depict the island’s historical events, peoples, their customs and occupations, topography, natural history, elephant kraals, hunting, and a variety of other subjects. Dr. de Silva notes that these appeared in 19th century newspapers the world over. The book is divided into five sections: People, Customs and Occupations; Historical Events; Leisure and Sports; Elephants - Kraals and Hunting and Towns and Buildings. Dr. de Silva’s interest in art goes back a long way. Although qualified as a medical doctor, he confesses to always having “lived with art and pictures at home” due to his mother, Maisie de Silva, having been a professional artist. While working in London, he developed more fully his interest in art and art history. He expanded his knowledge by self-study. He also began collecting prints and watercolours pertaining to Sri Lanka. “I have also made it a mission to find out what material there was on Sri Lanka in the world outside the island,” he says, “I have travelled and seen almost all material available in several museums and libraries: in Holland, in Paris, in Jena in former East Germany and so on”. Dr. de Silva avows that spreading awareness of the importance of conserving art on paper has become almost a crusade with him. The latest book is part of that crusade. |
| Importance
of defensive driving By Sujath de Silva Given below is what could be considered an addendum to Dr. Kolitha Weerasekera’s article on Defensive Driving which appeared in the Island of 18th July, 1998. The initial pangs of a transport crisis were felt in the developed world approximately fifty years ago. Having conducted many research programmes across the past few decades the developed countries eventually brought about several remedial measures vis-a-vis their transport problems which appear to have proved quite successful. In fact, they now seem convinced that a better approach to these problems would be to improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes of road users in addition to road development. With this in mind, they moved to propagate the concept of Defensive Driving which was first introduced in Europe. It was adopted by Japan in 1975 and by Singapore thereafter. Over the years, it has helped these countries save colossal amounts of money which would have otherwise been wasted on roads, and utilise them for their overall development. Following the lifting of restrictions on vehicle imports, Sri Lanka left its doors wide open to an influx of imported vehicles. As things stand today, it has no option other than to accommodate them all. Sri Lanka had its first taste of Defensive Driving when the British introduced it here in the 1950s through the Police Service. In as much as Defensive Driving has been identified today as an unfailing remedy for acute transport problems, it is unfortunate that the Sri Lankan police have made no attempt to popularize it all these years. Consequently, the travails of travel road users in Sri Lanka have to go through are rising steadily day after day. Viewed against this somewhat gloomy backdrop, it is indeed refreshing to see an university don stepping forward to highlight the importance of Defensive Driving. Our police force has in its ranks many officers who have been trained in the method of defensive driving at state expense. How they will react to the contents of Dr. Weerasekera’s article and whether our legislators will raise the issue in the parliament will no doubt be matters of immense public interest. At a time when Defensive Driving has become known as an effective solution to the ongoing transport crisis, the absolute inertness on the part of the police to create some measure of public awareness on its usefulness through either print media or electronic media is, to say the least, most bewildering. Meanwhile, the private sector has come to realise the many advantages of Defensive Driving. As a result, several private sector organisations have already set in motion numerous training programmes in order to educate their drivers in it. The principal objective of this training would be enabling the drivers: (a) to drive without ever being responsible for an accident. (b) to avoid accident situations that may occur through others’ faults. (c) to drive in a manner that will not cause traffic snarls. (d) to bring down the maintenance cost by 50%. (e) to reduce the expenditure on fuel by 25%. Among the private sector organisations already reaping the benefits of Defensive Driving are the following: (1) Shell Gas Lanka Limited. (2) Nutreena Feeds (3) Singer (Sri Lanka) Ltd. (4) Bank of Ceylon (5) Vanik (6) Save the Children Fund. (7) United Nations in Sri Lanka. (8) Hatton National Bank. However grave it may seem, the transport crisis which we are grappling with today is not without a solution. Not only does it have a solution but what is more, the authorities concerned need not engage in extensive research or seek international assistance to give effect to it. Sri Lanka certainly can sort out its transport problems on its own viz. To improve driving standards of our drivers through Defensive Driving (advanced motoring). Provided of course the initiative taken by the private sector receives the government backing and public co-operation. Being equipped with the necessary know-how, our organisation is all set to popularize the method of Defensive Driving which could be aptly described as the panacea for Sri Lanka’s transport ills. The question, nevertheless, is, should we seize this opportunity and help our country save Rs. 40 billion annually? Or else, should we set it aside and suffer the consequences of a greater crisis later? The choice is yours, dear readers. |
| Deaf community, their culture and the
