jaffnamusings

[jaffnamusings]

Is Jaffna Tamil a very distinct language from Tamil ?

Aditya plays in an intramural cricket team where 90% of his teammates are Sri Lankan Tamils. At first, Aditya found his teammates difficult “to move with” and did not speak to them in Tamil. As the cricket season progressed, Aditya would be invited to dinners and other social gatherings with his Sri Lankan teammates. He then concluded that “once you know [Sri Lankan Tamils], they are the best”. He refers to their Tamil dialect as literarylikeand classically derived:

As far as language is concerned, yeah in the beginning it was a little bit difficult. The thing is, like, I had my Tamil language course like until 12th grade in India. I was in English-medium school. I had that one course that comes from all the way from 1st grade through 12th grade. I was good in Tamil at that time. So I know the, what do you call them, the classical Tamil part, the literature, so if you know that thing, then it is easy to grasp the Sri Lankan Tamil. Because that’s the platform. The classical Tamil is the platform and we diversified from that this way and they diversified from that in a different way, so if you put a link, this way you can really get at what they mean, except for a few words which you really don’t know, but the other words are mostly derived from these words, but basically you… whenever they speak I try to grasp from the classical, like I try to equalize the words that they have in the classical and those with what they say. I try to come up with the oral distance.

Aditya also shares an apartment with his Sri Lankan Tamil friend, Thileepan. Thileepan is a doctoral student at McGill University who is pursuing a Ph.D. in computer systems engineering. Aditya explained that, by virtue of speaking in Tamil with Thileepan and his cricket teammates, he can now understand the Sri Lankan Tamil dialect. Thileepan, on the other hand, claims to be able to strategically code-switch between Sri Lankan Tamil and Indian Tamil. From February through April 2005, I would meet with Thileepan once every few weeks for Tamil conversational practice.

During this time, I was familiarized with some of the grammatical and lexical differences between colloquial Jaffna Tamil and colloquial Indian Tamil.47 Thileepan (and most other Sri Lankan Tamils) had been frequently exposed to the Indian Tamil dialect by watching Kollywood movies and listening to Indian Tamil radio stations in Sri Lanka.

In comparison, Aditya’s only prior exposure to the Jaffna Tamil dialect was through one Jaffna-based radio program to which he listened infrequently during his youth. Others have described the difference between Sri Lankan Tamil and Indian Tamil as a type of regional dialectal variation. Arjuna is an Indian Tamil man from Chennai, who admits that “though I grew up in Chennai, though I speak Tamil as my mother tongue, I don’t know Tamil officially. I don’t know the nuances of the language.”

Arjuna plays on Aditya’s cricket team and is also friends with Thileepan. He refers to “way of speaking [as] completely different”: I am friends with lot of Sri Lankan Tamils. Their Tamil is completely different.

We cannot match their Tamil. Our way of speaking is different. Their way of speaking is completely different. One roommate of Aditya his name is Thileepan. I could not understand the way he spoke. [makes garbled noise] Even now I ask him three times or something and only then I am able to understand.

Arjuna claims that Thileepan cannot recognize the phonemic distinction between “l” and “l”. Already his language is a bit fast. Thileepan will say “valaipalam” instead of “valaipalam”. I ask him to repeat. Not only me. I think it is the case with many guys.

For Arjuna, who is a Brahmin Tamil from Chennai, the ability to phonetically articulate /ɻ/, or “l”, is a sign of the speaker’s prestige. Hemanth, another Chennai native, finds the dialect of colloquial Sri Lankan Tamil to be utterly incomprehensible on account of its purity:

Sri Lankan Tamil is very pure. It has not got polluted. I am coming from Chennai. It is the worst place to speak Tamil. Even people from South India, especially from Madurai, they will laugh at us. So I try to change myself when I speak to those people. Because it is very slang and colloquial language… so many dialects…When I first met Sri Lankans here, it totally like I didn’t even understand, they were laughing at me. So, it is very different. “

Hemanth is quite self-conscious of being mocked when he speaks in Chennai Tamil, which he describes as a very impure dialect of Tamil. Muthu explains that Indian Tamils like Hemanth incorporate a lot of English lexicon into their colloquial speech, much in the same way that the Québécois do when they speak joual. He equates Sri Lankan Tamil speech to the French spoken in France, which he assumes to be a purer style.

