Abstract:
This paper provides a detailed account of the socio-political dynamics of the
campaign for Sinhala language purism in the 1930s and early 1940s, and re-evaluates the impact of the Hela (pure Sinhala) movement of Munidasa
Cumaratunga (1887–1944), a language loyalist and the foremost grammarian
of the twentieth century, for the renovation of Sinhala language. It explores
Cumaratunga’s discourse on linguistic purism, its ideological foundations, and
the means by which he organized his puristic intervention. As the case of
Cumaratunga indicates, his language purism was not undertaken for the mere
love of a language. The paper argues that Cumaratunga’s Hela language
movement was essentially a revolt against the dominant language practices and
ideologies of the colonial government, national political leadership, the pirivena
and the contemporary literary elite of the time. Ideologically, the Hela notion
was designed as an oppositional discourse to the dominant Indo-Aryan linguistic
discourse in the 1930s, and aimed to locate the Hela language at the apex of
colonial language hierarchy. Exploring Cumaratunga’s perceptions of language
this paper demonstrates linguistic purism as a type of language reform which
aimed at the formation of the ethno-linguistic uniqueness of the Sinhalese and
the politicization of the Sinhala language in the early 1940s.
∗ This is a revised version of a chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the
University of Cambridge in April 2009. I would like to acknowledge the constructive
criticism received from my supervisor, Dr Sujit Sivasundaram. I must also thank
Dr Sally Church for reading a draft of an earlier version of this paper and making
valuable corrections.
