Opposition (15)
110-763: The Eastern Provincial Council ( EPC Tamil : கிழக்கு மாகாண சபை Kiḻakku Mākāṇa Capai ; Sinhala : නැගෙනහිර පළාත් සභාව “Nagenahira Palat Sabava”; EPC) is the provincial council for the Eastern Province in Sri Lanka . In accordance with the Sri Lankan constitution , EPC has legislative power over a variety of matters including agriculture, education, health, housing, local government, planning, road transport and social services. The constitution also gives it powers over police and land but successive central governments have refused to devolve these powers to
220-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
330-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
440-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
550-530: A coalition with UNP to support Sarath Fonseka , the former army chief, in the 2010 presidential elections, but he was defeated by the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa. After this, the UNP left the coalition and the JVP contested the general elections along with Sarath Fonseka's factions under the banner of Democratic National Alliance. The alliance won 7 seats, of which 4 were won by JVP candidates. The party had 39 seats before
660-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of
770-772: A long campaign against the merger, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna filed three separate petitions with the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka requesting a separate Provincial Council for the East. On 16 October 2006 the Supreme Court ruled that the proclamations issued by President Jayewardene were null and void and had no legal effect. The North Eastern Province was formally de-merged into the Eastern and Northern provinces on 1 January 2007. The Eastern province
880-460: A major crisis for the government and forced a fundamental reassessment of the nation's security needs. In March 1971, after an accidental explosion in one of the bomb factories, the police found fifty-eight bombs in a hut in Nelundeniya, Kegalle District . Shortly afterward, Wijeweera was arrested and sent to Jaffna Prison, where he remained throughout the revolt. In response to his arrest and
990-552: A meaningful effort to educate the masses on Marxism. Workers accepted the words mouthed by the leaders of the "old left" as the final word. He also believed that the leadership of the "old left", aware of this aspect, utilised it to the fullest to blunt workers' militancy. Wijeweera and others decided in mid-1965 to launch a new party that was explicitly revolutionary in character; it was formed without breaking off from other established parties. The cadres engaged themselves in political activities that consisted mainly of trying to increase
1100-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
1210-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
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#17327825185551320-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
1430-600: A prolonged conflict, Bandaranaike offered amnesties in May and June 1971, and the top leaders were imprisoned. Wijeweera, who was already in detention at the time of the uprising, was given a twenty-year sentence. The Indian intervention through the Indo-Sri Lanka accord and the plan to divide the island led to the 1987–1989 revolt. The JVP exploited the arrival of the Indian Peace-keeping Force and
1540-578: A referendum was held in the Eastern Province on a permanent merger between the two provinces. However, the referendum was never held and successive Sri Lankan presidents issued proclamations annually extending the life of the "temporary" entity. The merger was bitterly opposed by Sri Lankan nationalists. The combined North Eastern Province occupied one third of Sri Lanka. The thought of the rebel Tamil Tigers controlling this province, directly or indirectly, alarmed them greatly. On 14 July 2006, after
1650-492: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Former parties Former parties Former parties The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna ( JVP ; lit. ' People's Liberation Front ' , PLF )
1760-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
1870-516: A solution to the ethnic conflict. The Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP), CPSL, and the nationalistic SLFP boycotted the elections, but as the JVP contested, it won a couple of seats in the council's elections. Around this time, the Election Commission of Sri Lanka formally recognised the JVP as a legitimate political party. In 1978, the UNP introduced commissions to charge UF members for ignoring or violating human rights in events such as
1980-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
2090-463: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
2200-766: A visit to Sri Lanka in 1964, he was not permitted to return to the USSR: his student activism in favour of Maoism while in Moscow displeased the Russians. The Chinese faction was led by Premalal Kumarasiri. Through his father's political activities, Wijeweera contacted Kumarasiri and joined the party's staff and became part of the trade union office. Wijeweera increasingly felt that the Left movement (generally referred to in Sri Lanka as "old left") that existed until then had not produced enough professional revolutionaries and had never made
2310-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
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#17327825185552420-455: Is a leftist political party in Sri Lanka . The party was formerly a revolutionary movement and was involved in two armed uprisings against the government of Sri Lanka : once in 1971 ( SLFP ), and another in 1987–1989 ( UNP ). The motive for both uprisings was to establish a socialist state . Since then the JVP has entered mainstream democratic politics and has updated its ideology, abandoning some of its original Marxist policies such as
2530-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
2640-457: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,
2750-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
2860-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that
2970-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
3080-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