Arjuna, Aditya, and Makesh all admit to using English lexicon when speaking in colloquial Indian Tamil, as is habitual among upper-class, urban speakers in India. Among 1st generation Indian Tamils graduate students, only Aditya claims to have retained his ability to write literary Tamil. He attributes this skill to his solid education in Tamil literature in grade school. Hemanth, even though he used to write Tamil poetry in India, sheepishly admits to having forgotten some of the Tamil scripts and even how to construct literary Tamil sentences. For 2nd generation Indian Tamils who have never learned literary Tamil and who do not communicate with Sri Lankan Tamils, they believe that Indian Tamil and Sri Lankan Tamil are two distinct languages. For example Mohan, whose mother tongue is Hebbar Tamil and who has no knowledge of literary Tamil, states, “Sri Lankan Tamil, which in our opinion is a completely different language.”

Marianne, a 2nd generation Indian Tamil Catholic who was raised in France and Quebec, claims that “Indian Tamils speak spoken Tamil, and Sri Lankan Tamils speak more like written Tamil.” Marianne’s mother, upon hearing this statement, corrected her by explaining that Sri Lankan Tamils speak a more classical style of Tamil than Indian Tamils. Because Marianne does not read or write Tamil, she was unable to understand her mother’s distinction.

Together, these above statements point to the existence of an emergent language ideology which describes Indian Tamils as speaking a colloquial, modern, and impure style of Tamil and Sri Lankan Tamils as speaking a literary, classical, and purist style of Tamil. This diglossic-like compartmentalization of linguistic repertoires reproduces a “modernist” and “primordialist” division between Tamil sub-groups, where Indian Tamils endorse a modernist vision of social change and Sri Lankan Tamils endorse a primordialist vision of social continuity/degeneration.

Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora leaders have attempted to standardize this primordialist moral framework by socializing youth and children to identify “old”, “pure”, “literary”, and “devotional” semiotic forms as superior to “new”, “hybrid”, “colloquial”, and “secular” semiotic forms (and vice versa for Indian Tamil diaspora leaders). In the following sections, I describe two different narrative performances which outline the spatiotemporal dimensions of these primordialist and modernist narratives.

My analysis relies upon Agha’s (2005b) concept of “enregisterment” to suggest that the guided interpretation of contrasting (en)textualized voices within chunks of discourse can creatively entail motivated iconic and indexical linkages between linguistic type, social persona, and spatial or temporal structures.

Excerpts are from BETWEENTEXT AND TALK: EXPERTISE, NORMATIVITY, AND SCALES OFBELONGING IN THE MONTREAL TAMIL DIASPORAS by Sonia Neela Das

[jaffnamusings]

A place apart: islands off Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula

All around me lay the remains of a tiny Irish empire: a mansion in ruins, some 60 wells and a sandy canal. Even the drystone walls were said to be an Irish idea, sprawling over the island.

Strictly speaking, it was an empire within an empire, although its creator paid little regard to British niceties. Appointed “Superintendant” in 1811, for 13 years Lieutenant Edward Nolan ran the Sri Lankan island of Delft like his own little raj – building, judging, planting, and making love to all the local girls. Even today, they say, many Delftians smile with Irish eyes.

Looking around, it was easy to see how Nolan’s one-man empire had survived so long. The island and a dozen others off the northern city of Jaffna are in one of the remotest regions of Sri Lanka. Until the railway opened in 1905 it took three days just to make the 200-mile journey from Colombo to Jaffna. From there, an even sandier journey begins. While coral may hold it all together, this is an archipelago of dunes. There are no rivers and no ponds and the sea is seldom more than a few feet deep. It’s been perfect for coconuts, migrating birds and would-be sultans, like Edward Nolan.

I’d often been intrigued by Jaffna’s islands, but there was little encouragement to visit. I’d never met any Sri Lankans who had been there, and most thought it off limits after the civil war (1983-2009). As for the theevaar (or islanders), they were usually described as either wily entrepreneurs or complete hicks. It wasn’t much to go on. Meanwhile, maps or guidebooks proved hard to find, and the only hotels seemed to be run by the military. Even the guide who took me, a Tamil called Murali, had never actually been there before.

