What is it about?
A look at three factors which impact on the maintenance of heritage languages for Sri Lankan migrants in Australia. The factors are: 1. one's experience of English in the homeland 2. one's political and nationalist affiliations 3. one's level of religious devoutness
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Why is it important?
This articles compares the language maintenance experiences of Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Tamil migrants. It focuses on factors which originate in the homeland rather than in the host country (that is, Australia). This includes a look at the role of Sri Lankan language policy in the civil war. This study is one of only a few sociolinguistic maintenance studies of languages from South Asia that exist in Australia.
Perspectives
This article is the result of my Master research project and would be useful to anyone interested in the sociopolitical conditions for the Tamil and Sinhala languages in Sri Lanka.
Dr Niru Perera
Australian National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The maintenance of Sri Lankan languages in Australia – comparing the experience of the Sinhalese and Tamils in the homeland, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, June 2014, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2014.921185.
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