Rewriting the past and reimagining the future
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SONIA NEELA DAS
New York University
Rewriting the past and reimagining
the future:
The social life of a Tamil heritage language industry
A B S T R A C T everal competing and complementary discourses about “heritage
S
Globally circulating discourses associated with language” circulating throughout the world have affected popu-
heritage language industries often promote lar understandings of cultural and linguistic change over the past
temporally dichotomous views of spoken and written few decades. The most global, deriving from UNESCO’s notion of
languages that deny coeval status to linguistic “intangible heritage,” designates certain oral folkloric traditions
minorities. In the multilingual city of Montreal, as requiring urgent “preservation” and “revitalization” to ensure their fu-
Quebec, where Sri Lankan refugees work to preserve ture survival. More often than not, these humanitarian efforts deny co-
a classicalist style of Written Tamil and Indian eval status to the verbal repertoires of “timeless” (usually indigenous and
immigrants work to revitalize a modernist style of rural) peoples and literacy practices of “modernizing” liberal institutions
Spoken Tamil, this division of labor is undermined (UNESCO 2011a, 2011b).1 Also popular among diasporic and migrant peo-
by elders and youth who, in mixing colloquial and ples are discourses depicting second- and third-generation descendants as
literary styles of Tamil, French, and English, reframe progressively incompetent in either spoken or written languages of their
curricular and nationalist discourses of language ancestors. In this case, pedagogical initiatives to teach “ancestral” or “her-
loss and degeneration into more empowering itage” languages to minority children de-emphasize lifelong processes of
narratives of developmental progress and language learning that occur simultaneously among youth and elders alike.
ethnolinguistic identification. [heritage language Complementing both discourses are nationalist policies that further desig-
industry, temporality, urban multilingualism, nate local vernaculars as “classical,” “international,” or “official” languages.
globalization, Tamil diaspora, Montreal] Some of these policies reify dynamic “historical” processes of language
contact as static “historicized” objects of sociolinguistic variation, whereas
others resignify sociolinguistic variation as socioeconomic and moral dis-
tinctions between speakers of purist “standard” languages and corrupted
“nonstandard” languages. Regardless of their differences, collectively such
discourses and policies entail a single “representational economy” (Keane
2003) based on the common temporal characterization of literary lan-
guages as timeless and enduring and colloquial languages as evolving and
evanescent. Documenting and teaching heritage languages thus flattens
the social life of minority languages and masks the reproduction of soci-
olinguistic inequalities by promoting dichotomous views of spoken and
written language.
In this article, I investigate how ideologies of temporal relationships be-
tween spoken and written language are institutionally and interactively ne-
gotiated through nationalist policies and diasporic projects to preserve and
AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 774–789, ISSN 0094-0496, online
ISSN 1548-1425. C 2011 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01336.xSocial life of a heritage language industry American Ethnologist
revitalize the use of minority languages in urban, multi- and “revitalize” the use of colloquial, or Spoken, Tamil
lingual contexts. Specifically, I focus on how multiple gen- among descendants of Indian immigrants, local diaspora
erational and migrant cohorts of Indian Tamils and Sri leaders have devised a division of language labor unique
Lankan Tamils living in Montreal, Quebec, emphasize cer- to Montreal. In no other site of the Tamil-speaking dias-
tain grammatical and pragmatic contrasts between collo- pora, including nearby Toronto, do speakers interpret gram-
quial and literary languages to rewrite the past and reimag- matical and pragmatic contrasts between Spoken Tamil and
ine the future of this rapidly diversifying diaspora. Draw- Written Tamil as emblematic of their ethnonational identi-
ing on ethnographic and linguistic research conducted at ties as do residents of Montreal.4
various schools, temples, and other sites of Tamil language Unfortunately, most studies of heritage language ed-
instruction from 2004 to 2006,2 I reveal that, whereas cur- ucation ignore these crucial ideological dimensions in
ricular discourses promote a dichotomous view of Spoken explaining how children learn to identify with a minor-
Tamil and Written Tamil as the temporally and grammati- ity language as reified heritage. Notable exceptions include
cally distinct heritage languages of Indians and Sri Lankans Barbra Meek’s (2010) study of language revitalization in
respectively, teachers and students regularly mix colloquial the Canadian Yukon, where cultural values of respect are
and literary styles of Tamil, as well as French and English, shown to have varying impact on children’s lifelong acqui-
to reframe nationalist and curricular discourses of language sition of pragmatic and grammatical competence in Kaska,
loss and degeneration into more empowering narratives of as well as Patrick Eisenlohr’s (2006) study of “ancestral lan-
ethnolinguistic identification and developmental progress. guages” in Mauritius, where local and transnational insti-
Understanding how ethnic minorities learn to enact social tutions are found to collaboratively regiment the language
change by speaking, writing, and identifying with a heritage loyalties of different ethnoreligious groups by teaching chil-
language is especially relevant in the case of Montreal Que- dren to speak in purified “ancestral languages.” Among
bec, where accelerating rates of immigration from nonfran- other contributions, these studies reveal how temporal nar-
cophone countries are currently challenging the reproduc- ratives of cultural progress or moral degeneration are often
tion of the dominant linguistic nationalist regime. implicit in diasporic projects and nationalist policies that
Tamil, with a vast literary history that spans more than fund heritage language education programs. Along a differ-
2,000 years and diverse verbal repertoires that span multi- ent vein, Miyako Inoue’s (2004) work on gendered language
ple continents, is a rich semiotic resource for investigating suggests that discursive analyses of temporal narratives can
how notions of linguistic and cultural heritage are discur- more broadly elucidate mechanisms of social reproduc-
sively constructed with broad semiotic appeal. Since pre- tion and change. She analyzes how 19th- and 20th-century
colonial times, Tamil-speaking societies in South Asia have Japanese nationalist narratives, in contrasting the past use
endorsed the idea that written forms of literary Tamil are of an idealized, purist women’s language with the present-