There was also the thorny political issue. Everyone entering the Jaffna Peninsula has to pass through a checkpoint, like airport security. It’s a sign that from now on, things will be different. There’ll be sentries everywhere, on every street, and even out on the saltiest of flats. Critics say the government is making use of this security regime to grab land and enrich itself. The state denies this, and points to the road gangs at work, and the dust from new construction work billowing out of the bomb-sites.

Tourists are faced with the tricky challenge of working out how to spend their money in ways which will benefit the local people, while avoiding enriching those accused of war crimes. One step is to stay in a private hotel. For me, this meant basing myself in Jaffna, one of the most defiant cities I’ve ever known. There were new ice-cream parlours among the ruins, and a bazaar blazing into the night. The main street was an outrageous bright yellow, and those that didn’t yet have shops worked on the kerb, including cobblers and typists. There was special affection for the old cars – Austin Cambridges and Morris Oxfords – that had kept the place going through the war. Now they gleam like new, and a good 1956 model will cost you “a million bucks” (meaning Sri Lankan rupees – around £5,000).

Everyone, it seemed, was busy forgetting the past. The city had changed hands three times in the war and, in 1995, it was evacuated (even the hospital was stripped). One day I went for a walk around the fort. Completed in 1792, it was once the greatest fortress in Asia. Now soldiers were clearing out the rubble. Among the debris I found a Tamil Tiger’s shirt with its distinctive horizontal stripes. It was a macabre reminder of how fierce – and recent – the fighting had been.

From the city we made several trips out to the islands. This was easier than it sounds because the bigger ones could be reached by causeways (one almost three miles long). I enjoyed the odd sensation of driving over the waves, taking the shallows at a height of 5ft. It’s probably the nearest I’ll ever get to being a seagull. Below us the lagoon was busy, with fishermen up to their waists. They looked like farmers reaping the sea.

Ahead a beautiful world took shape, or rather lost it. For a while, the landscape would be reduced to bands of blue and sand, with vast sweeps of silvery salt. Only the brawniest opportunists lived here – cormorants, fish eagles and brahminy kites. But soon, pushing farther into the island of Karaitivu, we were among flora again; briny bushes, oleander and the stately palmyra palm. Farms would appear, tiny tufts of brilliant green under this vast carapace of sky. On Karaitivu, life is lived around the well.

It was a while before we found settlements. In the islands’ history, few outsiders have known what to do with them. Early Arab traders called by, leaving only baobab trees. Marco Polo may have stopped over, as did the Portuguese. But it was the Dutch who were the first to enjoy this place, from 1658. Perhaps it reminded them of their own salt-washed archipelago, and so they gave the islands names like Rotterdam, Haarlem and Delft (though only the latter remains in use).

They even added an island of their own. The Portuguese had long had a stockade out on Karaitivu’s sandbanks, but the Dutch added a few thousand tons of coralstone and built a castle, Hammenheil. It is still there, small yet magnificent as ever, run for years by the navy, first as a secret prison and now as a boutique hotel for the chronically ghoulish.

Back in the trees, we suddenly found ourselves among mansions. I loved these places: rambling Indo-Saracenic fantasies, decorated with bulls and peacocks and fancy columns. It was the same on Kayts, another island just to the south. Over the centuries the islanders had grown rich, working abroad, trading, or selling elephants to India (a mere 40 miles away). All this – the villas, the giant quays and the red-striped lighthouse – belonged to a golden age. But now it was abandoned. “The war,” said Murali, “even here. People left.”

There were signs of the merchants returning. One day we joined a funeral party, where we drank pink milkshakes and made offerings to Shiva. Many of the mourners were from Malaysia, their first time back in 30 years. Some said they wanted to stay: “We’ve kept everything. Tamils never sell land.” In their plan for the islands, there was no place for anyone else: hotels, outsiders or government. I could see the struggle that lay ahead.

Each evening I returned to my own mansions near Jaffna. The first, the Margosa, was a mini-palace – like those I’d seen on the islands, except rich in colour and cooking. My second hotel, the Jaffna Heritage, was more modern; a cool, low-slung building in olive green and teak.

My last island visit was the most memorable of all. This time, we took the causeways as far as we could go, across Kayts and past the lumpy old sailboats of Punkudutivu. At the end of the road was a crowd. Some were pilgrims, heading for Nainativu (where, they say, Buddha preached on his second visit to Sri Lanka). The rest of us were packed into an old wooden ferry (180 passengers, seats for 100). It was a long, hot hour on the choppy, dark sea, but the reward for it all was Delft.

