Linguistics & Literature The Sri Lankan folktale

Language in Society

Prof. R. Hickey

SS 2006

By Sandarenu Kumarasamy

Hauptstudium LN

Introduction

➢The use/utility of language in the written and oral literatures of the world, could be generally termed as the spectrum of literary-lingustics.

➢This presentation will however concentrate on the use of lanugage in verbal art folktales.

➢By comparing and contrasting characteristics of folktales in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) narrated in two South Asian languages: Tamil and Sinhala.

Functions of verbal art:

● Entertainment

●The display of skill

●Praise of a patron, or censure of an enemy

●The promotion of cultural values and morality

●The expression of mutual experiences

●Recording of historical events, or laws, or tenets of religion

●Communication with supernatural beings

●The control of the physcial world by magical means

●Healing

●Performing customs etc.Folklore

Chief chracteristics of the folklore genre

Handed down from generation to generation

Universal and timeless

No identifiable author: anonymous

Storytelling

Originally, storytelling was a community event and one of the few forms of entertainment in society.

Bards, minstrels, and raconteurs have revelled in telling epic poems, stories and songs ( with the use of rhyme, metre, repetition: parallelism).

A narrative genre: types of folktales

Folktales Fables Myths Legend

F o l k t a l e s h a v e e v o l v e d g r a d u a l l y F r e q u e n t l y w i t h d i ff e r e n t v e r s i o n s , w i t h e a c h n e w t e l l e r s a d a p t a t i o n s a n d

n u a n c e s B e c o m e s a c u m u l a t i v e , c o n s t a n t , a n d n o t i n d i v i d u a l b u t a c o l l e c t i v e

fi c t i o n a l w o r k

The umbrella thief

Cumulative tales: sequentially repeated actions, characters, or speech until a climax is reached

Humorous tales: allow people to laugh at themselves and at others Beast tales: show cleverness of one animal and stupidity of another Magic and wonder tales: contain some element of magic Pourquoi tales: explain why an animal has certain characteristics or why people

have certain customs Realistic tales: have realistic plots and involve people who could have really

existed

Characteristics of a good folktale:

A single, clearly defined theme

Well-developed plot

Style – sounds, rhythms, vivid word imagery

Dramatic appeal

Characterization

Faithfulness to the source

Appropriate for the audience

Characteristics of a good folktale: ●A single, clearly defined theme●Well-developed plot●Style – sounds, rhythms, vivid word imagery●Dramatic appeal●Characterization●Appropriate for the audience

The Trickster

The world of folktales

Grimm tales

The beautiful Wassilissa

The Gingseng princess

The Spider stories

Nasruddin tales

Thenali-Raman stories

Tamil: Dravidian

Sinhalese: Indo-Aryan

Sri Lanka: native linguistic diversity

Basic linguistic features:

Both native languages is written in an alpha-syllabic system similar to that of other South Asian languages

Word order in a sentence is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV)

Words are made up of lexical roots, or stems (roots that have been expanded by a derivational suffix), followed by inflectional suffix(es) which mark such categories as case,person, number, mood, tense, etc.

Two synthetic languages

Word loans:

in to Tamil in to Tamil from Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and English

in to Sinhalesein to Sinhalese also fron Sanskrit, Tamil, Dutch portugese and English

The social componant of the traditional native folktale

Agriculturally based feudal relations

(occupational methods and social customs)

Dominant religious teachings and practices ( Buddhism and Hinduism

Universal human nature,

behaviour and emotions

One of the most observant characteristic of the native tales is the very explicit moral perspective, which is shaped and highlighted by the story tellers own point of view.

Wit, intelligence, genorisity, faithfullness etc. is rewarded.

-cf. Stuart Blackburn, Moral fictions[2001]

Folktales are therefore also social statements, which register the moral concerns which are shaped and influenced by the socio-economic setting of the narrative community.

A taste of local folktales:

The crow and the fox- Tamil tale (kathei)

Seven lives- Sinhala tale (kataava)

●in+Neraluwa Kusalhami peasent+a rich+man+is.

‘The peasent Kusalhami in Neraluwa is a rich man.‘ ●aggrebla land+five acres+and paddy land+five acres+and amount of property he [Dative] had.

‘He had five acres of aggreble land and paddy land.‘

Seven lives

Ago+one+time one old+aged woman a+Bo Tree under sitting

one+Vadei frying+was.

‘Once upon a time an old woman was sitting under a Bo tree frying a Vadei ( a fried snack)’.

A common linguistic feature:

emphasizing participants word order in Sinhala and Tamil narratives

In both languages, the verb is typically final in the clause.

However, in Sinhala narratives, newly mentioned concepts tend to appear iimediately before the verb.

But particularly important concepts tend to appear immediately after the verb, at the end of the clause.

Subject ObjectVerb SVO

It is possible that that the placement of the noun phrase (NP) after the verb draws attention because it is in an unexpected position.

A similar distinction between a preverbal postion and a clause-final position can be seen also in Tamil narratives. Here however, instead of placing the phrase after the verb, the verb is omitted so that the phrase becomes final by default.

cf. Nigel Fabb, Linguistics and Literature [1997]

Letter pleasure

Framing devices etc.

●Alternative tale ending to “…lived happily ever after

The frequent inclusion of a question tag at the end of the tale, common also to Indian and African folktales.●The intermingling of other genres of folklore-riddles, dialoges, puzzles, proverbs and even songs.●Unlike European counterparts fantasay elements are scantly used and if, often insignificant to the general plot.

Sources: ●Ranatunga, M. Folk Tales of Sri Lanka.Macmillan Education, 1990

●Blackburn, S. FF Communications CXXVIII, No. 278. Helsinki: Suomalainen

Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2001. ●Fabb, N. Linguistics and literature: language in the verbal arts of the world. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.

Foley, William A. Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997