older than vernacular styles of colloquial Tamil because of day use of vulgar women’s speech, allow for periodic re-
their grammatical and stylistic similarities with South In- assertions of patriarchal dominance following rapid trans-
dian classical literature of the Sangam period (300 B.C.E. to formations of gender relations. Similarly, in contemporary
100 C.E.). Colonial philologists and modern linguists have Montreal, where a growing multiethnic and multilingual
reinforced this belief by further categorizing Tamil as a population stands poised to replace a shrinking major-
diglossic language. According to this functionalist schema, ity francophone population, temporal narratives depicting
purist styles of literary Tamil or Written Tamil (centamil or heritage languages as purist artifacts or corrupted vernac-
¯
eluttutamil) are generally used in formal contexts and im- ulars permit nationalist leaders to de-emphasize the cul-
¯
pure styles of colloquial Tamil or Spoken Tamil (kotuntamil
. tural and linguistic contributions of ethnic minorities to
¯
or pēccutamil) in informal contexts (Annamalai and Steever Qu´eb´ecois society. However because in the case of Mon-
¯
1998; Britto 1986; Pillai 1965). When the Indian government treal government officials and diaspora leaders collabora-
officially declared Tamil a “classical language” in 2004, lin- tively fund most heritage language education programs, it
guists from India, France, Germany, and the United States is likely that teachers and students have significant agency
collectively petitioned UNESCO to establish a central li- in deciding whether to accept or reject any essentialist ideas
brary for storing rare collections of palm-leaf and paper and moral values associated with their heritage language.5
manuscripts written in classical Tamil (UNESCO 2010).3 The mass production of pedagogical resources for dif-
Upon hearing the news, Indians and Sri Lankans living in ferentiated Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil markets in Canada
Montreal rejoiced in the assured future posterity of Tamil as and abroad also bespeaks a highly organized and profitable
a literary language even as they continued to struggle with industry. This article, which focuses on the “allocation of
its ongoing disappearance from their children’s verbal and resources, the coordination of production, and the distri-
written repertoires. Working in collaboration with govern- bution of goods and services” (Irvine 1989:249) pertaining
ment officials since 1998 to “preserve” the use of literary, or to Montreal’s Tamil heritage language industry, contributes
Written, Tamil among descendants of Sri Lankan refugees to previous anthropological writings on language and
775American Ethnologist Volume 38 Number 4 November 2011
political economy by examining how verbal practices, dis- linguistic and racial identity are emerging to distinguish be-
cursive skills, linguistic codes, and electronic media func- tween speakers of majority and minority languages.
tion as economic resources in organizing the social divi- The impetus for these ongoing demographic and po-
sion of labor, facilitating the exchange of goods, and inte- litical changes can be traced to specific moments in the
grating producers into commodity markets (Eisenlohr 2004; linguistic nationalist movement of the mid- to late 20th
Gal 1987, 1989; Heller 2003; Irvine 1989; Keane 1994, 2003). century. Historians generally credit the Quiet Revolution of
Although recent ethnographic studies of heritage tourism the 1960s and 1970s with introducing a new linguistic na-
industries have demonstrated how cultural and linguistic tionalist regime to Quebec that transformed the province
resources are objectified through neoliberal policies and from a rural and Catholic to an urban and secular, French-
practices (Boudreau and White 2004; Brumann 2009; Bun- speaking society. Soon after ousting the Catholic Church
ten 2008; Jackson and Ramı́rez 2009; Kockelman 2006), I from political power, secular nationalist leaders sought to
argue that additional attention must be paid to how her- replace religion with language as the defining symbol of
itage artifacts are used in everyday life to document on- Qu´eb´ecois identity (Handler 1988). In 1977 a newly elected
going significations in their political and economic value. proseparatist government led by the Parti Qu´eb´ecois (PQ)
I describe three such moments of resignification in the so- passed the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) to de-
cial life of a Tamil heritage language industry, starting with clare French the official language of Quebec.7 This law also
how Qu´eb´ecois separatists first conceptualized the role of mandated that immigrant children, most of whom had pre-
heritage languages in majority francophone Montreal. I viously favored attending English-medium public schools,
then examine how Indian and Sri Lankan diaspora leaders henceforth attend only French-medium public schools.8
worked to differentiate the form and function of their her- Minority voters outraged by their newfound lack of school
itage languages for an ethnonationally segregated market. choice were somewhat appeased by the subsequent de-
Finally, I reveal how elders and youth are interactively rene- cision of the Quebec Ministry of Education, Leisure, and
gotiating the value of speaking and writing heritage lan- ´
Sports’ (Minist`ere de l’Education, de Loisir et du Sport
guages in an increasingly multilingual and globalizing so- du Québec) to establish a new state-funded heritage lan-
ciety. guage program, locally known as the PELO, or Programme
d’enseignement des langues d’origine (Commission des
´
ecoles catholiques de Montr´eal [CECM] 1998; McAndrew
1991). Initially, in 1979–80, PELO classes were only offered
Politics of ethnolinguistic identity in Quebec
in Greek, Italian, and Portuguese to second- and third-
The city of Montreal is internationally renowned for its generation children of European ancestry. Later, to meet in-
linguistic diversity and nationalist politics. More residents creasing parental demand, the ministry introduced addi-
there speak three or more languages than do residents of tional classes in Spanish, Algonquin, Vietnamese, Laotian,
any other Canadian city. Also, residents will often publicly Hebrew, Arabic, Tagalog, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Sinhala, and
comment on their interlocutors’ speech patterns to specu- Tamil (Commission scolaire de Montr´eal 2009; Minist`ere de
late about differences in ethnic ancestry, regional origin, so- ´
l’Education, de Loisir et du Sport du Qu´ebec 2008). “Les en-
cial status, and political affiliation. Even minute changes in fants de la loi 101” refers to a distinct generation of mul-
linguistic norms are widely debated for their potential im- tilingual residents under the age of 40 who have attended
pact on the city’s delicate balance of power. Until recently, French-medium public schools and various heritage lan-
English Canadians, French Canadians, and ethnic minori- guage schools, while also learning English through informal
ties could be neatly categorized into three distinct so- means, since 1977.