Everyone loves Delft, also known as Neduntheevu, and even the war seemed to pass it by. About half the size of Jersey, it’s still home to 5,000 islanders, 5,000 cows and a herd of wild horses. In the rains, everyone rushes about, teasing onions out of the sand. The rest of the time there’s no rush at all, and life has a dreamy antique feel; no cars, no plastic and nowhere to eat (if you want lunch, ask the pretty girl who cooks for the council). We hired a tuk-tuk and set off through the lanes.

Everyone has left a bit of themselves here. There are the tell-tale baobabs and some chunky Arab doors, built so small you have to crouch. The Portuguese left a fort – like a giant, crumbling cake – and the horses. Then there’s the Irish empire, and the stables Nolan built for a hundred newly broken steeds. In 1819 he was finally tried for abuse of power, and – on the islanders’ evidence – gloriously acquitted. He died in Ireland 45 years later.

Before leaving, I went to watch the horses – free again – grazing the crisp red grass at the end of the island. Despite their foreign genes, they have about them something of the spirit of this archipelago: magnificent, disowned and obstinately wild.

By John Gimlette, Original Article Published in Financial Times. 

[jaffnamusings]

Raghunatha Nayaka and the King of Jaffna

Excerpts from the book, "Nayaks of Tanjore" by V. Vriddhagirisan.

Raghunatha Nayaka ( 1600 AD to 1634 AD ) was the most illustrious of the Tanjore line of Nayaks, as well as the main prop of their fame and glory. His rule was one of peace as it marked the revival and development of the manysided, cultural actitivies for which Tanjore had been famous through the ages.

Establisher of Jaffna Kingdom - All the same, these accounts of Raghunatha's rule are not full and do not detail all the events of his reign, as they mostly stop with the description of his early conquests. He is called the establisher of the Karanata and the Nepala ( Jaffna ) Kings, and a Neo Dasarati ( Rama ) in building a bridge of boats across the ocean between the mainland of India and the Jaffnese coast of Ceylon, in his expedition against his Portuguese enemies.

Marching towards Jaffna - From Devikottah, Raghunatha marched south along the sea=coast, towards Jaffna, whose king is mentioned by both the authors as having accompanied the Nayaka from the very beginning of his expedition. Passing through the modern Kaveripattanam, where the Cauvery Joins the sea and crossing the sea (the gulf of Mannar) by means of chain of boars, the Nayaka landed on the Jaffnese coast, Ramabhadramba says that the army also crossed the channel with the aid of wooden floats. Raghunatha offered battle to the Portuguese, who, finding themselves exhausted in spite of the furious charge of their guns, fled for their lives; while a large number of them escaped by the sea in small ships. Raghunatha infliced another crushing defea upon the Portugues and reinstated the Jaffnese ruler on his throne. The victory over the Portuguese of Jaffna must have happened before the battle of Toppur and immediately after the capture of the fort of Devikottah and hence the date of this campain may be fixed approximately towards the close of AD 1615 or in the beginning of the year AD 1616.

The Sahityaratnakara gives some additional information. IT refers to the arrival of the wives of the Jaffnese ruler at Tanjore, beside the latter; and here the enemies of the fugitive are called the Parasikas by which term the Portuguese are meant. In another place, the same author calls the Jaffnese ruler as the Yavana King. His name is mentioned as Pararajabhayankara and his kingdom is said to have been surrounded on all sides by the ocean. That the Tanjore army was composed of Yavana soldiers will mean that it was composed of men from Jaffna. Raghunatha Nayaka's defeat of the Portuguese and his reinstallation of the Jaffna ruler on his throne are established beyond a shodow of doubt; but the question, as to who was the king that was re-anointed by him is not clear. The references to city, called Vardhikeya and the King Pararajabhayankara do not take us fas as they are definite.

The literary evidence refers to the help given to the rulers of Jaffna during the time of Achyutappa Nayaka, and so, Raghunatha's intervention must refer to the help rendered a second time. To understand the Tanjore relations with Jaffna aright, it is necessary to have a grasp of the trend of the Jaffna politics of this period. A fair account of these political troubles is given in the Portuguese chronicles and also in the Yalpana Vaibhava Malai of Mayilvahana Pulavar, compose in the beginning of the 17th Century. They refet to the help given by the Nayak of Tanjore to the rulers of Jaffna even from the middle of the 16th century.

