Abstract:
The Sinhalese language which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and
the Tamil language which belongs to the Dravidian language family have been
co-existing and interacting in different social situations and contexts for a long
time. As pointed out by linguists, a large number of differences as well as
similarities can be seen between the two languages. The purpose of this study is
to comprehensively analyse the differences in cases between the two languages.
Primary data were collected through self-observation and analysing a given set
of sentences translated from Sinhalese into Tamil by students reading translation
studies at the University of Kelaniya. The books 'Pe:chchuth Thamilukku
Arimuham' and 'Pe:chhuth Thamilum Eluththuth Thamilum' by S. J. Yogaraja
and online lessons were used as secondary resources. A case is a form of a noun,
adjective or pronoun that expresses a semantic relation of a word to the other
words in a sentence. In this study it was observed that the Sinhalese speakers
who do not have clear knowledge on the case inflection of the Tamil language
find it difficult to write or speak fluently in Tami!. On the other hand, since one
case suffix in Tamil represents several suffixes of Sinhalese, various problems
occur in translation. Therefore, the failure to identify the differences in cases can
result in defective translations. According to above findings, a number of
dissimilarities regarding cases can be identified between both languages. Further,
it is noteworthy that they cause difficulties in learning Tamil as a second
language and translation.