3190-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
3300-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
3410-592: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate
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3520-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
3630-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
3740-579: The 1982 presidential elections and was the third most successful candidate, winning 4.16% of the votes cast. Before the elections, he had been convicted by the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) for conspiring to overthrow the state violently. The JVP launched a more organized insurrection for the second time in 1987 after the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord . Following Operation Combine and Wijeweera's death,
3850-797: The Indonesian Communist Party . It complained that the Ceylonese government would try to militarily defeat the group if it stopped arming itself. The government banned the JVP following an attack on the United States high commission in Ceylon. The government blamed the protests that led to the attack on the JVP members, but it was revealed that the attack was conducted by a Maoist organisation. The brief conflict created turmoil in Sri Lanka's national politics and its international relations. Many countries were blamed for supporting
3960-713: The Jaffna prison, SLAF Ekala and the Wellawaya town in 1971. Later in the 80s, JVP with the assistance of several other militant organisations trained the Patriotic People's Armed Forces . PPAF carried out more well planned attacks such as the attack on the Pallekele detachment . The military section of the JVP in the late 80s were led by the DJV leader Keerthi Vijayabahu . Despite the lack of training they received,
4070-544: The National Liberation Front of Yemen, and the Korean Workers' Party (KWP). In the early 1970s, North Korea backed the JVP by supplying training. As a result, diplomatic connections between Sri Lanka and North Korea were cut off and were not re-established. 18 North Koreans were expelled from the island, but it did not stop their support of the JVP, and Indian patrol boats deployed around
4180-465: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name
4290-911: The Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow , where he read the works of Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , and Lenin , and became a committed Marxist. By this time, the United Socialist Party (USP) was divided into two factions: the Chinese faction and the Soviet faction. Wijeweera broke away from the CPC which was aligned with the USSR and joined the Ceylon Communist Party (Maoist). After
4400-534: The Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil
4510-614: The United National Front . The organisation believes in democracy-based political lines rather than insurrectionist lines it appreciated since its conception. The JVP formed the National People's Power in 2015, which consists of various leftist groups. JVP was not recognised as a political party until its first uprising. The party rejected being a democratic party following the military coup in Indonesia against
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4620-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
4730-597: The parliament , winning a supermajority . It was second-highest proportion of seats in the nation's history and the NPP succeeded in winning every district except Batticaloa . The JVP was founded in 1965 to provide a leading force for a communist revolution in Sri Lanka . In 1965, there were four other leftist political parties in Sri Lanka: the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), established in 1935 as
4840-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
4950-717: The 1970s were limited to the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Iraq (ASBPI). Wijeweera and Shantha Bandara visited Iraq multiple times in order to meet the members of the ASBPI. Bandara successfully formed the Inter-University Students' Federation to work as a liaison point between the two parties. When the Iran–Iraq War began, a few members of the JVP protested in front of the Iranian embassy. During
5060-537: The 1978 elections, the organisation's reputation among revolutionaries decreased; however, the public began to recognise it, and it quickly gained members. In 1982 the JVP participated in the District Development Council (DDC) elections and the presidential elections; it was the only radical party that contested the DDC elections in 1982. The UNP had introduced the District Development Council as
5170-641: The Constitution of Sri Lanka and the Provincial Councils Act No 42 of 1987. On 3 February 1988 nine provincial councils were created by order. The first elections for provincial councils took place on 28 April 1988 in North Central , North Western , Sabaragamuwa , and Uva provinces. On 2 June 1988 elections were held for provincial councils for Central , Southern and Western provinces. The Indo-Lanka Accord also required
5280-740: The Eastern and Northern provinces to be one administrative unit administered by one elected council, creating the North Eastern Province . Elections in the newly merged North Eastern Province were held on 19 November 1988. The Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front , an Indian backed paramilitary group , won control of the North Eastern provincial council. On 1 March 1990, just as the Indian Peace Keeping Force were preparing to withdraw from Sri Lanka, Annamalai Varatharajah Perumal, Chief Minister of
5390-427: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
5500-420: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
5610-509: The JVP believed the Sri Lankan government was seeking assistance from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). After multiple arguments, the JVP and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU; Sinhala National Heritage) protested against the peace involvement from Norway . Subsequently, Tamil journalist Dharman Sivaram was assassinated. The Therraputtabaya Brigade , unknown before, issued death threats to multiple other journalists, which included former JVP member Victor Ivan . In 2005, Mahinda Rajapaksa