In all these wars the powers on the Coromandel Coast do not seem to have fared well at all. In 1547, Sankili Segarajasekharan, who is said to have joined the Sinhalese ruler Mayadunne, the ruler of Sitawaka and the younger brother of Bhuvenaka Bahu VII, and fought against the Portuguese; appears to have secured help from the Tanjore Nayaks. This must have happened during the reighn of Sevappa Nayaka and the Portuguese seems to have won a victory on that occasion. Tanjore again interfered between 1570 and 1582, when Periya Pillai, Segarajasekharan was the king of Jaffna. He came to the throne with the help of the Portuguese general, De Castro, in 1570, but soon exhibited his innate hatred and hostility towards his allies by attacking their colony at Mannar with the help of the Tanjore forces. The Tanjore army sustained a defeat for a second time. Peria Pillai's successor was one Puviraja Bandaram who, on his accession assumed the title of Pararajasekhara. He was also opposed to the Portguese and is said to have persecuted the Christians; and his attempts to capture Mannar from them, on two occastions also ended in failure. The second attempt which took place in 1591 resulted in serious consequences. For then, he was attacked by the Portuguese general, Andre Furtado de Mendoza, who invaded Jaffna in October 1591, and quickly brought it under his control. Puviraja Bandara was killed in the battle and the Portuguese installed the son of Peria Pillai, as the new ruler of Jafffna. This prince was known as Edirmanna Singa with the title of Pararajasekhara. He is said to have ruled from 1591 to 1615 as feudatory of the Portuguese and to have paid them an annual tribute. He was as might be expected, was extremely puntilious in showing his gratitude to the Portuguese, conferring many favours on them and treating them with much familiariy. Quite naturally, the latter were having it all their own way in the land. This state of things did not satisfy the Mudaliars and chiefs of the Kingdom and they soon formed a plot for placing on the throne a prince who was then at Ramancor ( Rameswaram ) and who was backed up by a select army of Moors, Badagas and Maravas under the protection of the Nayak of Tanjore and the renegade Dom Joas Wimaladharma, King of Kandy. The Portuguese on the other hand wanted to depose Wimaladharma, who, on ascending the throne of Kandy is said to have renounced his former religion of Christianity, oppressed his allies and persecuted the Christians. The King of Jaffna Pararajasekhara, on hearing of this intended attack and insurrection by the prince of Rameswaram, soon communicated it to the Portuguese captain of Mannar and the latter at once sent Manoel de Athaide with a body of men in seven ships to meet the Tanjore army. On the 26th of October 1592 Athaide charged the Tanjore forces and in the end was able to defeat them near Talaimannar.

From 1592 5o 1615 there was peace in the land and Pararajasekhara was allowed to rule without further trouble. The Portuguese had their own suspicion about his attitude towards them. Edirmannasinga Arya, Pararajasekhara - for that was his full name shortly before his death, made his three year old son as his successor and appointed his own brother Arasakesari Bandara as regent, until the time, the boy should come of age. This arrangement was communicated to the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa for ratification; but he died all on a sudden before the confirmatory order could reach Jaffna. The death of this ruler is dated 1615. It is said that immediately after his death, one Sankili Kumara of the royal family who was longing to usurp the throne, captured the government by putting an end to the lives of Arasakesari Bandara the regeant, and Peria Pulle Arachi a powerful cheif. Sankili then became the Regent. The people of Jaffna became dismayed at the unexpected success of Sankili Kumara, grew restless and rose in revolt. Chinna Migapulle Arachi, the son of Peria Pulle who was murdered by Sankili, went over to the mainland to seek the aid of the Portuguese against the usurper, who however managed to stay on. When Joao de Criz Girao of Mannar came to Jaffna to give effects to the will executed by the late King Ediramanna Singa, Sankili is said to have denied the truth of the will and to have proved it to be a fraud. Sankili was thus left undisturbed ruler, on his promise to pay the Portuguese the due tribute and to tule according to their wishes. Sankili kept up his word for some time; but soon internal troubles arose which enabled him to set at nought the Portuguese claim to overlordship by allowing the Badagas (Telugus people from the mainland) to pass through his kingdom on their way to Kandy. Again, he also became unpopular by his atrocities and cruel exacetions. The news of his porposal to appoint his son-in-law as his successor, was received by the Jaffnese with indignation and they consequently rose in revolt. Even the intervention of the Portuguese captain of Mannar to bring about a truce between Sankili Kumar and his subjects was of no use; and Sankili being very much opposed by his own men, had to take refuge in Urathoda, a port on the Jaffnese Coast. It is said that his womenfolk had, in the interval, made their escape to the court of Tanjore to seek the Nayak's help in putting down the revolt of the Jaffnese people and the Portuguese, who had joined them. At last Sankili seems to have regained his kingdowm with the aid of the Tanjore Nayak's forces sent under one Khem Nayak, and of five thousand lascarines. Sinhalese warriors led by one Varnakulattan. Yagnanarayana Dikshita's reference to the presence of the ladies of the Jaffnese king at the court of Raghunatha, perhaps indicates this appeal made by Sankili's women and Raghunatha Nayaka's claim to have re-established a king of Jaffna on the eve of the Toppur battle must also refer to this victory won by his forces on behalf of Sankili, though the Portuguese chronicles do not refer to the part said to have been played by the Nayaka himself in person, but record the victory of the Tanjore forces.

