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As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my cultur

As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching. How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starting to realize what's missing and are actively trying to bring back some of the knowledge and wisdom that was lost all those many years back.

publicola1990 5y ago
Not related to the article, but would you be able to comment on why Sinhala is classified as an Indo-European language, rather than as a Dravidian language?
- ummonk 5y ago
  Languages are classified based on relatedness, not geography. Just as you have an Indo-Aryan language, Sinhala, that made it down to Sri Lanka, you also have a Dravidian language, Brahui, that stuck around up in Pakistan.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    The famous example of an "out of place" language is Madagascar, where they speak a language you'd expect to find spoken by Pacific islanders.
- cmrajan 5y ago
  Not OP, but Sinhala is classified as Indo-Aryan having developed when Buddhism spread to Srilanka and separate from Dravidian family of languages which is mostly limited to Southern part of India
- umanwizard 5y ago
  Because it is descended from Sanskrit which has been known to be an Indo-European language since the very beginning of comparative linguistics. It is genetically unrelated to Dravidian languages, but it does have a lot of Dravidian loanwords.
  - publicola1990 5y ago
    Kannada is very influenced by Sanskrit, but still is a Dravidian lang. Is there more Sanskrit influence in Sinhala compared with Kannada?
    - chakkepolja 5y ago
      It's more about linguistic structure than origin of words. Kannada, Telugu & Malayalam, even pre-dravidan-movement Tamil have lot of borrowed sanskrit vocabulary, but they retain structure of Dravidian languages. Also most common words used are also Dravidan origin. For example: Kannada - Naanu, Tamil - Naan, Telugu - Nenu, Malayalam - Njan Etc.. Another small thing unique about Dravidian languages is clusivity, there's exclusive 'we' and inclusive 'we'. While modern Kannada, unlike Tamil / Telugu, doesn't retain this feature, some dialects such as Havyaka retain this feature.
      - publicola1990 5y ago
        Yes, but does Sinhala hase the linguistic structure of Dravidian languages or not?
        chakkepolja 5y ago
        I don't understand sinhala but if it is classified as Indo Aryan language and not Dravidian, then that is the reason. There will be always be some influence and loanwords from neighbouring languages but comparative linguistics can tell origin / family of the language pretty accurately.
        tmmx 5y ago
        Sinhala does not have the structure of Dravidian languages. However, the alphabet used to write Sinhala has a shared origin with the alphabets used to write Dravidian languages. Also due to long coexistence with Tamil in the island, Sinhala burrows lot of loanwords from Tamil. I am Sinhalese who grew up in Sri Lanka. As such I am exposed to Tamil, but when I watch Tamil TV, at best I can pick few words here and there. But when I watch Hindi show, I understand a lot more due to the structure is very similar to that of Sinhala.
- chakkepolja 5y ago
  Some tales tell that Sinhalese were Buddhists from somewhere near modern day Bengal who fled to avoid persecution.
tsjq 5y ago
Next , more things will be banned in SL by Chinese. SL has willingly adopted and accepted and welcomed Chinese oppression.
- 101_101 5y ago
  Not sure why you and I are getting downvotes for pointing out facts. probably paid shills/rajapaksha fan bois are downvoting any comments critical of the current government.
  - tsjq 5y ago
    Straight up Chinese shills
tasogare 5y ago
> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished And who would do that punishment? Colonization occurred because country X had overwhelming military strength over country Y, defeats it militarily and then occupied it. Absolutely nothing new historically or humanly wise: it's like this since the dawn of time; and it's true in the animal world too. The only way for Sri Lanka to "punish" England is to become military strong but whining on a website (created by a descendant country of the said colonizer) won't do it. And if anything most of the former colonial powers, to the notable exception of Japan, are currently willingly punishing themselves already by allowing millions of people from former colonies to immigrate.
- caddybox 5y ago
  Immigrants are a punishment? They pay taxes, respect the laws of the land and come here with proper documentation. Not even a shred of this decency was afforded to them in the colonial days. Please take your xenophobic nonsense elsewhere.
- rocknor 5y ago
  As usual, racism and stupidity comes together. Immigration is not charity. It is a way for host countries to maintain global power and living standards for their citizens. In a way immigrants are saving the former colonial powers from collapse.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wtmt 5y ago
> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done It’s rare for such large scale oppressors to be punished in their times. Do you see parallels with what the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka has done to the minority Tamil population for decades?
- throwmaway99 5y ago