ciolinguistic groups—“anglophones,” “francophones,” and After endeavoring to secure the language loyalty of
“allophones”—with predictably profederalist (anglophones ethnic minorities through legislative means, the Parti
and allophones) and pronationalist (francophones) alle- Qu´eb´ecois hosted a series of public referendums to vote on
giances (Béland 1999; Jedwab 1996; Lemco 1992).6 By the the issue of Quebec’s national sovereignty. The first refer-
21st century, however, the increasingly audible presence endum was held in 1980 and resulted in 40.44 percent of
of francophones speaking English, anglophones speaking voters favoring Quebec’s secession from Canada. The sec-
French, and allophones speaking multiple languages had ond referendum in 1995 resulted in an even closer mar-
disrupted these politically entrenched categories (Juteau gin of defeat, with 49.42 percent affirming votes. In a con-
2000; Lamarre and Dagenais 2004; Lamarre et al. 2002; troversial statement that he later rescinded, then premier
Piché 2002). Nowadays, as residents pay less attention to Jacques Parizeau blamed the loss of the second referen-
which languages interlocutors speak and more attention to dum on “ethnic minority” and “wealthy” voters. Although
how interlocutors use multiple languages to assert politi- Parizeau’s comment was ostensibly intended to highlight a
cal stances and construct social identities (Blad and Cou- disproportionate number of nay votes coming from Mon-
ton 2009; Sarkar and Winer 2006), new categories of ethno- treal’s multiethnic and upper-class ridings,9 it precipitated
776Social life of a heritage language industry American Ethnologist
Table 1: Sociolinguistic Diversity in Montreal, Quebec
Ethnic Group Heritage Language Civic Language Vernacular Language
Québécois de souche French Québécois French French
Indian Tamil Spoken/Colloquial Tamil Québécois French English, Tamil
Sri Lankan Tamil Written/Literary Tamil Québécois French French, English, Tamil
a political backlash that led to the eventual replacement tive attachment to a heritage language while encourag-
of the Parti Qu´eb´ecois by the Parti Lib´eral in 2003. This ing their integration into francophone society. Government
nonseparatist party, known for its neoliberal policies, fa- funds are earmarked for public and private organizations
vors limited constitutional sovereignty for Quebec within a that teach heritage languages to ethnolinguistic minori-
system of Canadian federalism. Since its election, the Parti ties. In addition, the Board of the French Language (Of-
Lib´eral has promoted the interests of French Qu´eb´ecois na- fice qu´eb´ecois de la langue française) has endorsed purist
tionalism by negotiating with the federal government to es- conventions to differentiate between a standard, or “lit-
tablish preferential criteria for admitting francophone and erary,” style of Qu´eb´ecois French as the civic language of
francophile immigrants to Quebec. Currently, 40 percent of the province, and nonstandard, or “colloquial,” styles of
Quebec’s immigrant visas are reserved for French-speaking Qu´eb´ecois joual as the heritage languages of the Qu´eb´ecois
applicants, who are mostly of Algerian, French, and Moroc- de souche (Cox 1998; Papen 1998; Saletti 1998).10 Together,
can nationality. All other applicants are evaluated accord- these institutional practices entail a nested hierarchy of so-
ing to their “ability to integrate and adapt to Quebec cul- ciolinguistic distinctions that permit a person to claim both
ture,” which is calculated as the sum of their demonstrated Qu´eb´ecois identity by virtue of speaking the civic language
French proficiency, previous visits and ties to Quebec, and and a different ethnolinguistic identity by virtue of speaking
prior knowledge of Qu´eb´ecois culture (Singer 2009). a heritage language. Montreal is better described as an eth-
These immigration policies have noticeably increased nically and racially diverse francophonie than as a majority
the prevalence of French spoken throughout the province. francophone city, for these reasons (see Table 1).
According to the 2006 census, 80.1 percent of Qu´eb´ecois
identify French as their first language and 95 percent as
Differentiating Indian and Sri Lankan
their first, second, or third language (Statistics/Statistique
heritage languages
Canada 2006). Extrapolating from these data, one could
argue that most residents of Quebec, regardless of eth- Tamils, who are among the fastest growing minority groups
nic, linguistic, and national background, endorse the use in Canada, arrived in the country in two distinct waves
of French as their common “civic” language. In Montreal, of migration. Currently, there are approximately 20 to 30
where there is much greater ethnic, national, and linguis- thousand Sri Lankan Tamils and two to three thousand
tic diversity, only 66 percent of the population identifies Indian Tamils living in the greater metropolitan region of
as francophone, 12 percent as anglophone, and 22 percent Montreal (Statistics/Statistique Canada 1991a, 1991b, 2006,
as allophone (Statistics/Statistique Canada 2006, 2007). 2007).11 Most Sri Lankan Tamils are lower- to middle-caste
Furthermore, a significant percentage of the majority fran- refugees who emigrated from the northern province of
cophone population is composed of immigrants from Jaffna during Sri Lanka’s recent civil war (1983–2009). Men
French-speaking countries and minorities educated in primarily work as semiskilled wage laborers or own small
French public schools. Given the low birth rate of the businesses catering to other Tamil clients, and women sup-
Qu´eb´ecois de souche (Qu´eb´ecois of ethnic stock) popula- plement their husbands’ incomes by working in textile and
tion since the Quiet Revolution (Bourhis 2001), the munic- jewelry factories or assisting in family-owned businesses.
