Ayu-Bo-Wan to the Universe !

The Voice: Who Recorded It?

The person who spoke the words "Ayubowan" (ආයුබෝවන්) into deep space is Dr. Kamal de Abrew (K. Kamal de Abrew).

He is a highly respected Sri Lankan scholar, linguist, and academic. Rather than a voice actor or a political figure, he was an intellectual dedicated to the study of languages, particularly English and colloquial Sinhala.

2. The Backstory: How Did He Get This Rare Opportunity?

The opportunity came entirely by chance in early 1977.

• The Cornell Connection: NASA had tasked the famous astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan to head a committee to create the Voyager Golden Record. Carl Sagan was a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
• The Search for 55 Languages: Sagan's team wanted to record brief greetings in 55 different global languages. Instead of dealing with the bureaucratic red tape of contacting global embassies and foreign ministries, Sagan and his team walked around the Cornell campus, recruiting international professors, researchers, and postgraduate students who happened to be on site.
• The Serendipitous Request: At the time, Kamal de Abrew was a postgraduate student at Cornell University working toward his PhD in Linguistics (which he completed in 1981). Because of his presence on campus and his background in linguistics, Sagan’s team approached him and asked if he could provide a greeting representing the Sinhala language.

3. The Choice of "Ayubowan"

While other languages on the record opted for long, translated sentences (e.g., the Swedish greeting was recorded by a computer programmer saying, "Greetings from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on the planet Earth"), Dr. de Abrew chose absolute, elegant simplicity.

He simply said: "Ayubowan!" (ආයුබෝවන්)

Sagan’s official documentation at NASA translates this for the international (and potentially extraterrestrial) audience as: "Wish You a Long Life." It perfectly captured the cultural essence, warmth, and linguistic depth of Sri Lanka in a single word, lasting just about two seconds on the track.

4. Where is He Now? Is He Still Alive?

Yes, Dr. Kamal de Abrew is alive.

After completing his studies at Cornell, he returned to Sri Lanka and continued a stellar career in academia. Over the decades, he has served as a Professor of English at various institutions, including working with the Cornell Language Acquisition Lab on archiving rare Sri Lankan language recordings, and teaching at the American National College (ANC) in Colombo. He remains a highly revered, active figure in Sri Lankan academic and linguistic circles.