Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By: The Ecolinguistics of Tholkappiyam

Abstract

The term “ecolinguistics” is relatively a recent discussion with Eliar Haugen (1972) bringing up the concept of “The ecology of Language”. Since then, various methods and approaches to the field have been suggested to study the language-ecology interaction, primarily from the west. As a result, ecolinguistics is conceived as a new-born western discipline. However, Ecolinguistics, as the term suggests is the specialized study of language-ecology interaction. The “feeling” of the existence of the necessary relationship between language and ecology even before makes us ask the question if the concept of ecolinguistics has not been discussed by linguists before 20th Century. The ancient Tamil linguistic treatise called Tholkappiyam (dated between 6th BCE to 8th CE) presents the fundamental nature of the relationship between ecology, language and culture through the theory called Tinai. The paper primarily draws attention to look into the linguistic philosophy of Tholkappiyam through an ecological perspective. From the ecolinguistic perspective, the paper analyses Tinai based on three criteria: Ecosophy, Aspects of Language-ecology-culture interaction and the theoretical framework of Tinai. Having analysed from the aforementioned criteria, the paper advocates that the framework of Tinai can contribute to the ecolinguistic studies parallel to the philosophies of Edward Sapir (1912) and Hagege (1985).

Man and Woman Identity in Dalihan Na Tolu

“…The conviction is defined as unworthy or called erasure and worthy or important or called salience. However, the story is concluded in narratives as the last part of ecolinguistics (Ahmed et al, 2021;Vaishali & Rukmini, 2021;Wei, 2018).…”

“…An analysis of ecology and language is also applied in Tholkappyam; an ancient Tamil linguist to see the relationship of ecology, language, and culture through the Tinai theory. The findings stated that the Tinai frame is applicable to overlook the interrelation of culture, language, and ecology (Vaishali & Rukmini, 2021). In another analysis of Iranian high school English Textbook, by analyzing six high school English textbooks it was found that there was very little or low expression of the environment due to the limited ability of the book's producer to create English material that related to the ecology (Faramarzi & Janfeshan, 2021).…”