|
Sri Lanka Tamils
The people collectively known as the
Tamils (see Glossary),
comprising 2,700,000 persons or approximately 18 percent of the
population in 1981, use the Tamil language as their native
tongue. Tamil is one of the
Dravidian (see Glossary)
languages
found almost exclusively in peninsular India. It existed in South
Asia before the arrival of people speaking Indo-European
languages in about 1500 B.C. Tamil literature of a high quality
has survived for at least 2,000 years in southern India, and
although the Tamil language absorbed many words from northern
Indian languages, in the late twentieth century it retained many
forms of a purely Dravidian speech--a fact that is of
considerable pride to its speakers. Tamil is spoken by at least
40 million people in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu (the "land of
the Tamils"), and by millions more in neighboring states of
southern India and among Tamil emigrants throughout the world.
There was a constant stream of migration from southern India
to Sri Lanka from prehistoric times. Once the Sinhalese
controlled Sri Lanka, however, they viewed their own language and
culture as native to the island, and in their eyes Tamil-speaking
immigrants constituted a foreign ethnic community. Some of these
immigrants appear to have abandoned Tamil for Sinhala and become
part of the Sinhalese caste system. Most however, continued to
speak Tamil and looked toward southern India as their cultural
homeland. Their connections with Tamil Nadu received periodic
reinforcement during struggles between the kings of Sri Lanka and
southern India that peaked in the wars with the Chola
(see Sri Lanka - Rise of Sinhalese and Tamil Ethnic Awareness
, ch. 1). It is probable
that the ancestors of many Tamil speakers entered the country as
a result of the Chola conquest, for some personal names and some
constructions used in Sri Lankan Tamil are reminiscent of the
Chola period.
The Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka are divided into two groups
that have quite different origins and relationships to the
country. The Sri Lankan Tamils trace their immigration to the
distant past and are effectively a native minority. In 1981 they
numbered 1,886,872, or 12.7 percent of the population. The Indian
Tamils are either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants who
came under British sponsorship to Sri Lanka to work on
plantations in the central highlands. In 1981 they numbered
818,656, or 5.5 percent of the population. Because they lived on
plantation settlements, separate from other groups, including the
Sri Lankan Tamils, the Indian Tamils have not become an integral
part of society and indeed have been viewed by the Sinhalese as
foreigners. The population of Indian Tamils has been shrinking
through programs repatriating them to Tamil Nadu
(see Sri Lanka - Independence
, ch. 1).
Ethnic Tamils are united to each other by their common
religions beliefs, and the Tamil language and culture. Some 80
percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils and 90 percent of the Indian
Tamils are Hindus. They have little contact with Buddhism, and
they worship the Hindu pantheon of gods. Their religious myths,
stories of saints, literature, and rituals are distinct from the
cultural sources of the Sinhalese
(see Sri Lanka - Hinduism
, this ch.). The
caste groups of the Tamils are also different from those of the
Sinhalese, and they have their rationale in religious ideologies
that the Sinhalese do not share. Religion and caste do, however,
create divisions within the Tamil community. Most of the Indian
Tamils are members of low Indian castes that are not respected by
the upper- and middle-level castes of the Sri Lankan Tamils
(see Sri Lanka - Caste
, this ch.). Furthermore, a minority of the Tamils--4.3
percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils and 7.6 percent of the Indian
Tamils--are converts to Christianity, with their own places of
worship and separate cultural lives. In this way, the large Tamil
minority in Sri Lanka is effectively separated from the
mainstream Sinhalese culture and is fragmented into two major
groups with their own Christian minorities.
Data as of October 1988
|