  Yes and no. The civil war that waged in Sri Lanka was something really complicated, where at one point it was hard to choose who was right or wrong in the conflict. As far as I know the Sinhalese started the whole civil war but the LTTE escalated the situation where they were committing atrocities I cannon't write on a forum like this. And mind you, both sides committed some pretty messed up atrocities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelam#Human_rights_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_on_civilians_a... After the war ended despite what's been told in international media, as a Sri Lankan who represent an ethnic minority there I can say I feel safer now, people have seem to forgotten about the war to some extend and there's a lot of healing that is being done (no thanks to the government though) personally I remember a time when we took different buses to school/work even if we were all heading in the same direction incase one of the busses were attacked by the terrorists we wont lose both parents in the family. There was a lot of mistrust and a lot of divide among everyone even in school you had different ethnic groups hanging out with their own ethnicity. But now we have a more diverse groups of friends we have businessmen, politicians and other elites in society that represent different ethnic groups. There's a lot of improvements to be made, but I think we as a nation have done really well to rebuild after being enemies for over 30 years. ---- and as for the parallels I haven't heard of stories where the ltte or the army forcing sons to rape their mothers after salting the earth of an entire town like the way the British did. What the British did was wipe out our culture, our history and basically taking away what made Sri Lankan's unique.
  - Flowsion 5y ago
    I've heard many horrific stories and first-hand accounts where Tamil people were tortured, raped and had their entire families wiped out. The Sri Lankan Government burned down the Jaffna Library in an attempt to erase Tamil history. They wiped out entire villages with bombs and forced generations to leave Sri Lanka forever. The British were horrific but let's not ignore what the Sri Lankan Government did to its Tamil people. LTTE committed war crimes. But, the Tamil people are not the LTTE. Sri Lankan government committed genocide. They bombed UN medical camps and safe zones setup by the Government.
imasrilankan 5y ago
As a Sri Lankan, most of us like to whinge about our past. We like to think we're the only country that was "oppressed" and the colonizers are the reason for all our current problems.
- 101_101 5y ago
  This guy gets it.
- ksec 5y ago
  No wonder why they are cozy with the China. That is exactly the Chinese way of thinking. Every problem and suffering are someones else's fault.
brigandish 5y ago
> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished I have to wonder how it's possible to decide whom to punish when the vast majority of those involved are dead, if any are left, and what you would punish them with? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm cutting down the population of "colonizers", you did point at "the British" so it should be up to you to clarify the bounds.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  In this case its super easy - Great Britain, a specific state next to continental Europe. Punishment as such can be done ie financially via direct aid. Building schools and hospitals. You name it. But this would be a direct admission how monstrously they fucked up this world for centuries and that's something no politician will admit, no matter what they think personally. Also, we talk about most of western Europe here (GB, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy). US also had its colonies like Philippines. The world is not fair. Rather than waiting for a sorry and help from bullies, get your stuff together and define your own destiny now that you can. I've been to Sri Lanka, have seen former prisons. Same as everywhere else, ie not so far on Andamans.
  - danenania 5y ago
    There’s also a question of how far back to go. With few exceptions, human history is an unbroken procession of brutal conquests. Many colonized peoples were oppressors at some stage in their history. That doesn’t justify the horrors of colonialism, but it does complicate attempts to make absolute moral (or legal) judgments against one group or another based on the crimes of their ancestors.
  - doikor 5y ago
    Problem with this logic is where does it end. Should modern day Italians pay for what Rome did? Turks for Ottomans? Mongols for Genghis Khan and his children’s empire? The Danish/Norwegian Vikings for taking over large parts of the British isles? The Moscow Rus for taking over the land that became Russia? Basically human history is one long bloody path for conquest and sadly rarely do the victors pay for the cruelty they inflict on the defeated.
101_101 5y ago
LMFAO GTFO with your proud history dude. SL is currently run by a corrupted family (Rajapaksha's). they have been accused of crimes(most of those cases got dropped for some reason. LOL). they changed the constitution so their brother, who is a dual citizen can take a seat in the parliament. they pardoned convicted child killers, war criminals & murderers. they exploited racism to get into the power. they even let convicted murderers attend the parliament. they suppress free speech & media. they make up BS quarantine laws to stop protests. they have different rules for different people. they sell local resources/lands to private companies (mostly Chinese), and yet here you are talking about your proud history. you should talk about what your people are doing to your country right now. without the British, SL won't even have a freaking rail road. LOL Edit: they also got caught paying people (with taxpayers' money) to boost their online/international image BTW. one of them even got arrested by the CIA. the current government is trying to militarize the whole country as well.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  What you're arguing is basically whataboutism. One can still be proud while recognizing the faults of e.g. Rajapaksha. Besides, is the parent poster Sinhalese or ethnic Tamil? Doesn't really matter but there is more than one type of Sri Lankan
  - 101_101 5y ago
    you should look up the definition of the whataboutism, because my comment doesn't have anything to do with that. also, I didn't mention anything about nationality or ethnicity. maybe you should go back and reply to the correct comment.
CountDrewku 5y ago
>How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. They're dead. Are you suggesting we punish their offspring for having their DNA? You might consider punishing all the ancient Indian invaders your country had as well since that also completely changed your country. This silliness about having to punish someone for stuff that's happened way in the past and has nothing to do with anyone alive today needs to stop.

