摘要
马来西亚的印度人社群来自印度,以淡米尔语言群占大多数。印裔族群的内部差异相当大,可以从语言、宗教、社会地位、教育、种姓分别开来;也依来源地分成两大阶层:一为来自印度东南部的穷困劳工,二为来自斯里兰卡受教育懂英语的淡米尔人。本文拟从语言的角度,实地调查马来西亚老中青3个不同年龄层的印裔,探讨印裔的语言问题。研究发现,不论在社会或家庭里,马来西亚印裔的常用语言是淡米尔语,其次为英语和马来语。但淡米尔语的使用在逐代减少,而英语有慢慢取代淡米尔语的趋势。在政经文教条件的影响下,印裔族群语言态度开始改变,要维持淡米尔语为主的语言,情况并不乐观。
Majority of the Indian ethnic in Malaysia who emigrated from India are Tamil speakers. This ethnic is greatly diversified internally in various aspects such as language, religion, social status, education, caste, even from the origin of homeland, either the poor Tamil laborer originated from Southern India or the English educated Tamil from Sri Lanka. This paper intends to look into the language issue of Malaysia Indian by investigating three different generations so as to indicate the changes in language use. It is found that Tamil language is still the most widely used language in the community or family. Though, the usage of English language, and even Malay language are in the growth which may be replacing Tamil language in the near future. With the changes in the language attitude, the language maintenance of Tamil is hardly optimistic.
出处
《南洋问题研究》
CSSCI
2011年第4期72-80,共9页
Southeast Asian Affairs