medium of communication by Prof. (Mrs.) Daya Wickramasinghe We commonly hear reference to the “Deaf Community.” The term has demographic Linguistic, political and social implications. There is a national ‘Community’ of deaf people who 1share certain characteristics and reacts to events around them as a group. What is a deaf community? Earlier definitions of ‘deaf community’ included only those persons who are audiologically hearing impaired. According to Carol Padden A deaf community is a group of people who live in a particular location, share the common goals of its members, and in various ways, work toward achieving these goals. The deaf community may include persons who are not themselves deaf, but also who actively support the goals of the community and work with deaf people to achieve them. Community in the city of Colombo may be composed of different cultural groups; likewise, a deaf community has not only deaf members, but also hearing and deaf people who are not culturally deaf, and who interact on a different basis with deaf people and see themselves as working with deaf people in various common concerns. The culture of deaf people however, is more closed than the deaf community. But, how do we distinguish between community and culture? A culture is a set of learned behaviours of a group of people who have their own language, values, rules for behaviour and traditions. A person may be born into a culture, he is brought up according to the values of the culture and his personality and behaviour are shaped by his cultural values. Or else, a person may grow up in one culture, and later learn the language, values, and practices of a different culture and become ‘enculturated’ into that culture. A community, on the other hand, is a general social system in which a group of people live together, share common goals, and carry out certain responsibilities to each other. My example earlier of a capital city is one where a community may be composed of a number of different cultural groups. Members of the deaf culture behave as deaf people do, use the language of deaf people, and share the beliefs of the deaf people toward themselves and other people who are not deaf. The Dictionary of American Sign Language, published in 1965, by William Stokoe, Carl Croneberg, and Dorothy Casterline was unique for describing deaf people as constituting a cultural group. There is a general disassociation from speech in the deaf culture. Some deaf people may choose to use speech in community activities that involve non-deaf people, such as mixed parties, public functions etc, But on the cultural level, speaking is not considered appropriate behaviour. Children who are brought up in deaf culture limit their mouth movement only to those movements that are part of their language. Exaggerated speaking behaviour is thought of as ‘undignified’ and sometimes can be interpreted as making fun of other people. Even though some deaf people can hear some speech, and some speak well themselves, speaking is not considered usual or acceptable behaviour within cultural grouping. In hearing culture, staring at someone is inappropriate and it will be thought ‘stupid’ or ‘making improper advances’. But in sign language conversations the communicator is expected to watch the face of the signer throughout the conversations. Breaking eye contact between signer and participate too soon, may be interpreted by deaf people as ‘rude’. ‘disinterested’, or ‘trying to act hearing’. While watching the face communicator is expected to respond the signer by nodding the head or by some similar act. Facial expression among hearing people is quite restrained when compared with deaf signers. Movements of the eyes, face and head are important in signed language; they are used as a part of its grammar, to convery information about the emotions of the signer. Difference between a statement, question, negation and an exclamation is made by eye movement and facial expression. The face and body are forward and the brows are raised in a question during the signs woman, forget, and purse. Without the nonmanual signal which accompanies the three signs, the sequence would not be interpreted as a yes-no question and negation. A facial expression which, if combined with a side-to-side head shake, will form a negating signal. Nonmanual signals used as grammatical markets in sign language are similar to suprasegmental phonemes in spoken languages. It is desirable to distinguish between degrees of hearing loss in hearing culture. But among deaf people, the distinctions in hearing loss are not considered important for group relations. A person learning to interact with other deaf people will quickly learn that there is one name for all members of the cultural group. That is Deaf. It is accepted among deaf community that the culturally appropirate way to identify deaf people would be ‘Deaf or Hard of Hearing’. The introduction and exchange of names is also different in deaf culture. Although hearing people often introduce themselves by their first name, deaf people normally introduce themselves by their full name, and sometimes add from which city they are from. Also they have signed names for everybody they associate other than the real name. There is a rich literature of the deaf culture, i.e. plays, poetries, stories and games in gestures. Among the stories most of them are famous success stories. One of them shows, how a deaf person grows up in an oral environment without having any contact with deaf people, later on meets some deaf people in a party, learnt signs and turned a new leaf of his life. Many deaf people do not feel handicapped or disabled. They are proud to be deaf. So proud that they feel there is a need to erase the pathological view point of deafness. They say, that they do not know they are missing something, since they never had it in the first place. An example cited by the deaf author Ben Bahan goes like this. ‘If you grew up in a place where they served Coca-cola at all meals, then moved into another place where they never served it, you would certainly miss Coca-cola. But deaf people do not miss hearing, because they never heard in the first place. The feeling of being handicapped isn’t there. It is the hearing world that tells us. We are handicapped and disabled. ‘He goes on to say that the definitions given for the word deaf in the dictionaries seem to offer negative shadowing on deaf people. Webster’s Dictionary: deaf (adj): 1. Lacking or deficient in sense of hearing, 2. Unwilling to hear or listen. Random House Dictionary: deaf (adj): 1. Partially or wholly unable to hear, 2. Refusing to listen. Ben Bahan says this kind of identity puts themselves down and helping the world put them down, and suggests ‘seeing people’ is a better identity for them. By using this term he says deaf people are encouraged themselves and will be in a position to do things they can do, instead of referring to what they can’t do. Deaf community has long recognized that their groups are different from those of hearing people, as we discussed earlier certain behaviours are accepted while others are discouraged in the ‘Deaf World’. Primary goal of the deaf community is to achieve public acceptance of deaf people as equals-equals in employment, in political representation, and in the control of institutions that involve deaf people, (such as schools and service organizations). An equally important goal is the acceptance and recognition of their history and their use of signing as a means of communication. As an example, the National Association of the Deaf in United States prints on its envelopes the message, “Hire the Deaf - They are Good Workers!”