publicola1990 5y ago

Not related to the article, but would you be able to comment on why Sinhala is classified as an Indo-European language, rather than as a Dravidian language?

ummonk 5y ago
Languages are classified based on relatedness, not geography. Just as you have an Indo-Aryan language, Sinhala, that made it down to Sri Lanka, you also have a Dravidian language, Brahui, that stuck around up in Pakistan.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  The famous example of an "out of place" language is Madagascar, where they speak a language you'd expect to find spoken by Pacific islanders.
cmrajan 5y ago
Not OP, but Sinhala is classified as Indo-Aryan having developed when Buddhism spread to Srilanka and separate from Dravidian family of languages which is mostly limited to Southern part of India
umanwizard 5y ago
Because it is descended from Sanskrit which has been known to be an Indo-European language since the very beginning of comparative linguistics. It is genetically unrelated to Dravidian languages, but it does have a lot of Dravidian loanwords.
- publicola1990 5y ago
  Kannada is very influenced by Sanskrit, but still is a Dravidian lang. Is there more Sanskrit influence in Sinhala compared with Kannada?
  - chakkepolja 5y ago
    It's more about linguistic structure than origin of words. Kannada, Telugu & Malayalam, even pre-dravidan-movement Tamil have lot of borrowed sanskrit vocabulary, but they retain structure of Dravidian languages. Also most common words used are also Dravidan origin. For example: Kannada - Naanu, Tamil - Naan, Telugu - Nenu, Malayalam - Njan Etc.. Another small thing unique about Dravidian languages is clusivity, there's exclusive 'we' and inclusive 'we'. While modern Kannada, unlike Tamil / Telugu, doesn't retain this feature, some dialects such as Havyaka retain this feature.
    - publicola1990 5y ago
      Yes, but does Sinhala hase the linguistic structure of Dravidian languages or not?
      - chakkepolja 5y ago
        I don't understand sinhala but if it is classified as Indo Aryan language and not Dravidian, then that is the reason. There will be always be some influence and loanwords from neighbouring languages but comparative linguistics can tell origin / family of the language pretty accurately.
      - tmmx 5y ago
        Sinhala does not have the structure of Dravidian languages. However, the alphabet used to write Sinhala has a shared origin with the alphabets used to write Dravidian languages. Also due to long coexistence with Tamil in the island, Sinhala burrows lot of loanwords from Tamil. I am Sinhalese who grew up in Sri Lanka. As such I am exposed to Tamil, but when I watch Tamil TV, at best I can pick few words here and there. But when I watch Hindi show, I understand a lot more due to the structure is very similar to that of Sinhala.
chakkepolja 5y ago
Some tales tell that Sinhalese were Buddhists from somewhere near modern day Bengal who fled to avoid persecution.

