• PM notes need to prevent abandonment/extinction of mother tongue
• Emphasises on research and translation labs  

Prime Minister and Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena said that it is most regrettable that not a single Supreme Court (SC) verdict has been delivered in the Sinhala language so far. 

He also emphasised the imperative need to prevent the alleged attempts by interested parties to push Sinhala into the pile of abandoned and extinct languages.

He stated this at an International Mother Language Day event on Wednesday (21).

“If we want to nurture our language, nourish and protect it, it is essential to research on the mother language and enrich it to face dangerous threats. The United Nations (UN) currently concludes that one language dies every two weeks. Hence, a proposal has been made at the UN for the protection of the mother tongue. The Government alone cannot prevent the attempts to push Sinhala into the pile of languages that are abandoned and will become extinct. However, the Government has the responsibility and obligation to protect the unique identity of the people. For that, it is mandatory to protect the mother tongue and its related spheres. The mother tongue is as valuable as the mother’s milk. We must not forget that language is a factor that adds value to life. By turning it into a process that we do voluntarily, different rules and regulations are made to deal with it. A national awakening and a process is needed to implement them. It is to be appreciated if the university sector, the higher education and research sectors are more involved for this purpose. We need to take immediate steps to contact the officials of the Official Languages Department and the heads of remote rural departments to give similar instructions. If we don’t take such steps one by one, our mother tongue may become isolated from our people. Let us rule out that possibility. The Speaker of Parliament still reads out the verdicts given by the SC in English. Parliamentarians said that no SC decision has been delivered in Sinhala. Another group of MPs said that SC verdicts have not been given in Tamil too. Also, there is a prime need to create translation labs, to produce a generation with knowledge of translation from the universities and the related departments. There are no translators today. Due to the lack of translators, service extensions have to be given to retired people. It can be protected by the UN General Assembly resolution on protecting the mother tongue and the constitutional provisions of our country”.