ipal government has had to increasingly depend on an av- Sri Lankan Tamil families rent multigenerational apartment
erage annual influx of 33,000 new immigrants to reproduce units in inner-city neighborhoods or purchase semide-
francophone institutions. Whether French-speaking immi- tached houses in lower-middle-class suburbs. In com-
grants continue to self-identify as francophones or invest parison, most Indian Tamils are Brahmin or higher-caste
in francophone institutions after settling in Montreal is still professionals and graduate students who emigrated from
unclear from the existing census data. However, with 60 per- various Indian cities starting in the mid- to late 1960s. Both
cent of census respondents claiming competence in multi- men and women primarily work in lucrative fields such as
ple languages, it is likely that competing language loyalties engineering, business, biochemistry, and information tech-
would have influenced the identity claims of many immi- nology and own homes in relatively affluent suburbs or
grants and minorities over the past few decades. rent apartments in downtown neighborhoods. Because of
Since enforcing Bill 101 in 1977 and establishing the their clear-cut differences in social status and political ide-
PELO in 1978, the Quebec government has pursued a ology, Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamils have maintained
dual policy of cultivating immigrants’ and minorities’ emo- a high degree of ethnonational segregation in establishing
777American Ethnologist Volume 38 Number 4 November 2011
residential neighborhoods, social networks, and commu- versity in downtown Montreal. He describes Sri Lankan
nity organizations. Tamil as a grammatically purer dialect than most colloquial
Practices of self-segregation are common among styles of Indian Tamil:
purity-conscious Brahmin Tamils living in the diaspora
(Fuller and Narasimhan 2008), but it is only in Montreal Sri Lankan Tamil is very pure. It has not got polluted. I
that communal politics are locally expressed in terms of am coming from Chennai. It is the worst place to speak
linguistic politics. Here, Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils can Tamil. Even people from South India, especially from
Madurai, they will laugh at us. So I try to change myself
display preferential loyalty to pronationalist or profeder-
when I speak to those people. Because it is very slang
alist regimes through their choice of public or private,
and colloquial language . . . so many dialects . . . When
and French- or English-medium schools. To opt out of the I first met Sri Lankans here, it’s totally like I didn’t even
French public school system, immigrant parents must en- understand, they were laughing at me. So, it is very dif-
roll at least one of their children in an English-medium pri- ferent.
vate school for a short time before they can enroll their
remaining children in English-medium public schools. In Later in the conversation, Hemanth explains that this com-
general, Indian Tamil parents are better positioned finan- munication barrier dissolved soon after he joined a cricket
cially to pursue this option, whereas Sri Lankan parents team comprising mostly Sri Lankan players. Drawing on
closely involved in the Tamil Eelam separatist movement his academic background in classical Tamil literature, He-
are more sympathetic to linguistic nationalist policies re- manth was able to identify unfamiliar words spoken by Sri
quiring children to attend French-medium schools. These Lankan Tamil teammates as archaic literary words. In con-
parental preferences have greatly contributed to the di- trast, Mohan argues, “Sri Lankan Tamil . . . is a completely
vergent linguistic repertoires of English-dominant Indian different language.” This 30-year-old physician was born
Tamil youth and their French-dominant Sri Lankan Tamil and raised in a middle-class suburb of Montreal, where
peers (Das 2008a). he attended English-medium private schools and univer-
By drawing attention to maximally contrastive sets of sities all his life. He compares Indians learning Sri Lankan
linguistic repertoires, diaspora leaders fashion alternative Tamil to anglophones learning French: Both are learning
ways of talking about subtle distinctions in socioeconomic foreign languages. Although he can converse well enough
and caste status and political ideology. Because the Quebec with his parents and in-laws in Tamil, Mohan requires the
government preferentially recognizes and funds ethnolin- assistance of a translator in interacting with monolingual
guistic rather than ethnonational organizations, it is com- Sri Lankan Tamil patients at the community clinic where
mon practice to refer to most ethnic and racial minorities he works. Even though Mohan’s father-in-law works as a
by their heritage language. Thus, French speakers refer to Tamil–English translator at the nearby Jewish General Hos-
both Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils as “tamouls.” This label pital, Mohan maintains that Sri Lankan Tamil is a language
carries tremendous racial stigma, as Canadian media often unintelligible to the average Indian speaker educated in
depict Sri Lankan Tamils as “terrorists” for supporting the Canada.
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or as “thugs” for Contrasting attitudes exhibited by a French-speaking
joining urban street gangs and criminal drug networks daughter-and-mother pair reveal how pragmatic and stylis-
(Cˆote 2004; Premi`ere Chaı̂ne 2006; Presse 2004).12 Some tic differences also play a role in characterizing Indian and
Indians choose to publicly distance themselves from this Sri Lankan Tamil languages as mutually unintelligible. Mar-
stereotype by de-emphasizing their Tamil heritage and ianne is a 30-year-old teacher who was born in Quebec and
emphasizing their Indian nationality, and leaders of both raised in France before permanently resettling in Montreal
ethnonational groups highlight certain grammatical and in her late twenties. She explicitly differentiates between In-
pragmatic contrasts in their use of literary and colloquial dian speakers of Spoken Tamil and Sri Lankan speakers of
Tamil to emphasize ethnolinguistic differences. Over time, Written Tamil and attributes her personal inability to un-
these strategies of ethnolinguistic differentiation have con- derstand Sri Lankan Tamil speech to her illiteracy in reading
tributed to exaggerated claims of mutual unintelligibility and writing Tamil. Upon hearing her daughter’s response,
between Tamil-speaking Indians and Sri Lankans living in Madeleine clarifies that Sri Lankans actually speak a more
Montreal (Das 2008a). classical and purist style of Tamil than Indians do. This 55-
Especially pronounced are claims of mutual unintelli- year-old woman, who was born in Pondicherry, raised in
gibility by second-generation Indian youth who have lim- Saigon, and, after marriage, immigrated to France, where
ited contact with Sri Lankan peers.13 Take, for example, she often socialized with Sri Lankan Tamil women in her
Hemanth’s and Mohan’s differing attitudes regarding the church, is more familiar with colloquial styles of Tamil spo-
status of Indian Tamil and Sri Lankan Tamil as dialects or ken in Jaffna than her daughter. She claims that the relation-
languages. Hemanth is a first-generation immigrant from ship between Jaffna Tamil and Indian Tamil is analogous to
Chennai, India, who studied engineering at Concordia Uni- the relationship between European French and Qu´eb´ecois
778Social life of a heritage language industry American Ethnologist
Table 2: Diglossic Model of Tamil Linguistic Variation of caste relations in South Asia, Sri Lankans and Indians
Oral Language Written Language in Montreal have, instead, forged distinct yet complemen-
Function “Spoken” Tamil (pēccu “Written” Tamil (elut tary pathways for achieving upward social mobility. Specif-
tamil ) tutamil ) ically, by claiming that Sri Lankans speak and write a clas-
Style ¯
“Colloquial” Tamil ¯ Tamil
“Literary” sical style of Written Tamil and Indians speak and write a
(kotuntamil ) (ilakkiyattamil )
¯ (1600 modern style of Spoken Tamil as their heritage languages,
Age “Modern” Tamil “Classical” Tamil¯ (300
C.E.–present) B.C.E.–700 C.E.) both groups justify their elite status on the basis of differen-
Form “Vulgar” Tamil “Pure” Tamil (centamil ) tiated values of authenticity and modernity. These ethnona-
(koccaittamil ) ¯
tional subgroups are thus able to inhabit distinct ethnolin-
¯
guistic identities by emphasizing historicized contrasts in
French: The first language in each pair is older, purer, and their habitual use of colloquial and literary styles of Tamil.
more literary-like than the second.
