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History of the Sri Lankan Malays UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) A grammar of Upcountry Sri Lanka Malay Nordhoff, S. Publication date 2009 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Nordhoff, S. (2009). A grammar of Upcountry Sri Lanka Malay. LOT. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:02 Oct 2021 Chapter 2 History of the Sri Lankan Malays Sri Lanka Malay is a contact language. The socio-cultural setting is very important for analyses of language contact (Weinreich 1953, Thomason & Kaufman 1988). This chapter shall present the different periods of contact between Malays and Lankans and analyze the socio-historical setting in each period. The first significant number of Malays arrived in Ceylon in the 17th century. How- ever, the contact between the islands of Ceylon and the South East Asian Archipelago (SEAA) predates this by many centuries. We can divide the history of contact between the Malays and the Lankans drawing on the following major historical events: • The first Malays brought to Ceylon by the Dutch (~1640) • The ousting of the Dutch by the British and the creation of a Malay regiment (~1796) • The disbandment of said regiment (1873) • independence of Ceylon from the United Kingdom (1948) Five periods can thus be distinguished: a pre-Dutch period (-1640, Section 2.1 p.8), the Dutch period (1640-1796, Section 2.2 p.9), the period of the Regiment under the British (1796-1873, Section 2.3 p.15)1, the post-regimental history and the post- colonial history (1873-today, Section 2.4 p.22). I will briefly sketch major events during each period before discussing demo- graphic and sociological developments that accompanied them. Domains which en- compass more than one period are the cultural history (Section 2.5 p.33), the Malay settlements in Sri Lanka 2.6 (p.35), and the relation to the other Islamic group, the 1Technically speaking, the regiment was founded some years later than 1796. 7 8 CHAPTER 2. HISTORY OF THE SRI LANKAN MALAYS ‘Moors’ (Section 2.7 p.40), The development of the language will be discussed in Section 2.8, p.47. 2.1 Before the arrival of the Dutch 2.1.1 Political history The first known people to settle in Ceylon were the Veddah, who live today only in remote pockets of jungle in the central highlands. It can surely be affirmed that the Veddah have not had any linguistic relation on the present day SLM because they were already pushed back into the jungles by the time the Malays entered Lanka. The Veddah could not withstand the arrival of the populations from the Indian mainland about 500 BC (Gair & Paolillo 1997:1) that announces a second phase of settlement, resulting in the present cultures of Sinhalese and Ceylon Tamils.2 From the 7th century AD onwards, Arab traders settled down in India (Codrington 1926:51). The Arab traders in India became acquainted with local tongues. Some of their Tamil-speaking descendants moved to Ceylon from the seventh (Nuhman 2007:32), eighth (Hussein 2007:21) or tenth (De Silva 1981:72) century onwards. They are the ancestors of most of today’s Tamil speaking Muslims in Lanka. While we have evidence of cultural Lankan influence in the SEAA from the first millennium AD (Dupont 1959, De Casparis 1961), the earliest source of Malay culture in Sri Ceylon dates from a later period. It is found in old Sinhala literature from the periods of Polonnaruwa and the Dambadeniya (together 1098-1293) which contains words of Malay etymology. More recent literature from the 15th century states that the SEAA was renowned for spices, perfumes and other commodities (De Silva Jaya- suriya 2002:11). While this testifies to some sort of contact between Ceylon and the SEAA, the impact seems to have been rather minor and restricted to some loanwords (Gunasekara 1891, Sannasgala 1976). Cultural elements that would point to a more intimate contact could be outrigger canoes (Tennent 1859). The peaceful exchange of goods and religion found an end in 1247, when Malay forces from the peninsula made an attempt to invade Sri Lanka (De Silva 1981:67). ChandrabhanuofT¯ ambralinga¯ attacked the Polonnaruwa kingdom in Central Sri Lan- ka. He was defeated and withdrew to the Jaffna peninsula, where he succeeded in securing the throne for himself. Later, he tried a second invasion of Polonnaruwa, which failed and cost him his life, ending the short Malay intermezzo on the island. Today’s place names Caavakacceeri (Javaka-settlement) and Caavakotte (Javaka Fort) witness this invasion.3 Even if this invasion had a period of Malay rulership as a consequence, there is no link to the present day Malay communities (cf. Adelaar & 2While for the Indo-Aryans, who were to become the Sinhalese later, 500 BC seems a reasonable esti- mation, for the Dravidians “there is not firm evidence as to when [they] first came to the island, but come they did from very early times.” (De Silva 1981:12). 