Category Archives: evolution of languages(s)

Debating Australian Aboriginal Lifeways Past

Gillian Cowlishaw, at John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal 15 August 2023 where her title is “Misreading Dark Emu”** …with highlighting emphasis imposed by Thuppahi

 

Criticisms of the book Dark Emu and its author, Bruce Pascoe, continue to appear, and to become more puzzling. It is as if the overwhelming popularity of Pascoe and his message have disturbed comfortable convictions about Australian history shared across a wide segment of Australian society.

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The Force of Migrants in Australia Today: Figures & Insights

Bernard Salt in THE AUSTRALIAN,  30/31 July 2022  where the title reads “Celebrating Our Migration Nation”

It is a single demographic metric that encapsulates modern Australia. It is often the subject of heated debate. It rises and falls over time, but generally over the longer term it has kept an upward trajectory. It is the proportion of the locally based population born overseas. It includes immigrants but it also includes foreign students, backpackers and so-called guest workers based here for 12 months or more.

Asian migrant children tuck into vegemite sandwiches.

Australian Sudanese Peter Bol of Team Australia competes in the Men’s 800m Final on day nine of the World Athletics Championships in Oregon this month. Picture: Hannah Peters/Getty Images for World Athletic

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Buddhism among Tamils in the Past … and Present-Day Squabbles

PK Balachandran, in The Citizen, 8 August 2021, where the title is In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Link with Buddhism is Brushed Under the Carpet”

Unsustainable claims put forward by the Sinhalese and the Tamils on language, religion and ethnicity, have muddied Sri Lankan politics in the post-independence era. The Sinhalese loudly proclaim that Buddhism is quintessentially and exclusively, a “Sinhala” religion. The Tamils, on the other hand, claim with equal vehemence, that they have always been unalloyed Hindus, who had never ever had anything to do with Buddhism, which they identify with “Sinhala hegemony.”

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Romila Thapar’s ZOOM Lecture on The Museum in India

Professor ROMILA THAPAR to deliver the Dr. ROLAND SILVA MEMORIAL LECTURE for the National Trust on 27th January 2022 at 6.00 pm on Zoom….

yes  ZOOM

Prof. Romila Thapar  who is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. The notice of the Lecture is appended (or attached) and we welcome you all to participate.

Roland Silva

 

 

 

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Language of Governmentality: An Incisive Comparison

Chandre Dharmawardana, in a COMMENT directed at the moderate voice of Daya Wickramatunga in Thuppahi Commentary, 5 August 2020  …. here raised in status because of its salience and wisdom

Daya Wickrematunga is said quoted to say:  “Our Constitution should include that amendment. The 13th amendment that prescribed equal powers to the provinces, with equal status to the Sinhalese and Tamil languages, was aimed at that. It went to show that the ‘Sinhala Only’ policy of SWRD was wrong.”

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A Voyage into the National Archives via Experienced Hands Speaking on You Tube

ABSORB THIS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz6zMy9Hf1U&t=924s​

ජාතික ලේඛනාගාරයේ විකාශය හා වටිනාකම 22 June 2020

වර්ෂ 2017 දෙසැම්බර් මස ජාතික ලේඛනාගාරයේ වාචික ඉතිහාසය සුරැකීමේ වැඩසටහන යටතේ, පර්යේෂකයන් සහ ජාතික ලේඛනාරක්ෂක දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවේ විශ්‍රාමික නිලධාරීන් පිරිසකගේ අත්දැකීම්, පටිගත කරන ලදී. ඒ ඇසුරින් ජාතික ලේඛනාගාරයේ විකාශය සහ එහි වැදගත්කම, ලන්දේසි, බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය සහ නිදහසින් පසු කාල වකවානුවල රාජ්‍ය ලේඛන සහ වෙනත් ලේඛන එකතූන් එනම්, පුවත්පත් එකතූව හා ශ්‍රව්‍ය දෘශ්‍ය ලේඛන, අධිලේඛන පරිශීලනය කළ යුතු ආකාරය, අනාගතයේ දී නව තාක්ෂණය තුළින් ලේඛනාගාරය වෙනස් විය යුතු ආකාරය පිළිබඳ ඔබට ඉතා වැදගත් අදහස් ඇතුළත් සංක්ෂිප්ත වාර්තා වැඩසටහනක් ඉදිරිපත් කරන ලදී….. VIZ  = The Development and Worth of the Department of National Archives