tsjq 5y ago

Next , more things will be banned in SL by Chinese. SL has willingly adopted and accepted and welcomed Chinese oppression.

101_101 5y ago
Not sure why you and I are getting downvotes for pointing out facts. probably paid shills/rajapaksha fan bois are downvoting any comments critical of the current government.
- tsjq 5y ago
  Straight up Chinese shills

tasogare 5y ago

> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished And who would do that punishment? Colonization occurred because country X had overwhelming military strength over country Y, defeats it militarily and then occupied it. Absolutely nothing new historically or humanly wise: it's like this since the dawn of time; and it's true in the animal world too. The only way for Sri Lanka to "punish" England is to become military strong but whining on a website (created by a descendant country of the said colonizer) won't do it. And if anything most of the former colonial powers, to the notable exception of Japan, are currently willingly punishing themselves already by allowing millions of people from former colonies to immigrate.

caddybox 5y ago
Immigrants are a punishment? They pay taxes, respect the laws of the land and come here with proper documentation. Not even a shred of this decency was afforded to them in the colonial days. Please take your xenophobic nonsense elsewhere.
rocknor 5y ago
As usual, racism and stupidity comes together. Immigration is not charity. It is a way for host countries to maintain global power and living standards for their citizens. In a way immigrants are saving the former colonial powers from collapse.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wtmt 5y ago

> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done It’s rare for such large scale oppressors to be punished in their times. Do you see parallels with what the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka has done to the minority Tamil population for decades?

throwmaway99 5y ago
Yes and no. The civil war that waged in Sri Lanka was something really complicated, where at one point it was hard to choose who was right or wrong in the conflict. As far as I know the Sinhalese started the whole civil war but the LTTE escalated the situation where they were committing atrocities I cannon't write on a forum like this. And mind you, both sides committed some pretty messed up atrocities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eelam#Human_rights_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Tigers_of_Tamil_Eel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_on_civilians_attributed_to_Sri_Lankan_government_forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_on_civilians_a... After the war ended despite what's been told in international media, as a Sri Lankan who represent an ethnic minority there I can say I feel safer now, people have seem to forgotten about the war to some extend and there's a lot of healing that is being done (no thanks to the government though) personally I remember a time when we took different buses to school/work even if we were all heading in the same direction incase one of the busses were attacked by the terrorists we wont lose both parents in the family. There was a lot of mistrust and a lot of divide among everyone even in school you had different ethnic groups hanging out with their own ethnicity. But now we have a more diverse groups of friends we have businessmen, politicians and other elites in society that represent different ethnic groups. There's a lot of improvements to be made, but I think we as a nation have done really well to rebuild after being enemies for over 30 years. ---- and as for the parallels I haven't heard of stories where the ltte or the army forcing sons to rape their mothers after salting the earth of an entire town like the way the British did. What the British did was wipe out our culture, our history and basically taking away what made Sri Lankan's unique.
- Flowsion 5y ago
  I've heard many horrific stories and first-hand accounts where Tamil people were tortured, raped and had their entire families wiped out. The Sri Lankan Government burned down the Jaffna Library in an attempt to erase Tamil history. They wiped out entire villages with bombs and forced generations to leave Sri Lanka forever. The British were horrific but let's not ignore what the Sri Lankan Government did to its Tamil people. LTTE committed war crimes. But, the Tamil people are not the LTTE. Sri Lankan government committed genocide. They bombed UN medical camps and safe zones setup by the Government.

imasrilankan 5y ago

As a Sri Lankan, most of us like to whinge about our past. We like to think we're the only country that was "oppressed" and the colonizers are the reason for all our current problems.