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#17327825185555720-409: The JVP established itself as a political party and offered an alternative to those disillusioned with the politics of the other left organizations. Most of the members and supporters of the JVP at the time were young adults. Alarmed at the JVP's political potential and challenge, the government and its leftist allies levelled a variety of slander against it. Many representatives of the "old left" called
5830-463: The JVP members " CIA agents attempting to overthrow the pro-Eastern bloc party". JVP built cells in multiple countries, including South Yemen , Belgium , the UK , and Ba'athist Iraq ; South Yemen also promised to hold some weapon supplies; although the manufacturer later said that there was no possible way to supply weapons, the government congratulated the organisation with a letter that read "Revolutionary Greetings". The 1971 uprising led by
5940-442: The JVP militants were armed with shotguns, wore blue colored uniforms with boots and helmets, carried hatchets, and ammunition. The primary source of funding were bank robberies. During its second insurgency, they were armed with stolen weapons such as AK 47 , T 56 , and .303 British rifles. The JVP has been internationally affiliated to multiple organisations, some of which were the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
6050-453: The JVP returned to elections as the National Salvation Front . The surviving JVP members campaigned in the 1994 elections , but eventually withdrew and supported the nationalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party , the main opposition party at the time. In 2004, it joined the government as a part of the United People's Freedom Alliance and supported the government in its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but subsequently left
6160-430: The JVP was unsuccessful and allegedly claimed nearly 5,000 lives. The JVP drew worldwide attention when it launched an insurrection against the Bandaranaike government in April 1971. Although the insurgents were young, poorly armed, and inadequately trained, they seized and held major areas in the southern and central provinces of Sri Lanka before they were defeated by the security forces. Their attempt to seize power created
6270-404: The JVP's electoral effort was at the legislative elections held on 2 April 2004. The party was part of the United People's Freedom Alliance that won 45.6% of the popular vote and 105 out of the 225 seats in Parliament . As the second-largest party of this coalition, it became part of the government with 39 Members of Parliament and three cabinet portfolios. Shortly after the 2004 tsunami ,
6380-403: The JVP, including the People's Republic of China (China) and North Korea; China denied supporting the party. As a result of the struggle, the UF government denounced the JVP in April 1971, and it became an underground organisation, though it participated in the 1978 local government elections. It refrained from attacking the government as the UF government was already facing persecution. After
6490-407: The North Eastern Province, moved a motion in the North Eastern Provincial Council declaring an independent Eelam . President Premadasa reacted to Permual's UDI by dissolving the provincial council and imposing direct rule on the province. The proclamations issued by President Jayewardene in September 1988 merging the Northern and Eastern provinces were only meant to be a temporary measure until
6600-412: The Rajapaksha agreement with the JVP ensured his victory. The party experienced an internal conflict between the two factions of Wimal Weerawansa and the party leadership in April 2008. The party decided to suspend Weerawansa's on 21 March 2008. Media reports said that Weerawansa had an argument with the leadership based on the disarmament of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal political party, which
6710-552: The Soviet Union for the parties that visited the meeting upon Soviet invitation. The JVP's ideology has occasionally changed depending on its leadership or other national and political issues within Sri Lanka or any other influential group. The JVP's initial mixed ideology was shaped by its origin from Maoism and exposure to other forms of Marxism, such as drawing on Maoist emphasis on the rural peasantry, Guevarist views on armed insurrection, and some Trotskyist criticisms of Stalinism while maintaining an anti-revisionist line. In
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#17327825185556820-535: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)
6930-463: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
7040-421: The UK and US' attention, claiming that the parties were involved in the Black July riots that killed thousands of Tamils . The proscription on the CPSL was lifted due to its Tamil representation, but the JVP continued to be banned. After JVP leadership was eliminated by state repression during the Premadasa government, it was resurrected as a political party joining the mainstream led by Somawansa Amerasinghe –
7150-420: The UNP Kotte leaders of the conspiracy against the JVP. Weerawansa's group then formed a new political party called the Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP). Party activities began on 14 May 2008, the anniversary of the day Wijeweera had formed the JVP in 1965 and of the day the LTTE killed 146 pilgrims during the Anuradhapura massacre at the Sri Maha Bodhi in 1985. The party leaders said that the new political party
7260-405: The abolition of private property, and moderating its rhetoric. The JVP has been led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake since 2014. The JVP was initially a small organisation that became a well-organised party that could influence mainstream politics. Its members openly campaigned for the left-wing coalition government of the SLFP-led United Front ; however, following their disillusion with
7370-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
