During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch government who had occupied Batavia in Java exiled native rebels and royalty to Sri Lanka, and they made their first settlements in Hambantota and Kirinde.
[5] Today, Sri Lankan Malay, is spoken in the Central (Kandy), Southern (Hambantota and Kirinde), and Western (Slave Island) provinces of the country.
Sebastian Nydorf has produced “A Grammar of Upcountry Malay” highlighting the said regional variations, however, his efforts have been criticised for having widening disparities within the language.
[6] Malays who first arrived in Sri Lanka, keeping with their customs and practices, used the gundul alphabet for writing, which was the Arabic script with five additional letters.
[6] This practice had survived until the mid-1940s, and had only been used among specific individuals (such as religious/communal figures) and served limited and exclusive purposes as a minority language within the country.
Concerning the Cosmopolitan Colombo community, where the level of education is high, the community typically shows strong linguistic vitality in SLM in the oldest to middle generations and rapidly decreasing linguistic competence (to nil) in the vernacular in the young generation.
[8] In sharp contrast is the speech community of Kirinda, with low education and employment levels who still have SLM as a dominant language.
Therefore, the restructuring process that occurs in SLM has several grammatical categories that are absent from other Malay varieties, but are found in both Sinhala and Tamil.
goppetummango-yaƞe-tolakgoppe tumman go-yaƞ e-tolakMy friend pushed meAs an archaic feature of Malay lingua franca, it is most likely that this feature was maintained from the original varieties of the SLM community and its adaptation led to the development of a new case that distinguishes SLM from its adstrates.