evidence: Language has played a critical role in Sri Lanka, starting long before the civil war began in 1983. Immediately after independence, a reckless policy to make Sinhala the sole official language was implemented, negatively impacting the status of other minority languages, especially Tamil. [...] In Sri Lanka, opening a school to teach Tamil as a second language to adults is virtually unheard of. Yet, in 2019, this is precisely what Amita Arudpragasam did when she established Learning Tamil. Growing up, Amita had to work hard to improve her Tamil outside of the education system and could not find suitable adult language courses in Sri Lanka. This inspired her to start the school, which has attracted more than 250 students and teachers like Sabitha and Manel. [...] Reconciliation and linguistic justice are at the center of the Sinhala students’ motivations to learn Tamil. As one student said, "I felt that I had to learn the language because we just don’t give it the prominence it deserves."