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A Sino-Tibetan Folded Book from 1410 predates the Gutenberg Bible

Colin Marshall in Open Culture, 15 May 2020, where the title is  “Breathtakingly-Detailed Tibetan Book Printed 40 Years Before the Gutenberg Bible”

The Gutenberg Bible went to press in the year 1454. We now see it as the first piece of mass media, printed as it was with the then-cutting-edge technology of metal movable type. But in the history of aesthetic achievements in book-printing, the Gutenberg Bible wasn’t without its precedents. To find truly impressive examples requires looking in lands far from Europe: take, for instance, this “Sino-Tibetan concertina-folded book, printed in Beijing in 1410, containing Sanskrit dhāranīs and illustrations of protective mantra-diagrams and deities, woodblock-printed in bright red ink on heavy white paper,” whose “breathtakingly detailed printing” predates Gutenberg by 40 years.

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Knowledge in the Sinhala World. Yesterday and Today

Sajeeva Samaranayake presents his considered thoughts on the discussions associated with Geedreck Usvatte-Aratchi’s National Trust talk on “Sinhala Attitudes to Knowledge” – which appeared in the Island as well as Thuppahi in August 2017. Emphasis in blue is that of The Editor, Thuppahi; but the black highlights are the author’s.

In the following note I am setting out the findings of Dr. Usvatte Arachchi, my comments thereon and some questions that arise. This is to help move this discussion forward as it appears to be a very critical inquiry into our collective capacity as a Sinhalese speech community.

 Samaranayake    Usvatte-Aratchci

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Exploring Leslie Gunawardana’s Erroneous Pathways with KNO Dharmadasa — Part Two

Darshanie Ratnawalli, courtesy of  The Nation (print edition here) on Sunday, 08 March 2015. Here the title was “Revisiting the sins of – Leslie Gunawardana (Part 2)”

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Professor KNO Dharmadasa, the present Editor in Chief of the Sinhala Encyclopedia, goes down in history as mounting, up to this point, the only direct and authoritative academic challenge to Professor Leslie Gunawardana, an ancient period historian of Sri Lanka who became a darling of certain social anthropological circuits through his “The People of the Lion: The Sinhala Identity and Ideology in History and Historiography”– (1979) and “Historiography In a Time of Ethnic Conflict, Construction of the Past in Contemporary Sri Lanka”– (1995). This is the second instalment of Prof. K.N.O’s conversation with Darshanie Ratnawalli continued from 15 February, 2015.

DR– Here’s something serious. In page 14 of “Historiography in a Time of Ethnic Conflict” Professor Gunawardana implies not only that Prof. Paranavitana’s identification of the language of the Vallipuram inscription as Sinhala is wrong but that Paranavitana realized several decades later that it was wrong and instead of admitting to the error openly, tried to cover it up by quietly dropping that identification in his second edition of the Vallipuram inscription.

KNO– (Laughs aloud)

Senarath_Paranavitana -- en.wikipedia.org Senarat Paranavitana –Pic from en.wikipedia.org LESLIE Gunawardana-www.pdn.ac.lkeslie Gunawardana-www.pdn.ac.lk

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DNA from Tindale’s Hair Samples unlock Australian Aboriginal Puzzle

Carl Zimmer, courtesy of the New York Times, where the title runsHow Did Aboriginal Australians Arrive on the Continent? DNA Helps Solve a Mystery”

Human skeletons and archaeological remains in Australia can be traced back nearly 50,000 years before the trail disappears. Before then, apparently, Australia was free of humans. So how did people get there, and when? Where did humans first arrive on the continent, and how did they spread across the entire landmass?

Answers to some of these questions are stored in the DNA of Aboriginal Australians. A genetic study of 111 Aboriginal Australians, published on Wednesday, offers an interesting — and, in some respects, unexpected — view of their remarkable story.

A study found that all living Aboriginal Australians descend from a single founding population that arrived about 50,000 years ago… Pic fr. PC Poulsen/Hulton Archive/Getty

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