The Difficulties Related to Cases Encountered by Sinhalese Native Speakers in Learning Tamil as a Second Language

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.