Language as a one of Vital Root Causes of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The ethnic conflict within last three decades can be considered as a conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It is a conflict between majority; Sinhalese and minority; Tamils. More commonly it was known as the Tamil Tigers, the LTTE wants an independent state for the island’s Tamil minority.It made path to conduct a huge civil war. The civil war has killed nearly seventy thousand people with various kinds of crimes and vulnerabilities. It was defeated in 2009 as a war. Majority Sinhalese speak Sinhala language and Tamils speak Tamil language for their day-to-day life. . Tamils specially live in Northern Province before few decades. But now they spread all over the country. The passage of the Sinhala-Only Act of 1956 was introduced and it was a turning point and a key event in Sinhalese-Tamil relations. It made various causes and consequences.Sinhala and Tamil are the two official languages of Sri Lanka now. English is considering as international language and the second language. It is spoken by approximately 10% of the population including Burgers and elite groups and upper middle class people. On the other hand it is widely used for education, scientific and commercial purposes. The research problem is whether the language is a vital root cause of the ethnic conflict. “What are the main roots of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka?”, “What is the modern history of the ethnic conflict between Tamil people and Sinhalese?” and “What are the possible solutions to overcome language gap between these two ethnic groups?” are the research questions. Objectives: To identify the main roots of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and research currents solutions and its necessary changes. Methodology: The researcher has done a basic research; it is considered as a first stage of a descriptive analysis of an ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. In this first stage the researcher has done it using literature revive. These secondary data contained including government census data and previous research reports.There are internal and external sources in this issue. Especially south Indian support to Tamils and now a days it has European interference to conduct ethnic conflict too. There are main factors to arisen this as ethnic politics, education rights, language, land and other factors including employment. This ethnic problem has there dimensions as political view, international interference and armed intervention.There should be a balanced addressing for all elements including political, economic, social and cultural rights; when consider making ethnic relations in the country.