Funday Times

Continuing a series of articles on Social Studies by Kamala Silva
People of our country
When you do a study of the people of a country, many areas have to be considered. The composition of the population of the country, ethnic and religious differences, urban and rural factor, male and female composition and even the age factor have to be studied. We are Sri Lankans, as a nation. But as you know, ours is a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and a multi-cultural one.

Race : There are four very large race groups in the world. By the word race, we mean a group with distinct physical characteristics. These four groups differ from each other, basically in their looks. Mongoloid, Caucosoid, Austroloid and Negroid are the four main groups. Let us try to see, where we belong.

Mongoloid :- These are people with narrow eyes. The complexion of their skin is rather yellowish. They lived mainly in the central and eastern part of Asia. Mongolia, China and Japan are occupied by the group.

Caucasoid :- The belief is that this group originated in the Caucasus mountains, located between Asia and Europe. From there they have spread towards Europe and south-western parts of Asia. Their complexion ranges from fair to brown and sometimes even very dark. The brown and dark complexioned people occupy the south-western parts of Asia.

Australoid :- These are the people who are composed of the natives of Australia and the S.W. Pacific Islands. They also display Caucasoid features. Negroid:- They initially occupied the continent of Africa. Their skin colour is so dark that they look almost black. Their hair is generally curly.

Sri Lankans belong to the Caucasoid group. This group has a number of divisions. Throughout the ages, there had been so many intermarriages, that it is almost impossible to find anyone belonging to a pure race. Yet, all these races have different cultures. Each group, however, has its own racial identity.

Language :- People also differ according to the language they speak. Language is very often linked to race and so we speak of the mother tongue of a certain group of people. The mother tongue is the language associated with a particular race. In Sri Lanka, different races have different forms of mother tongue. For example, the majority of Sinhalese use Sinhala, Tamils, Muslims and Malays use Tamil and the Burghers use English as their respective mother tongues.

If we were to study the composition of each of these racial groups, the historical factor becomes very important. The Portuguese and the Dutch, who invaded our country, inter-married with the Sinhala and the Tamils of the lands and their descendents came to be Burghers. They spoke English after the English occupation of our country. They followed their education in the English medium and once when the government of Sri Lanka did away with English as the medium of instruction, they too had to study either in Sinhala or Tamil.

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka are mostly the descendents of the Arabs who came here for trade. They originally spoke the Arabic language. But due to inter-marriage with the Sinhala and Tamil community, most of them used Tamil as their language. We see the largest concentration of the Muslim population in the eastern coast and they consider Tamil their mother tongue.

Of the Tamils we have the Indian Tamil and the Sri Lankan Tamil groups, both of which consider Tamil as their mother tongue. Malays who originally came from Indonesia, spoke the Indonesian version of Malay. Going by religion, they followed Islam and so they associated with the Muslims very closely. Their mother tongue too became Tamil. In spite of all these ethnic differences which have influenced the language they speak, there are certain Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim groups who speak English and treat English as their mother tongue. All these people make up the people of our land.

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