Hemanth and Madeleine, as first-generation immi-
Diversifying the heritage language curriculum
grants, express similar folk theories of linguistic variation
that are rooted in the concept of Tamil “diglossia.” This con- Creating a diversified curriculum for teaching colloquial
cept emphasizes functionalist distinctions between written and literary Tamil to second-generation Indian and Sri
and spoken, pure and impure, literary and colloquial, and Lankan children further institutionalizes ethnolinguistic
classical and modern varieties of Tamil (see Table 2). In distinctions between ethnonational groups. Since 1998, five
common parlance, people in Tamil Nadu and Jaffna may French-medium and three English-medium public schools
simplify these categories by referring to both colloquial and in Montreal have offered instruction in literary Tamil to
modern styles as “Spoken Tamil” and both classical and lit- Sri Lankan children through the state-funded PELO ini-
erary styles as “Written Tamil.” Furthermore, through re- tiative. School board officials usually hire PELO teachers
cursive logic, modernist qualities are iconically attributed who are first-generation immigrants with valid teaching
to speakers of Spoken Tamil and primordialist qualities to credentials or prior teaching experience in Sri Lanka. Nil-
speakers of Written Tamil (Irvine and Gal 2000). These es- ima, who previously taught science at an elementary school
sentialist beliefs have been reinforced through a long and in Jaffna, now teaches Tamil at an English-medium pub-
varied history of ethnolinguistic nationalist sentiment in lic school in Montreal. Although she was given the op-
the Tamil-speaking region of South Asia. From the late tion to enroll her two sons at this school, Nilima, instead,
19th century, Tamil nationalists in Sri Lanka have lauded elected to send them to a nearby French-medium public
Jaffna elites for maintaining a pure, almost classical style school, where they could better learn the “civic” language.
of speaking Tamil (Kalainathan 2000; Kandiah 1978; Rajan She could not anticipate the irony that her sons would be
1995), and, since the early 20th century, Dravidian nation- unable to study Tamil through their own school’s PELO ini-
alists in Tamil Nadu have criticized Brahmin Tamils for cor- tiative because, despite repeated petitions from Sri Lankan
rupting the phonology of literary Tamil by introducing for- Tamil parents, the school’s principal had allocated all funds
eign or “Sanskritized” words (Ramaswamy 1997). Together, for heritage language instruction to the teaching of Arabic
both nationalist narratives feed into the globally pervasive (the majority heritage language at this school). Nilima’s chil-
stereotype of Jaffna Tamils as custodians of an ancient lan- dren, along with other children residing outside of the se-
guage, whereas Brahmin Tamils are viewed as harbingers of lect school districts offering Tamil instruction, may, instead,
cultural and linguistic change. attend classes offered weekly at Hindu temples, Catholic
Brahmin Tamils and Jaffna Tamils, as the caste and and Protestant churches, and other community organiza-
class elites of their respective Indian and Sri Lankan so- tions. With only 10 percent of their total funding provided
cieties, rarely come into contact except in the diaspora. by the Ministry of Cultural Communities, however, these
Historically, few Brahmins have resided in Jaffna, where community-based schools must rely heavily on donations
Vellālar Tamils are the dominant caste. During Sri Lanka’s from diaspora leaders and volunteer services from organi-
recent civil war, middle-class Vellālar Tamils preferred to zation members for their successful operation (Canadian
relocate to wealthier countries in North America and Eu- Education Association 1991).14
rope rather than seek refuge in India. In Montreal, Vellālar Because of different administrative structures and
Tamils from Jaffna have found themselves in the unfamil- sources of funding, PELO and community-based schools
iar position of being unable to assert their class and caste have adopted slightly different curricula for teaching liter-
dominance over more affluent and higher-caste Brahmin ary Tamil to Sri Lankan children. Originally, officials at the
Tamils. For their part, Brahmin Tamils migrating from In- Catholic School Board of Montreal (CECM; now the Com-
dia have found themselves in the position of being unable mission scolaire de Montréal) collaborated with the most
to defend their cultural and linguistic authenticity com- senior Tamil PELO teacher to draft a curriculum guide for
pared to Sri Lankan Tamils migrating from Jaffna. Typical teaching Tamil at both the elementary and intermediate
779American Ethnologist Volume 38 Number 4 November 2011
level (CECM 1998). The following benchmarks are the result obligated older students to speak, read, and write only in
of this collaboration: the literary standard. By the fourth grade, children were
reading short stories and responding to oral comprehen-
Global Objectives (ORAL and WRITTEN) sion questions in literary Tamil; by the ninth grade, children
The main objectives of this program are: to preserve were composing and reciting original essays in this written
the heritage language and culture, to enable students
standard. That June, only two students passed the rigorous
to communicate in a standard language in situations
tenth-grade exam required to receive an official certificate
related to their environment, and to learn the written
language. of matriculation signed by global WTM leaders and recog-
nizing their mastery of literary Tamil.
