Nuts and bolts of language

By Alfreda de Silva

English language teaching restored to its rightful place by virtue of its international importance is focusing attention on young learners.

This is not to diminish the importance of the others, who have over the past years, known a wide hiatus in their assimilation of English, with its pitfalls in grammatical usage and pronunciation.

Enjoyment and participation have been brought into the young pupils' absorption of the complicated nuts and bolts of this language.

Participant activities between pupil and teacher have stimulated and motivated learning; and the welding of teaching structures into stories, poems, songs and plays has opened the learners' ears to the patterns, rhythms, meanings and music of words.

The British Council Young Learners' Programme, headed by Ranmalie de Silva has got off to an exciting start, with its focus on five-to-15-year-olds.

Appropriately, this year's Council celebrations of World Book Day on February 29, spotlighted a book, for the youngest section - the five to sevens, of this group.

Held in a colourful marquee on the lawn, the proceedings opened in the presence of the Deputy Director, Information Services Management, Sue Backwell, the Regional Information Coordinator (South Asia) The British Council U.K. Judy Ugonna and the Councils Director in Sri Lanka Susan Maingay.

The Assistant Director, Information, Harrison Perera, introduced the chief guests and the keynote speaker Dr. Lester James Peries.

Launched on this occasion was Lakmali Gunawardena's book for five, six and seven-year-olds, Song of the Setting Sun, a story illustrated by her 15-year-old daughter, Rasmiliya.

The launch was heralded by a sensitive address by Dr. Peries, his recent honour of an International Lifetime Achievement Award for cinematographic excellence, sitting lightly on him.

He saw the book through the eyes of the writer/artist/film maker, as a noteworthy addition to a child's library, its concepts beautiful and captivating.

The rhythmic text in prose and verse about a turtle and a flying fish is told with child-like simplicity and delight. Lakmali read it to the audience clearly and expressively.

The layout of the book is ideal for a young learner; just a few lines on each smooth white page, and sometimes a one-liner, each page facing a picture. Rasmiliya's illustrations are inspired, amusing and up-to-the-minute, designed to create a sense of wonder in a child. The striking setting sun is serenaded by a turtle and her friend, a flying fish.

"Beautiful sun
Setting far away
Colour the sky
With mooduweli gold
Colour the sky
With thambili orange
Sippikatu purple
And moodumal red"

This story could be turned to drama in the classroom, with a narrator, movement song and music. At the launch two young learners, Indramali Piyasena and Rabin Moraes sang the songs from the book, set to music by Ranga Jagoda. They added a dramatic touch. Lakmali Gunawardena holds, a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in Languages and Philosophy of the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, and a Diploma in French Studies from the University of Poitiers, France.

She has been an instructor in English at the University of Peradeniya, translator/interpreter French-English, Managing Editor, Pravada and editorial consultant, Explore Sri Lanka, besides holding several other positions.

Her most compelling interest is children's theatre. Among the plays she has written are: Muna Nathi Yaka and Hapana a stage adaptation for children, of Swimmy by Leo Lionni. The latter was a puppet ballet. It was choreographed and orchestrated by Vajira.

A Taste of Sinhala-13

Long and short of it

By Prof. J.B. Disanayaka

An English speaker who visits Sri Lanka soon discovers that even educated Sinhalese speak a brand of English that sounds outlandish. It is because English is not their mother tongue.

It's only a second language that they learn many years after their mother tongue.

When a speaker of one language learns to speak another, there is a natural tendency to use sounds of the first language in the second. Thus, when a Sinhalese speaks English, he does so with Sinhala sounds, making his English rather outlandish.

One difference between the sound patterns of Sinhala and English is the length of their vowel sounds. Sinhala, as it is spoken today, has 14 vowels: seven short and seven long.

To indicate long vowels, the colon will be used.

The short vowel [a] is somewhat like [u] in 'up'. Its long vowel [a:] is like [ar] in 'art'.

The short vowel [i] is somewhat like [i] in 'it'. Its long vowel [i:] is like [i] in 'machine'.

The short vowel [u] is somewhat like [u] in 'put'. Its long vowel [u:] is like [oo] in 'noon'. The short vowel [e] is somewhat like[e] in 'end'. Its long vowel [e:] is like [a] in 'ape'.

The short vowel [o] is somewhat like [0] in 'top'. Its long vowel [o:] is like [o] in 'go'.

The short vowel [ae] is somewhat like [a] in 'at'. Its long vowel [ae:] is like [a] in 'ant'.

Sinhala also has a pair of vowels similar to [a] in 'ago' and [ear] in 'earth'.

Fascinating tales from the Sinhala cinema giant

By D.C. Ranatunga

Lester James Peries will turn 81 on Wednesday, April 5. This eminent filmmaker is also a fine writer. In compiling some of his writings in 'Lester James Peries - Collected Works', Piyasena Wickramage presents Lester's thoughts on many a subject relating to cinema. Most of his utterances many years ago, particularly on Sri Lanka's film industry are valid even today.

