220 Terms of address in use 



Mr. Justice Stark begins with what he considers "the 

 fundamental terms of address/' and gives as such six — to, 

 tarn a, tamuse, tamunnehe, tamunnanse, and tamunwahanse — 

 with the various degrees of respect or disrespect with which 

 each is associated in the native mind. As pronouns of the 

 second person derived from the root <5) ta } they are certainly 

 distinguishable from a variety of others, which are now used 

 as "terms of address;" but in the enumeration of the latter 

 class Mr. Justice Stark has fallen into a few errors. Of 

 these I may here notice seven omissions, which are pronouns 

 of the third person, applied as terms of address in the second 

 person, viz. q^)®&5 umbahe, qS) umba, eg© nuba, cDQ oba, 

 G2)Q0e£)£d(^cd oba-vahanse £g£D£)3>2>J(s)cd nuba-vahanse and 

 gQDc^^f^od muba-vahanse of which the two last only are 

 noticed by Mr. Stark. 



It is unnecessary to remark on the above omitted terms, as 

 I have fully treated of them in the Sidath-Sangarawa ; (see 

 pp. 153 — 168,) but it will be observed, that Mr. Stark is far 

 from being correct when he states that nubawahanse is the 

 term now employed in lieu of obavahanse. If he meant, in 

 reference to the Scriptures, of which a new version is being 

 prepared under the auspices of the Bible Society, he was 

 correct ; but if otherwise, I need scarcely remark that oba- 

 vahanse is the term in universal use amongst the Singhalese. 

 There is, nevertheless, no objection to the change in the 

 forthcoming version of the Bible, especially in view of the 

 fact, that ^QS^D^d© like §£)0&)£d®d> (see extract from 

 Katanawalia, post) is the term frequently found in books. 



The term €)S5D£d®£d vahanse, though, now no longer used, 

 except as an affix, was nevertheless anciently used by itself 

 to convey what an Englishman would express by " your 

 Excellency," " your Majesty," "your Highness," or "your 

 Lordship." Thus in the Amawatura: 