Aims (ORAL and WRITTEN) A parliamentary decision taken in April 2006 to add
The role of this program is to: maintain and improve
the WTM to Canada’s list of banned terrorist groups for-
the student’s basic knowledge of the language and his
malized an existing local discourse that WTM leaders extort
or her specific language abilities, and to help the stu-
dent develop the attitudes required to cultivate an in- money from Tamil Canadian citizens to fund the LTTE. In-
terest in the heritage language and to appreciate and dian Tamil diaspora leaders have long since kept their dis-
identify with the culture. [CECM 1998:12] tance from the WTM for this reason and instead established
the Quebec Tamil Association to promote “awareness of the
By stating in the same sentence that students should learn culture of Tamil Nadu (India) in [the] Montreal area” (Tami-
to “communicate in the standard language” and “learn lagam 2007). One of the organization’s missions is to advise
the written language,” the Global Objectives suggest a parents how to teach Tamil to their children at home, even
close relationship, even resemblance, between colloquial offering tips on “making children speak Tamil” and includ-
Sri Lankan Tamil and the written standard. Also, by stating ing links to Internet resources such as “Ram S. Ravindran’s
that the “role of the program” is to “help the student develop Web Based Spoken Tamil,” which promises that one can
the attitudes required to cultivate an interest in the heritage “sound like a native with these simple rules” (Tamilagam
language and to appreciate and identify with the culture,” 2007). Also advertised on the website are private tutoring
the Aims explicitly conflate students’ ethnic identities with classes offered by R. A. Krishnan, one of the founding mem-
their heritage languages. Together, these subtexts convey bers of the Quebec Tamil Association. In 2004, Krishnan
the message that students must be taught to speak, write, wrote and published the first volume of his textbook series,
and identify with a standardized style of literary Tamil to Spoken Tamil Grammar Book, to teach second-generation
“preserve the heritage language and culture” of Sri Lankans children “the spoken language used by street shopkeep-
in Montreal. ers in Chennai” (2004:5). Even though “shopkeeper Chen-
Community-based schools, taught by former Jaffna nai Tamil” is widely regarded in Tamil Nadu as an impure,
schoolteachers and parental volunteers, endorse similar low-prestige linguistic variety, Krishnan depicts this collo-
aims and objectives that more explicitly conflate Sri Lankan quial style as uniquely suitable for cosmopolitan elites liv-
heritage with literary Tamil. The World Tamil Movement ing in and traveling from the diaspora. He even adopts a ro-
(WTM) is a transnational organization that provides social manized script to phonetically represent its sounds without
services and relief funds to Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and having to teach students how to read and write in the lit-
finances most community-based schools in the global dias- erary standard. According to Krishnan, this textbook series
pora. In 2003, WTM leaders convened to write a standard- is especially popular in large Indian and North American
ized curriculum for teaching literary Tamil to Sri Lankan cities where multilingual expertise in “colloquial languages”
children growing up in Western countries. Closely affiliated is highly valued among urban elites who attend English-
with the WTM headquarters in Toronto are the Academy medium schools.
of Tamil Arts and Technology and the Ontario Academy Comparisons of the different curricular styles of Indian
of Fine Arts in Mississauga, which manufacture and dis- and Sri Lankan Tamil heritage language classes reveal how
tribute most teaching manuals, CD-ROMs, and pedagogi- first-generation diaspora leaders are invested in promot-
cal materials required to teach in WTM schools. The largest ing divergent pathways of ethnolinguistic identification and
WTM school in Montreal is the School of Heritage Studies heritage language learning among second-generation chil-
at the Thiru Murugan temple, with approximately one hun- dren. Whereas the Quebec Tamil Association emphasizes
dred twenty-five students (Saiva Mission of Quebec, Canada home instruction and private tutoring to facilitate children’s
2008). During my classroom observations there from March acquisition of spoken competence in colloquial Tamil, the
to June 2005, I noticed how each grade level was designed to PELO and WTM both emphasize school instruction to fa-
incrementally increase children’s knowledge and skill of lit- cilitate children’s acquisition of written and spoken com-
erary Tamil. Whereas teachers generally permitted kinder- petence in literary Tamil. These diverse curricula fortify
garten and first-grade students to speak in a colloquial style diasporic claims of ethnonational and ethnolinguistic
of Jaffna Tamil for conversational practice, they gradually distinction by projecting a complementary division of
780Social life of a heritage language industry American Ethnologist
Table 3: Division of Language Labor in Tamil Heritage Language I highlight how specifically ordered sequences of colloquial
Schools in Montreal and literary forms convey different messages about devel-
Indian Curriculum Sri Lankan Curriculum opmental trajectories of language acquisition and historical
Oral skills Converse in colloquial Converse in literary or trajectories of linguistic degeneration. The most common
or Spoken Tamil Written Tamil order is for students to first volunteer their answers in col-
Literacy skills Write in colloquial or Write in literary or
loquial Jaffna Tamil and for teachers to then transliterate or
Spoken Tamil Written Tamil
Read modern Tamil Read classical Tamil translate them into literary Tamil. This sequence diagrams
literature literature a developmental narrative naturalizing the step-by-step ac-
quisition of, first, colloquial and, then, literary Tamil exper-
language labor in which Indians work to revitalize the pres- tise. This sequence also challenges the assumption that lit-
tige of Spoken Tamil and Sri Lankans work to preserve erary Tamil is older than and primordial with respect to col-
the purity of Written Tamil (see Table 3). Because most Sri loquial Jaffna Tamil. A less common order is for teachers to
Lankan children grow up already speaking Tamil at home, first introduce a word in literary Tamil and then translate
their participation in heritage language classes is intended it into colloquial Tamil. This sequence, by naturalizing the
to complement existing oral competence and preserve the word-by-word decomposition from literary Tamil into col-
timeless use of the written language in the diaspora. For In- loquial Tamil, instead reinforces narratives of linguistic de-
dian Tamil children, who are mostly English dominant at generation implicit in Sri Lankan curricular discourses.
home, participation in these classes is intended to revitalize From January to May 2006, I observed and recorded
and modernize the spoken language for use in new glob- lessons at two Tamil PELO classes at Parker Elementary,
alizing contexts. Curricular discourses, by naturalizing in- an English-medium public school that also offers instruc-
dexical associations between Sri Lankan Tamils and past tion in Greek, Hindi–Urdu, and Bengali every Tuesday and
literary traditions as well as between Indian Tamils and Thursday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:30.15 Vasanthi teaches
modernizing colloquial repertoires, succeed in rendering the first- through third-grade beginner class, and Nilima
ethnolinguistic distinctions between ethnonational groups teaches the fourth- through sixth-grade intermediate class.