3Java is taken as a generic term for the SEAA in Ceylon (Hussainmiya 1987:37). 2.2. DUTCH RULE 9 Prentice 1996:685). An invasion that should have a much bigger impact on Lankan society was threatening from another continent: the Portuguese. Driven by the desire for the lucrative spice trade, the Portuguese sent out expedi- tions to secure a base in the SEAA. In 1511 the Portuguese gained hold of Malacca on the Malaysian peninsula. By that time, Islam had made considerable inroads in SEAA and largely replaced Buddhism as the predominant religion. On their way from the Cape to the SEAA, Ceylon was a good base for the Portuguese, and in 1518 they es- tablished a fort in Colombo. Within the following decades, they gained control of the coast but could not penetrate the central highlands, where the Kandyan king would withstand European conquest until the 19th century. A major interest of the Portuguese was to spread Christian faith. They kept other religions in very low regard, especially Islam, and brought about the expulsion of Mus- lims from the Ko¯tte kingdom(De Silva 1981:102). Hussainmiya (1990:34f) therefore questions whether˙˙ the Portuguese would have brought (predominantly Muslim) sol- diers from the SEAA to fight for them. Bichsel-Stettler (1989:6f.) agrees that there is no historical evidence for a sizeable Malay community in Sri Lanka and doubts that the Portuguese would have tolerated the spread of Malays in Sri Lanka. How- ever, Powell (1973:26) mentions that some Javas and Kaffirs (Africans) fought for the Sinhalese king Raju in 1587 and states that they had deserted from the Portuguese, indicating that some Malays were already found in the Portuguese forces. 2.1.2 Demographic history The study of Malay demography before the arrival of the Dutch is hampered by the paucity of subjects to study. There was no important settlement of Malays in Ceylon before the arrival of the Dutch. Chandrabhanu’s¯ invasion did not last long enough to give birth to a Malay community in Ceylon. If any Malays were left behind after the invasion, they would have merged in their coreligionist community of Sinhalese Buddhists. The Malays brought by the Portuguese do not seem to have been very numerous, and we do not have any information whatsoever about where they had come from or what languages they might have spoken. These Malays are, however, the first to desert to the Kandyan King and may have had a certain influence on the Malay community in Kandy. 2.2 Dutch rule The Dutch had gained considerable power and prosperity in the 17th century and pro- jected their power to the Indian Ocean. By 1658, they had managed to oust the Por- tuguese from Ceylon with the help from the Kandyan King. The latter, however, had to find out that his “allies” had come to stay and that he had bartered Portuguese oc- cupation of the coastline for Dutch occupation of the coastline (De Silva 1981:133). 10 CHAPTER 2. HISTORY OF THE SRI LANKAN MALAYS 2.2.1 Political history Like the Portuguese before them, the Dutch had taken hold in the SEAA before trying to get hold of Ceylon. In their possession in the SEAA, they had met peoples with ex- cellent soldiers, who the Dutch recruited into their service. These troops were already fighting on the Dutch side during the war with the Portuguese (Hussainmiya 1990:44). Later, they formed an important part of the Dutch military presence in Ceylon. There were garrisons in the main coastal towns of Colombo, Galle, Chilaw and Trincomalee. The Eastern troops had several advantages over European troops: First, they were used to tropical climate and fights in the jungle (Hussainmiya 1990:46) and, second, they were not likely to side with the Sinhalese or Tamils in any future rebellion given the cultural and religious differences.
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