. The message is to convince the public that deaf workers are not a liability and should be given equal employment opportunities. Many deaf communities have been pushing for media exposure of Sign Language in television programs and newspaper articles as means of accomplishing another important goal-public recognition and acceptance of the use of signs to communicate. If we consider the deaf from a socially based perspective, much becomes clear. For the collective attitudes and policies of the hearing majority toward the deaf minority are based primarily upon language use. Some may consider deaf people to be slow because they do not understand or respond to everything that is said in the majority language; they are hard to understand because of their often imperfect spoken command of that language, they are overtly different because they wave their hands and fingers in the air to communicate with one another. Consequently, understanding this group of very special people requires understanding the organization of their lives on their own terms-one must understand the principles of the sign language that they use to communicate among themselves. Ignorance of how deaf people live, think and communicate is unfortunately among even those who have professional interests in the deaf, such as teachers, speech and hearing specialists, and social workers. In the absence of linguistic inquiry, sign languages have often been viewed as linguistically inferior. Those who hold these attitudes seem to reason that an inferior language indicates culturally and intellectually deprived users of language. Teaching how to use signs to chimpanzies has created a mistaken conclusion that sign language must be very simple if even chimpanzies can use it. We have learned recently from investigations of sign languages, that they are complete languages both in the technical and extended sense, that they are comparable to spoken languages on many dimensions, and that they are far from simple and quite complex. The form of signs used in communication, organizational principles of their formation, their relationship to the human capacity (competence) for making gestures with hands and perceiving them with eyes etc. are useful issues for comparing the nature of spoken languages and sign languages. There is a gross difference between the spoken and sign languages, since acoustic signals are produced vocally and visual signals are produced manually. Sometimes it is possible to articulate two signs simultaneously since we have two hands, but with only one tongue we can never pronounce two words simultaneously. Contrary to popular belief and as asserted again and again, there is no single universal sign language. Sign languages are no different to spoken languages, in that each community of users has tended to develop its own language, especially if they have been isolated from other communities. An examination of the available sign language dictionaries for America, Britain, Australia, Venizuela or India quickly shows that not all groups of deaf people denote the same thing with same sign. Many people believe that sign languages are mere sign-for-word manual renderings of spoken languages. But it is not so. It is possible to encode oral languages manually, through finger spelling. There are different sign alphabets in all the countries. Each letter has a separate manual sign - two handed in Britan, Australia and certain Commonwealth countries; one handed systems prevail in most of other countries. All sign languages used in deaf communities have a rich vocabulary of signs covering the full range of things, events, and abstract concepts of ordinary life. In American Sign Language lectures are given on such diverse topics as Art, Health Science. History, Physical Education and Linguistics. Original plays have been composed and staged in American Sign Language, and original poetry, jokes and language games are a significant part of deaf cultural core. As such sign languages are no different from spoken languages. Like any other language, a sign language will have a large number of signs which are synonymous; and some with a slight distinction in the meaning, showing the richness of the language, permitting sign languages to be very precise and make fine distinctions. Signs of a sign language should be pronounced correctly, exactly as pronouncing a word correctly. Minute differences in hand shapes, orientations, contacts, movements, timing and facial expressions can completely change the meaning of a sign. Hence, despite the superficial appearances to the contrary, the communicative functions and general principles of organization of sign languages show the same general characteristics of spoken languages, and sign languages can be analyzed according to the linguistic methodologies developed for spoken languages. Every language has a semantic, syntactic and a phonological component. For sign languages too the same distinctions can be made. For example: Sri Lankan Sign Language has a systematic semantic component, separate from the semantics of Sinhalese, a syntactic component, and a phonological component dealing with the systematic formation, organization and expression of ultimate physical signals, which are analogous to the phonology of spoken language. Indeed, as with many other language minorities the sign language of the deaf community is used as much as a mark of group membership as it is used to exclude others. Many deaf people use a different kind of signing with hearing people than they would use with their deaf peers. |
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