of tamouls more apparent to the public eye. Although I found that both teachers regularly alternate lit-
erary and colloquial forms within and across utterances,
Nilima most consistently adheres to the above-mentioned
Teaching literary Tamil to Sri Lankan children
co-occurrence patterns. In the lesson transcribed below,
Sri Lankan teachers carry a disproportionate burden of this Nilima (N) begins class by writing the date “24 2006
language labor because of their ideological emphasis on ” on the board and stating:
preserving literary Tamil, a language not commonly spo-
ken in Montreal. Even though curricular discourses imply N: okay nan¯ det-
. ¯ . i elutukirat-i
that Sri Lankans speak classical, or literary, Tamil as their okay I¯ am writing ¯ the¯date
heritage language, their vernacular is better described as
a Jaffna style of colloquial Tamil that has retained a sig- She utters this phrase in a style of colloquial Jaffna Tamil
nificant amount of classical lexicon and a large number of that is nominally interspersed with English words such as
literary syntactic features. It is thus grammatically distinct . ¯. -i (date) and okay. Naveen, one of the more vocal stu-
det
from all written forms and genres of Tamil. To facilitate stu- dents (S) in the class, calls out:
dents’ comprehension of this unfamiliar language, teach-
S: t. īcher iruvatināl-i tai sappay kilamε
ers must first draw on their prior knowledge of colloquial
teacher Tuesday the 24th of Tai month
Jaffna Tamil and then demonstrate how to convert that into
literary Tamil. At the same time, teachers must promote Naveen also speaks in colloquial Jaffna Tamil. This is ev-
students’ ethnolinguistic identification with literary Tamil ident in his use of the phonological variants [p] (rather
by highlighting certain grammatical similarities with collo- than [v]), [ε] (rather than [ai]), and [l] (rather than [γ ])
quial Jaffna Tamil. These conflicting goals result in teachers and in his epenthesis of [-i] after nal. (Schiffman 1999). Nil-
mixing colloquial and literary forms of Tamil in distinctly ima promptly repeats Naveen’s response, translating select
ordered ways. words into literary Tamil (highlighted in bold):
In the following analysis, I avoid labeling this mul-
tilingual practice “code-mixing” or “code-switching” be- ¯ .-i tai sevvay kilamai
N: iruvatinal
cause students do not always perceive colloquial and liter- Tuesday the 24th of Tai month
ary forms as belonging to different linguistic systems. At the
same time, I avoid labeling all mixed utterances “bivalent” Here, iruvatināl-
. i retains its colloquial form, sevvay assumes
(Woolard 1998) because teachers may seek to emphasize hi- a new literary form, and tai functions as a bivalent form
erarchical distinctions in their formal composition. Rather, bridging the words on either side. This sequence func-
781American Ethnologist Volume 38 Number 4 November 2011
tionally diagrams to students how to convert from collo- Although Nilima utters maniyōsε. in line 2 in colloquial
quial Jaffna Tamil words into literary Tamil. Positioned at Jaffna Tamil, she does so simply to establish a familiar foot-
the end of sentence is kilamai, a word composed of a dis- ing for students who cannot recall this word from their ev-
tinctly colloquial Jaffna Tamil sound ([l] rather than liter- eryday vocabulary. After students correctly guess the mean-
ary [γ ]) and a literary Tamil sound ([ai] rather than collo- ing in line 3, Nilima first repeats the entire word in literary
quial [ε]). Both Nilima and her students would perceive this Tamil in line 5 (maniyōsai)
. before breaking it down into its
as a literary Tamil, and not a bivalent, word because most lexical components in colloquial Jaffna Tamil (mani ¯ ε).
. os
Sri Lankan Tamils cannot easily distinguish between [l] and This sequence conveys a subtle message. First, the pairing
[γ ] sounds.16 By conflating sounds of colloquial Jaffna Tamil of maniyōsai
. and mani ¯ ε suggests a grammatical simpli-
. os
with literary Tamil, kilamai has the effect of rendering prior fication in the evolution from literary Tamil to colloquial
phonological variations even less perceptible. Tamil. Second, because students already think that collo-
Later in the lesson, Nilima teaches students how quial Jaffna Tamil is phonologically similar to literary Tamil,
to compose compound words. She begins by writing this temporal narrative maps onto existing curricular dis-
“ ” on the board and courses of intergenerational language loss. Through this
stating to the class in literary Tamil: pairing, therefore, Nilima is able to affirm that her expert
knowledge and skill of literary Tamil are essential to protect
¯ enr. al
N: kattirikkay ¯ eggplant Jaffna language and culture from degeneration and decay
kattirikkay means eggplant among youthful speakers in the diaspora.
Overall, Nilima’s use of literary and colloquial forms re-
inforces her students’ identification with literary Tamil as
Sonali (S), another vocal student in the class, calls out a sec-
their heritage language. Nilima also implies that their her-
ond example, using the colloquial Jaffna Tamil for banana.
itage language is purer and older than the heritage lan-
Nilima transliterates and translates Sonali’s suggestion by
guage spoken by Indian children. Sometimes she conveys
writing “ ” and respond-
this message explicitly, as when she instructs her students
ing to her in literary Tamil:
to use Tamil words for “stamp,” “letter,” “post office,” and
“bank,” even though Indians (portrayed in films) use the
¯ ēppalam
S: val English words for these things. At other times, when a
banana teacher enforces purist standards for grammatical but not
¯ aippalam val
N: val ¯ ai palam
¯ ¯ ¯ ¯ pragmatic norms, this message is self-contradictory. Dur-
banana
ing a lesson in Vasanthi’s beginner class about construct-
ing simple sentences in subject-object-verb order, a stu-
This didactic exchange, characterized by a student volun- dent reads his written sentence aloud in Tamil and fin-
teering a word in colloquial Jaffna Tamil and a teacher then ishes by uttering “period” in English. Vasanthi insists that
translating it into literary Tamil, reinforces an intergenera- he say “muttu. pulli” instead of “period,” even though Eu-
tional gap in linguistic competence. Without Nilima’s assis- ropean missionaries introduced this punctuation conven-
tance, students appear unable to convert their elementary tion to modern Tamil literature only in the 19th century
knowledge of colloquial Jaffna Tamil into more specialized (Kandiah 1978). Because Nilima and Vasanthi learned to
knowledge of literary Tamil. speak in colloquial and literary Tamil while living in the
Only after writing an unfamiliar example on the board, Jaffna homeland, children generally accept their idiosyn-
“ ” does Nilima first in- cratic practices of mixing grammatical forms and adhering
troduce a compound word in colloquial Jaffna Tamil: to different pragmatic conventions as having an important
social function. Later, former students will similarly draw
(1) S: appatinn- .¯
. . . i enna ticher on their own knowledge and skill of different colloquial
what is the meaning teacher and literary languages to reconstruct their personal expe-
(2) N: maniy¯
. osε d. ing ˙ d. ing riences as heritage language speakers in more empowering
bell sound ding ding ways.