101_101 5y ago
This guy gets it.
ksec 5y ago
No wonder why they are cozy with the China. That is exactly the Chinese way of thinking. Every problem and suffering are someones else's fault.

brigandish 5y ago

> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished I have to wonder how it's possible to decide whom to punish when the vast majority of those involved are dead, if any are left, and what you would punish them with? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm cutting down the population of "colonizers", you did point at "the British" so it should be up to you to clarify the bounds.

saiya-jin 5y ago
In this case its super easy - Great Britain, a specific state next to continental Europe. Punishment as such can be done ie financially via direct aid. Building schools and hospitals. You name it. But this would be a direct admission how monstrously they fucked up this world for centuries and that's something no politician will admit, no matter what they think personally. Also, we talk about most of western Europe here (GB, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy). US also had its colonies like Philippines. The world is not fair. Rather than waiting for a sorry and help from bullies, get your stuff together and define your own destiny now that you can. I've been to Sri Lanka, have seen former prisons. Same as everywhere else, ie not so far on Andamans.
- danenania 5y ago
  There’s also a question of how far back to go. With few exceptions, human history is an unbroken procession of brutal conquests. Many colonized peoples were oppressors at some stage in their history. That doesn’t justify the horrors of colonialism, but it does complicate attempts to make absolute moral (or legal) judgments against one group or another based on the crimes of their ancestors.
- doikor 5y ago
  Problem with this logic is where does it end. Should modern day Italians pay for what Rome did? Turks for Ottomans? Mongols for Genghis Khan and his children’s empire? The Danish/Norwegian Vikings for taking over large parts of the British isles? The Moscow Rus for taking over the land that became Russia? Basically human history is one long bloody path for conquest and sadly rarely do the victors pay for the cruelty they inflict on the defeated.

101_101 5y ago

LMFAO GTFO with your proud history dude. SL is currently run by a corrupted family (Rajapaksha's). they have been accused of crimes(most of those cases got dropped for some reason. LOL). they changed the constitution so their brother, who is a dual citizen can take a seat in the parliament. they pardoned convicted child killers, war criminals & murderers. they exploited racism to get into the power. they even let convicted murderers attend the parliament. they suppress free speech & media. they make up BS quarantine laws to stop protests. they have different rules for different people. they sell local resources/lands to private companies (mostly Chinese), and yet here you are talking about your proud history. you should talk about what your people are doing to your country right now. without the British, SL won't even have a freaking rail road. LOL Edit: they also got caught paying people (with taxpayers' money) to boost their online/international image BTW. one of them even got arrested by the CIA. the current government is trying to militarize the whole country as well.

chana_masala 5y ago
What you're arguing is basically whataboutism. One can still be proud while recognizing the faults of e.g. Rajapaksha. Besides, is the parent poster Sinhalese or ethnic Tamil? Doesn't really matter but there is more than one type of Sri Lankan
- 101_101 5y ago
  you should look up the definition of the whataboutism, because my comment doesn't have anything to do with that. also, I didn't mention anything about nationality or ethnicity. maybe you should go back and reply to the correct comment.

CountDrewku 5y ago

>How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable. They're dead. Are you suggesting we punish their offspring for having their DNA? You might consider punishing all the ancient Indian invaders your country had as well since that also completely changed your country. This silliness about having to punish someone for stuff that's happened way in the past and has nothing to do with anyone alive today needs to stop.