Since Raghunatha Nayaka is said to have been in camp at Palamaneri in 1616 on his way to Toppur, the invasion of Jaffna must have taken place sometime before the date. The Rev. Gnanaprakasar's date for the death of Edirmanna Singa Pararajasekhara the predecessor of Sankili, confirmts 1616 as the date of the Jaffnese expedition. The only point of conflict between the Tanjore and the Portuguese chronicles is that, while the former speaks of Raghunatha's presence in Jaffna in person, the latter mentions only his despatch of troops under one Khem Nayak. Hence it is known for certain that it was Sankili Kumara, who came to Tanjore for the Nayak's help and got subsequenly back his lost kingdom through the latter's intervention. The reference made to the Jaffnese King as Pararajaabhayankara by Yagnanarayana Dikshita, refers to Sankili himself. Pararajaabhayankara could not be take as referring to Pararajasekhara on the ground that Jaffnese rulers called themselves Pararajasekhara and Segarajasekhara in the order of their accession. In that case we cannot adequately explain the title of Pararajasekhara for Sankili, since his predecessor Edirmannasinga was a Pararajasekhara but there was one prdecessor, Arasakesari, int the regency.

The references to the Parasikas and Yavanas is rather inconclusive. Yagnanarayana Dikshita use the word Parasika to mean the Portuguese and the word Yavana must refer to the Jaffnese or Sinhalese since he speaks of the Jaffnese ruler as Yavanabhupati.

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Medieval Jaffnese Literature in Sri Lanka

The advent of Jaffnese as an independent language belonging to the Dravidian stock and the appearance of Independent Kingdom of Jaffna though not having any apparent correlation, coincide in the 12th Century A.D., the former marking the end of Sinhalese dominance in Northern Ceylon and latter asserting the independence supremacy of Jaffnese race. Jaffna was ruled by the Princes of Anuradhapura for about a millennium beginning from the early centuries of the Chrisitan era, with incessant conflicts with the neighbouring Cholas and with intervening dark periods of political vacuum. The great influx of the Cholas from the north along the Northern Eastern coast of the island, which took place by the 10th Century, led to the great socio-cultural transformation in Jaffna, and the emergence of Jaffnese as a distinct linguistic entity was one of its beneficial results. That does not mean the dialect of Jaffna is an off-shoot of Cholas, neither is it a dialect of Sinhalas.

Scholars today agree that Jaffnese had its origins from Proto-Dravidian much before Tamil separated from the same stock and had its evolution through a healthy interaction with Ceylonese Prakrit.

The earliest literary documents in Jaffnese, if they can be qualified by the term literary, are royal inscriptions, dating back to the 12th Century. Several such inscriptions spanning a period of about 300 years from the 12th - 15th century are available. They are issued by the Jaffna Kings. The earliest among them are supposed to be the The Medawala inscriptions dated 1359 found near a Bo-tree at Medawala in Harispattuva reveal that Martanda Singe Aryan appointed tax collectors to collect taxes from the villages belonging to the Gampola kingdom. The Kotagama inscriptions found in Kegalle District are a record of victory left by the Aryacakravarti kings of the Jaffna Kingdom in western Ceylon. The inscription was assigned to the 15th century by H.C.P. Bell, an archeologist, and Mudaliar Rasanayagam, based on paleographic analysis of the style of letters used.

