A Sociolinguistic Study of the Fixed Linguistic Forms Contained in Sinhala Inscriptions: Based on the Sinhala Inscriptions of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries AD

Abstract

The main aim of modern sociolinguistics is to study the human language based on speech community as there is an inseparable relationship between a society and its language, and also these two are inter- dependable. Register which is one of the main part of sociolinguistic scope can be primarily defined as the sort of variety of a language according to usage. Registers can be created or used for a particular purpose or in a particular communicative situation as wished by speekers or writers. According to the written records of Sinhalese, registers or varieties of usage of Sinhala language can be identified from 9th century AD. Therefore, the aim of this research is to identity and examine the registers of Sinhala language based on inscriptions related to from 9th Century AD to end of the 10th Century AD under the research problem of what are the Sinhalese registers and its significant features on inscriptional language ?. As a primary source of studying the Sinhala language, inscriptions are strong enough to provide valuable and rare primary facts of each and every components of Sinhalese written language. Using literary survey for collecting primary and secondary data and applying qualitative method in this research, it could find a large number of registers related to the particular purposes or in particular communicative situations of political-economy as well as socio-cultural facts.