(3) S: bell bell sound
bell bell sound
(4) N: ippo n¯an solradε ell¯am soll-i Ethnolinguistic identities of Indian and Sri
now all of you say it like I say it Lankan Tamil youth
(5) N: maniy¯
. osai man.i osε ¯
bell sound bell sound Although it may seem that placement in heritage language
a ˙ . appat. innu
(6) N: n¯ngal . . solluv¯
om classes determines ethnolinguistic identification, this is not
¯ will say
we it in this manner always the case in Montreal. Instead, Tamil youth may ex-
(7) N: maniyōsai
. ploit their diverse linguistic repertoires in standard and
782Social life of a heritage language industry American Ethnologist
nonstandard, as well as colloquial and literary, varieties (2) j’enregistre ma voix ça l’aire d’un garçon.
of Tamil, French, and English to construct social identi- I record my voice I sound like a guy.
ties or enact personae that contest their negative depiction (3) Alors, TSE,´ je me ferrai pas poign´e
as “semi-speakers” (Zentella 1997). Common to English- So, you know, I’m not going to be had.
speaking North America, this stereotype subjects minority (4) ennat¯a, ennat¯a, enna romba cirit¯a? [laughter]
youth to a double standard of cultural authenticity imposed What, what, what’s so funny?
on them by language elites in both majority and minority (5) Alors, qu’est-ce que je disais? Bon lorsque
linguistic communities. In Montreal, where minority youth So, what was I saying? Okay, when
sometimes acquire greater expertise in written Qu´eb´ecois (6) j’étais adolescente, comme depuis secondaire
French than do their Qu´eb´ecois de souche peers (whose I was a teenager, like since the 9th
colloquial use of nonstandard French joual may interfere (7) trois, j’avais pas de contact avec des gens de
with their acquisition of standard Qu´eb´ecois French), ac- grade, I didn’t interact with the people of
cusations of political disloyalty are specifically targeted at (8) mon pays mais, disons que j’en avais mais
those who choose to speak a language other than French in my country, let’s say I did but
public. Accusations of cultural inauthenticity instead arise (9) c’était pas des meilleurs, alors, qu’est-ce qu’on
from conflicting attitudes between first-generation immi- it wasn’t the best, so, what we
grants and second-generation minorities regarding the fu- (10) faisait , comme, je trouvais ça honteux de mettre
ture value of Tamil in the diaspora. The following vignettes would do, like, I thought it was embarrassing to wear
demonstrate how a young Sri Lankan Tamil woman and an (11) le bindi ou bien de parler dans ma la langue ou
Indian Tamil teenage boy negotiate these interethnic and a bindi or to speak in my language or
intergenerational conflicts by narrating or enacting alterna- (12) quoi que ce soit, je trouvais ça comme insultant
tive tales of personal empowerment. whatever, I found it like insulting
Selvamani was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in 1980, three (13) pour moi, okay, parce que, TSÉ, ils nous traitaient
years before the onset of civil war. She and her family first personally, okay, because, you know, they would call
relocated to an Indian refugee camp in 1983 before per- us
manently seeking asylum in Canada in 1986. Now, Selva- (14) comme paki, en g´e n´eral d`es que t’´etait brun
mani resides with her grandparents, parents, and four sib- pakis, normally, as long as you were brown
lings in a three-bedroom apartment in a predominantly (15) avant c’etait le terme paki qui était connu.
Sri Lankan Tamil neighborhood of Montreal. She attended before paki was the term that was known.
French-language primary and secondary schools and then (16) M: Ç’a diminué maintenant.
later an English-language college and university. She also It’s not as bad now.
attended a heritage language class in literary Tamil at the
(17) S: Oui, c¸’a diminu´e maintenant
Sri Durgai Amman temple for three years. From this ex-
Yes, it’s not as bad now
perience, Selvamani has retained only basic knowledge of
(18) oui, comparé avant oui.
the Tamil alphabet and little comprehension of religious
yes, compared to before, yes.
and political oratory in literary Tamil. At home, she con-
(19) TSÉ, ils nous traitaient, ils disaient des mauvais
verses with her parents and grandparents mostly in col-
You know, they would call us, they would say really
loquial Jaffna Tamil and with her siblings in a mixture of
bad
Tamil, French, and English. I first met Selvamani (S) and
(20) mots, carrément, mais des mauvais mots,
her sister Mala (M) at the Durgai temple, where their family
words, I mean really, bad words.
worships at least once a week. We arranged to meet several
(21) Je m’excuse mais l`a , ils sont des retard´es.
weeks later at the temple steps to swap stories of our mu-
I beg your pardon but, you know, they are retarded.
tual childhood experiences in Montreal. During this conver-
sation, Selvamani explained to me that she prefers to self- For the most part, Selvamani speaks to me in standard
identify as Qu´eb´ecois because of her habitual use of French Qu´eb´ecois French, our customary language of communica-
and as Indian because she spent her early childhood years tion. Only after making a droll observation about the pitch
living in Tamil Nadu. When asked by strangers if she is Sri of her voice does she switch to colloquial Tamil (bold) to
Lankan, she denies it to avoid being reminded of painful pointedly ask Mala why she is laughing. This aside, the most
experiences of war and racism. In the following excerpt, Sel- notable linguistic feature of Selvamani’s narrative is her use
vamani describes interactions with Sri Lankan and Filipino of joual, both through the inclusion of nonstandard lexi-
neighbors that led her to take this stance. con (capitalized) and overlaying stress patterns (indicated
with accent marks). For example, in lines 10, 14, and 21, she
(1) S: Parce que n’importe quand quand says “faisait́;,” “en g´e n´eral,” “je m’excus´e,” and “l`a” with the
Because whenever prosodic accuracy of a native joual speaker, even though
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