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2017-12-19T09:30:39Z

Disambiguated: Saurashtri → Saurashtra (region)

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{{other uses|Negombo Tamils}}
'''Negombo Tamil dialect''' or '''Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil''' is a [[Sri Lanka]]n [[Tamil language]] [[dialect]] used by the fishers of [[Negombo]], [[Sri Lanka]]. This is just one of the many dialects used by the remnant population of formerly [[Tamil language|Tamil]] speaking people of the western [[Puttalam District]] and [[Gampaha District]] of [[Sri Lanka]]. Those who still identify them as ethnic Tamils are known as [[Negombo Tamils]] or as [[Puttalam Tamils]]. Although most residents of these districts [[Sinhalisation|identify]] them as ethnic [[Sinhalese people|Sinhalese]] some are bilingual in both the languages.<ref name=BS1>Contact-Induced Morphosyntactic Realignment in Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil By Bonta Stevens, South Asian Language Analysis Roundtable XXIII (October 12, 2003) The University of Texas at Austin</ref>
<ref name=BS2>South Negombo fishermen's Tamil: A case of contact-induced language change from Sri Lanka by Bonta Stevens , Cornell University</ref>

==Morphology==
The specific dialect known as Negombo Fisherman’s Tamil (NFT) spoken by the [[Karava]] or [[Karaiyar]] [[caste]] fishers of Negombo. NFT has many distinctive traits, some of which may have arisen as a consequence of contact with Sinhala. It is also proposed that it may have undergone considerable morphosyntactic convergence with spoken or colloquial [[Sinhalese language|Sinhala]] (CS), as a consequence of contact with it.

For example, NFT has mostly lost Tamil verb agreement morphology for person and number. Colloquial Sinhala (unlike Literary Sinhala) has a single verb form for all persons, singular and plural. Most Tamil dialects, by contrast, retain in both the spoken and the written languages a well-developed system of person and number verb agreement morphology. Thus in NFT we have, with [[Sri_Lankan_Tamil_dialects#Jaffna_Tamil|Jaffna Tamil dialect]] (JT) which a major dialect of the [[Sri Lankan Tamils]] ethnic group for comparison:

*a. naan kolumbu-kki poo-ra (NFT)
I Colombo go (I go to Colombo)

*b. naan kolumbu-kku poo-r-een (JT)
I Colombo going (I am going to Colombo)

*c. mamə koləmbə-Tə yanəwa (CS)
I Colombo go (I go to Colombo)

NFT has also developed a number of other grammatical traits under the probable influence of Sinhala, including a postposed indefinite article, an indefinitizing postclitic –sari (apparently modeled on Sinhala –hari), and case assignments for defective verbs that follow the Sinhala, rather than Tamil, patterns of agreement.<ref name=BS1/>

==Unique dialect==
NFT probably originated in [[India]], but has subsequently adopted, and is still adopting, [[Sri Lankan Tamil dialects|Sri Lankan Tamil traits]]. The dialect is spoken by perhaps as many as 50,000 people, is thus a very distinctive dialect. With [[Karnataka]] based [[Saraswat]] [[Konkani language|Konkani]] (Nadkarni 1975), [[Tamil Nadu]] based [[Saurashtra (region)|Saurashtri]] (Smith 1978), [[Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript|Sri Lankan Creole Portuguese]] and the [[Urdu]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]], and [[Kannada]] dialects of [[Kupwar]] ([[Gumperz, John J.|Gumperz]] and Wilson 1971), NFT grammar is the outcome of pervasive structural realignment as a result of stable [[bilingualism]].<ref name=BS1/><ref name=BS2/>

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

== Further reading ==
Steven Bonta
Negombo Fishermen's Tamil (NFT): A Sinhala Influenced Dialect from a Bilingual Sri Lankan Community
[[INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRAVIDIAN LINGUISTICS]] XXXVII (2) pp133–140.

Steven Bonta, Ph. D. 2004,
"Negombo Fisherman's Tamil: A Case of Contact-Induced Language Change from Sri Lanka" Cornell University

==External links==
*[http://www.dailynews.lk/2004/07/21/artscop11.html Focus on traditional fishing methods] by Bernard Sri Kantha (Sinhalese)

{{Sri Lankan Tamil people}}
{{Tamil language}}

[[Category:Endangered diaspora languages]]
[[Category:Sri Lankan Tamil society]]
[[Category:Tamil dialects]]

Negombo Tamil dialect - Revision history

imported>Mark the train: Disambiguated: Saurashtri → Saurashtra (region)