Abstract:
Many Sinhalese native speakers learn Tamil as a second language. However
speakers of Sinhalese language often make mistakes while learning Tamil. The
aim of the research is to bring into discussion the problem faced by Sinhalese
native speaker in learning Tamil in relation to the differences in cases. Case is
special grammatical category whose value reflect the grammatical functions
performed by noun or pronoun in a phrase, clause or sentence. Data were
collected by analysing Tamil-Sinhalese translation carried out by second year
students of university of Kelaniya reading translation. Further Tamil Grammar
books were used as in order to gather further data. Speakers of Sinhalese
language often make mistakes while learning Tamil especially on Dative marker,
Referential ease marker, instrumental case marker and Sociative case marker etc.
The Dative case marker is "ukku", in spoken Tamil where as in in Sinhalese it is
"ta". The Referential ease marker is "ittei", in spoken Tamil where as in in
Sinhalese it is "laga, gen". The Sociative case marker is "oodei", in spoken Tarnil
where as in in Sinhalese it is "ekka". The instrumental case marker is "aalei", in
spoken Tamil where as in in Sinhalese it is "gen, ta". Those cases are not
corresponding in Tamil and Sinhalese languages. Therefore it will be difficult to
learn Tamil as a second language. To overcome this problem it will explain the
similarities and the differences between these two languages. Native speakers
don't have profound knowledge about case inflexion fail to speak the language
fluently. Therefore cases should be inquired and improving knowledge thorough
this. It is observed that it would help to understand the difficulties that Sinhalese
students face while forming a Tamil sentence.