We tend to forget that Lester James Peries was a journalist before he became a film-maker. It was while he was attached to the London office of the Times of Ceylon that he made his first film Soliloquy, 50 years ago with Hereward Jansz, another Ceylonese working in London at the time. They produced not one, but two films. Lester describes Soliloquy as "an uncompromisingly avant garde effort which was highly commended in the ACW (Amateur Cine World) 1949 competition" and the second, Farewell to Childhood as "a simple one, with no technical frills, simply told".

Lester's essays on the early days of his film making in London are a fascinating read.

Soliloquy, what he calls "a twenty-minute experimental film", like all avant garde films, was first planned with "no equipment, little money and a great deal of bouncing enthusiasm". They had two young English stage friends with considerable experience in repertory who were kicking their heels to appear in a movie. That was a good start, according to Lester.

Then they chose a camera, which was displayed by a Bond Street cine dealer for 97 pounds sterling. "The sum seemed to us so staggering that it nearly brought the curtain down on our film project, but fortunately Jansz had bought in New York a still camera (speed Graphic) which was in great demand by Fleet Street photographers. By some judicious bargaining the cine dealer was prepared to chip off 65 pounds from the movie camera in exchange for the speed Graphic. The balance was much more in step with our budget. The camera was an American Victor, fitted with a variety of lenses which could get us nearly every effect professional cameramen enjoy from the giant close-up to those deep pan shots so favoured by movie makers since Orson Welles' Citizen Kane."

Lester describes the independence they had in making the film. "As we enjoyed the greatest privilege of the amateur film-maker - complete freedom from the fear of the box office, the bossy executive, the nervous eternally compromising censor, we could shoot the film in exactly the way we wanted it. We had a possible story - how would a sensitive impecunious painter react to a situation in which his girlfriend lives in the coziest domestic bliss with a middle-aged industrialist. Instead of making a miniature thriller, a comedy of manners or a study in character, we decided to treat it in the most unusual manner.

"Our film was going to be an experiment. We banished the idea of furniture, props, sets. We rigged out the old studio with enormous black-out screens. By that method of attack we were able to pitch the film into the No Man's Land of a painter's drink sodden imagination. What went on there? If for twenty minutes he concentrated on his own emotional situation, what thoughts and images passed through his mind. Our film was an attempt to record his soliloquy. It was a newsreel of the man's subconscious mind as well as a deliberately created picture of his horror, humiliation, helplessness and self-pity."

Writing about the second film he says: "Both Jansz and I had our living to make; he as a freelance still photographer and I as a journalist. This meant that working on weekdays was out of the question. It also meant that I had little time to work out a detailed script. Though it may sound heretical, I must confess that the entire film was shot off the cuff on Sunday mornings. But let me hasten to add that I had quite detailed sequences in my head before Jansz started the camera turning."

Describing how curious the people were, he says: "There were dozens of spectators who were obviously tickled to death by the bizarre sight of two Ceylonese making a film. They gathered round us, too, in the streets of north-west London but fortunately they were quite good-humoured. And though certainly they were a distraction, we were doggedly determined not to be put off. Every exposure was methodically checked with a G.E metre!"

Rekava - a simple story

Lester introduced his first Sinhala feature film, Rekava where there were no stars, only amateur actors. "There were no star-struck lovers pursuing each other through herbaceous borders. It was a simple story of two children. The sound track crackled with the sounds of authentic village life, rough, earthy, without the studio slickness the commercial films could boast of." Lester confesses that no one knew that Rekava would open up a whole new chapter in local film-making, nor that it would be a financial disaster.

Appalling rubbish

For the past four decades and more, Lester has been stressing the need for a National Film Archive. In 1957, ten years after the birth of the Sinhala cinema he wrote: "Quite conceivably we might look back on our ten years of Sinhala film production and shudder at the appalling rubbish that has passed for cinema in our country. We might, with justification consider the acting in our films terribly old fashioned and stilted, our stories puerile, our music excruciating, our comedy vulgar and even our make-up hideous. But who knows, there may be a scene here, a piece of acting there, some refinement in technique which has pushed our national film a step forward on its way to better things. There may be scenes, perfectly poor dramaturgically but more revealing as a record of the life and thought and attitudes of our people than any newsreel.

"These are, in their own way precious things, which inevitably find a permanent place in any archive. In fifty years from now, people may look back on this period as the work of primitives, but still some of it I am certain will be of interest to the student and indispensable to the historian and sociologist."

Lester insisted that the future of the national cinema was not with the refined ladies and gents of Cinnamon Gardens but with the rural masses for whom the cinema has become more a ritual than an entertainment. He advocated that the film society movement be encouraged to spread to towns and schools. A central loaning library of the archives could loan out 16mm prints to film clubs and schools which would then do more to improve the taste of the younger generation than anything else.

Forty three years after Lester's plea, we are still waiting for the Film Archive!

More Plus

Return to Plus Contents