In these inscriptions, the language is more or less Tamil but a diligent student could trace in them a gradual evolution of Jaffnese as an independent language due to the incursion of colloquial elements. This trend continued and with every century, the predominance of Tamil waned and along with it came the assertion of its own identity by Jaffnese. This process was hastened to large extend by the Prakrit Influence on Jaffna region from the first century. By 12th Century Jaffnese become an independent dialect. During the colonial rule of Portuguese and Dutch, language of Jaffna diverged to a much greater extent from South India and attained a linguistic independence.

Jaffenese literature is simply inspired by works from centuries past but has the added advantage of being able to draw from the literary traditions of the South of India where the closest language is spoken too. The literary history of Jaffnese writers in Ceylon is far less voluminous than that of their Sinhala counterparts, due partly to South Indian supremacy in the language, style and tone on the writings of Jaffnese in the island.

The early phase Jaffna literature was produced in the courts of the native Jaffna kingdom. During the reign of Jayaveera Singe Ariya, a writing on medical sciences (Segarajasekaram), astrology (Segarajasekaramalai) and mathematics (Kanakadikaram) were authored by Karivaiya. During the rule of Gunaveera Singe Arya, a work on medicine known as Pararajasekaram was completed. Singe Pararasasekaram's cousin Arasakesari is credited with translating the Sanskrit classic Raghuvamsa. The other earlier literary works in Jaffnese are vague and most of them are lost. Jaffnese started to borrow heavily from Sanskrit or Tamil to enrich their language, which is readily visible in these books, though these books are today considered to be in pure Tamil, there are many visible cues in its certain vocabulary which are unique in fact.

After the fall of Jaffna Kingdom, the native literary works are abruptly stopped and not patronized by the colonial rulers such as the Portuguese and the Dutch (1520-1796).

It was during the rule of British in Ceylon, the ethnic awareness and ethno-nationalism emerged in the form of religious and cultural revivalism in Sri Lanka from the mid-19th century. Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Islamic revivalist movements were active in formulating and consolidating ethnic identities with political overtones in the respective communities. As far as Tamil writing was concerned, Arumukanavalar, CW Thamotharam Pillai and Siddhi Lebbe played a major role in this respect in the late 19th century. All of them planted the language of South India once again among the Jaffnese rather than promoting native Jaffnese writings.

But unlike creative achievement in Sinhalese- prose, poetry and criticism alike - overshadowed that in Jaffnese literature. There didacticism and tradition were deeply entrenched and survived much longer against the efforts of the English- educated elite among the Jaffnese to do for Tamil literature. Although their efforts to enrich the Jaffnese literature in Jaffnese dialect is minimal. Language, style of writings in Jaffna, other Ceylon Tamil and South India alike, it neither secured a breakthrough to greater refinement and modernity in literary tastes nor succeeded in conferring an individuality or distinctiveness on the Jaffnese, which would differentiate it from the overpowering South Indian version.

In Jaffnese poetry the dead hand of tradition crushed creativity just as completely- if not more so- that it had done in prose writing. Through the colonial years of the British period, Jaffnese newspapers fostered greater debate and dissemination of information, vital in the pre-independence climate. But Jaffnese too much relying on South India for its arts and literature, completely destroyed the nativity or distinctiveness of Jaffnese literature and language.

Throughout the period from the 1940s to the early 1960s, which includes the race riots of 1958, hundreds of Jaffnese poems reflecting the poets’ devotion to their dialect and the ideology of linguistic nationalism were produced by a number of poets from the North and East, including Mahakavi, Murugaiyan, Neelavanan, Sillaiyur Selvarajan, Rajabarathi and Kasiyananthan. They started a new tradition of writing among the Jaffnese, and it created a wider awareness among the Jaffnese to be as distinct linguistic entity, not as settlers from South India, as continuously said by Sinhalese counterparts. It was clearly noted among the Jaffnese writings of this period, though the sentence structure continues to be basically modeled on the Tamil pattern, there is increasingly evidence of Jaffnese asserting themselves in varied aspects of diction and style. Still many writers from Jaffna continue to use the dialect of their writings in a pronounced partiality for Tamil, gaining awareness among the Jaffnese, eventually made them to write in Jaffnese dialect.