7480-415: The beginning, it had schisms from internal ideological conflicts. The first five lectures of the JVP based on class and social struggle were about the "failures" of the old left and the "path" for a new left. Wijeweera, who held anti-Indian sentiments, gave lectures against Indian irredentism . The rest of the lectures are based on economy and unemployment. In 1983, the JVP's ideology was modified, as
7590-420: The coalition government. Since 2019, the JVP has contested elections under its own national coalition, the National People's Power (NPP) and has since been a prominent party in Sri Lankan politics . In the 2024 presidential election , JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected President of Sri Lanka . In the 2024 Sri Lankan parliamentary elections, the JVP led NPP alliance won with 159 seats in
7700-407: The coalition, they began an insurrection against the Dominion of Ceylon in early 1971, which intensified following the ban on the party. The JVP's military wing, the Red Guard , captured over 76 police strongholds throughout the island of Ceylon. The JVP entered democratic politics in 1977 when President J. R. Jayewardene released JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera from prison. Wijeweera contested in
7810-489: The country for eight years each, and the country's economic outlook worsened. According to the JVP's founders, neither party had been able to implement even a single measure to resolve the crisis. The JVP considered the entry of three leftist parties into the United Front in 1964 as a conscious betrayal of the aspirations of the people and the working class. Inflation , unemployment , and food prices increased despite government efforts to prevent it. Rohana Wijeweera's father
7920-689: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,
8030-526: The death toll exceeded 60,000. In addition, many people took advantage of the chaos to instigate deadly local feuds. What is certain is the methods of death, including necklacing , victims eviscerated and left to die, and even the occasion of eighteen heads arranged around the Alwis pond at the University of Peradeniya , which occurred the day after T.E. Nagahawatte, the Assistant Registrar of
8140-952: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
8250-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from
8360-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
8470-831: The first political party in Sri Lanka; the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL), which broke away from the LSSP and formed their own party in 1943 due to differences of opinion on supporting Britain during the 2nd World War ; the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP); and the Peking Left . Since the country's independence, the two main parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), governed
8580-542: The growing pressure of police investigations, other JVP leaders acted immediately, and started the uprising at 11:00 p.m. on 5 April. After two weeks of fighting, the government regained control of all but a few remote areas. In both human and political terms, the cost of the victory was high: an estimated 30,000 insurgents, according to the JVP, many of them in their teens, died in the conflict. The army and police were also widely perceived to have used excessive force. In order to win over an alienated population and to prevent
8690-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
8800-574: The humiliation, rape, and murder of Premawathie Manamperi . The UNP called JVP members to give evidence against the UF; the UF criticised the procedure, calling it capitalist. Afterwards, the UF members lost their civil ownership, and were not allowed to participate in the 1978 elections. As a result, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) came to become the opposition, which the JVP tried to remove. In 1982, Wijeweera contested
8910-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
9020-546: The island were attacked by North Korean gunboats that raided the territory. Prior to expulsion, the North Koreans spent 14,000 dollars supporting the movement with propaganda. They also supplied militant equipment and instructions on making explosives and conducting guerrilla warfare. In 2017, the Sri Lankan government imposed UN sanctions on North Korea. The leader of the JVP, Anura Kumara Dissanayake , criticised
9130-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
9240-405: The merger of the Eastern and Northern provinces into one administrative unit . The accord required a referendum to be held by 31 December 1988 in the Eastern Province to decide whether the merger should be permanent. Crucially, the accord allowed the Sri Lankan president to postpone the referendum at his discretion. On September 2 and 8 1988 President Jayewardene issued proclamations enabling
9350-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this
9460-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
9570-480: The only surviving member of the decimated JVP politburo. However, the JVP had an internal conflict: JVP supported Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunga's election campaign after withdrawing their candidate. The JVP contested the presidential elections in 1999 and their candidate Nandana Gunatilleke received 4.08% of the vote. The JVP was contested by the National Salvation Front. The high point of
9680-572: The party foresaw the consequence of inaction against Indian intelligence agencies (particularly the Research and Analysis Wing ) infiltrating the national patronage. By this time it developed its own ideology named Jathika Chintanaya ( transl. "national ideology" ). Somawansa Amarasinghe , who subsequently became the leader, modified the JVP from the roots and re-socialised with other democratic groups. It refused to be affiliated nationally, but later joined some left-right alliances such as
9790-412: The political awareness of the working class. Wijeweera felt that one of the more important tasks was to educate the masses politically. After deliberating on the issue, it was decided that an uncomplicated Marxist analysis of the socio-politico-economic problems of the country should be the introductory step. The Marxist analysis was split into five discussions along with five main themes. Throughout
9900-399: The presidential elections. The party expected to win more than 500,000 votes but won only 275,000. Although it received more votes than Colvin R. de Silva , the party was disappointed by the results. The government banned the party again, and JVP membership dropped as people began to doubt its electoral viability. After the ethnic riots, the government denounced the JVP, CPSL, and NSSP to get
10010-473: The procedure, claiming North Korea is socialist and that Sri Lanka should support it. In 1970 a North Korean trade office in Colombo became an embassy and started its work the same year. While in Sri Lanka, North Korean diplomats cultivated links to the JVP, and the nation helped the group directly through the office. Wijeweera visited North Korea prior to the establishment of the JVP. The JVP sectors before
10120-622: The provinces. EPC has 37 members elected using the open list proportional representation system . In an attempt to end the Sri Lankan Civil War the Indo-Lanka Accord was signed on 29 July 1987. One of the requirements of the accord was that the Sri Lankan government should devolve powers to the provinces . Accordingly on 14 November 1987 the Sri Lankan Parliament passed the 13th Amendment to
10230-405: The remaining JVP politburo and detained an estimated 7,000 suspected JVP members. Although the government won a decisive military victory, there were credible accusations of brutality and extrajudicial methods. The number of deaths during the insurgency is uncertain, as the government was also fighting Tamil insurgent groups at the time. Multiple official and unofficial forces and reports confirm that
10340-412: The rest of 1968, Wijeweera traveled across the country, conducting political classes for the members of the party. An education camp followed the five basic political classes. Precautions had to be taken to keep this educational camp a secret to avoid alarming the government and the "old left". All conducted by Wijeweera, the classes stretched from 17 to 18 hours a day, interrupted only by meals. By 1971,
10450-676: The second JVP insurgency, the JVP received money from Iraq to fund the Patriotic People's Movement. The Soviet Union began to recognise the JVP in 1978 when it was no longer affiliated to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Soviet Communist Party invited the organisation along with the CPSL to participate in the International Federation of Youths and Students. All financing was provided by
10560-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
10670-456: The university and a volunteer officer, was killed by two gunmen inside university premises. For genocide studies , it was an example of politicide that happened in a democratic regime, which resulted in the killing of at least 13,000 and 30,000 JVP members and its alleged supporters. The JVP military section which was made up mostly of inadequately trained youths, were responsible for attacks on several locations throughout Ceylon, including on
10780-698: The widespread nationalist sentiments of large sections of the Sinhalese people to terrorise both the state machinery and sections of civil society that opposed its thinking, which almost overpowered the state. Organised in multiple cells countrywide and mostly based around the capital Kandy in the centre, the JVP murdered probably thousands of people and crippled the country with violently enforced hartals (general strikes) for three years. Government forces captured and killed Wijeweera and his deputy in November 1989 in Colombo; by early 1990 they had killed or imprisoned
10890-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
11000-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
11110-410: Was a political activist of the CPSL. During an election campaign in the 1960s, he was severely assaulted by UNP members and was paralysed; Wijeweera was likely emotionally affected, which may have changed his views and caused his hatred against the UNP. When Wijeweera's further education was threatened as a result of his father's incapacitation, the CPSL arranged a scholarship for him to study medicine at
11220-542: Was an alternative to the two main political parties, UNP and SLFP, but not the JVP. In December 2008, the JNP joined the government, and claimed that the government should be supported at this moment as it was successfully fighting the LTTE in the north of Sri Lanka. JVP politicians blamed the government, saying that it had mishandled many problems, and alleged that their rivals had joined the government for personal gain. JVP formed
11330-441: Was attempting to participate in the country's eastern provincial council elections to be held in May 2008 under the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance . A member of the party, Piyasiri Wijenayake, accused the UNP of conspiring against the JVP at a media conference held at Nippon Hotel in Colombo on 8 April 2008. He alleged that Ravi Karunanayake, a UNP member who had attended a meeting with senior JVP leaders at his residence,
11440-544: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
11550-540: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of
11660-417: Was elected president of Sri Lanka. Some political analysts believed that the majority of support and endorsement to Rajapakse came from the JVP due to Rajapaksha opposing the peace process. A few analysts reject this idea, saying that JVP was too weak to make an influence in mainstream elections. Other independent intellectuals, like Dayan Jayatilleka , Nalin de Silva and Mohan Samaranayake , pointed out that
11770-499: Was ruled directly from Colombo until 10 May 2008 when elections were held. Chairmen Deputy Chairmen Chief Ministers Leaders of the Opposition Chief Secretaries Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by
11880-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil
11990-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
12100-461: Was the main conspirator. Wijenayake told BBC that his and Achala Suranga Jagoda's vehicles were forcefully removed by the group led by Jayanatha Wijesekara, a Member of Parliament from the Trincomalee district. Weerawansa's group visited the most senior Buddhist monks of Asgiriya and Malwatte chapters on 20 April 2008 to seek blessings for their new political movement. Weerawansa also accused
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