Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

as it is used in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

, a term dating from 1972. Sri Lankan English is principally categorised as the Standard Variety and the Nonstandard Variety, which is called as "Not Pot English". The classification of SLE as a separate dialect of English is controversial. English in Sri Lanka is spoken by approximately 23.8% of the population (2012 est.), and widely used for official and commercial purposes. Sri Lankan English being the native language of approximately 5,400 people thus challenges Braj Kachru's placement of it in the Outer Circle. Furthermore, it is taught as a compulsory second language in local schools from grade one to thirteen, and Sri Lankans pay special attention to learning English both as children and adults. Even today, Sri Lankans say that someone who had access and exposure to English in their childhood were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. The British colonial presence in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

led to the introduction of English to Sri Lanka. Since 1681, some words have been borrowed from Sinhala and Tamil by English. In 1948,

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

gained independence from the United Kingdom, and English was no longer the only

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

. In subsequent years, inequality in access to education and national conflict have confounded the development and the use of SLE, particularly in Sri Lankan literature. SLE varies from British or American English in elements such as colloquialisms, vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, and emphasis of syllables. SLE generally favours British spellings ("colour", "programme", "analyse," and "centre") over American spellings ("color", "program", "analyze," and "center"). SLE also favours the British "Q Before P" rule (i.e., ".) over the reverse (i.e., .").

Sri Lankan words in English

Sri Lankan words that were borrowed by the English and are used in the language are recorded in ''A Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies''. Such words often relate to

flora Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for f ...

and

fauna Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and '' funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively ...

: * anaconda * betel *

rattan Rattan, also spelled ratan (from Malay language, Malay: ''rotan''), is the name for roughly 600 species of Old World climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. The greatest diversity of rattan palm species and genera are in the clos ...

* wanderoo *

Beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The name beriberi was possibly borrowed in the 18th century from the Sinhalese phrase (bæri bæri, “I canno ...

Attitudes

Having taken root in

(then

) in 1796, Sri Lankan English has gone through over two centuries of development. In terms of its socio-cultural setting, Sri Lankan English can be explored largely in terms of different stages of the country's class and racial tension, economy, social disparity, and postwar rehabilitation and reconciliation. For instance, the country witnessed a general lowering in the standard of English following the Sinhala Only Act that was introduced in 1956. English as a medium of education in schools were dropped, and the Act also prompted the emigration of the predominantly English-speaking Burgher community of Sri Lanka. That resulted in the Sinhala language gaining more prominence in all domains of Sri Lanka, but its influence on Sri Lankan English also increased. In fact, the merging of the two languages resulted in a so-called "Singlish", which remains a significant feature of Sri Lankan English.Meyler, Michael. 2009. "Sri Lankan English." 540–541. That period was followed by the 1970s revival of an open-market economy, the increased exposure to foreign media and the internet, a rising expatriate community and the growth of English-medium "international schools" The Sri Lankan government also recognised the importance of English not only as a life skill needed to maintain contact with the outside world but also as a necessary link language in a country that is home to several cultures and ethnicities. Just like the other languages spoken in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan English has also come to have its own classifications of both regional and class dialects. According to one study, it was found that colloquial features and pronunciations that distinguish Sri Lankan English from the standard form is highly influenced by the country's mother tongue. One such example is its notably-large number of Sinhalese

loanwords A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

used. There are also many loanwords borrowed from

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

, Malay,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Dutch, and Portuguese languages.Pathirana, Renuka. 2016. "Dialectal Variations of Sri Lankan English due to Mother Tongue Influence of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim." Moreover, it is hard to point out an exact number of Sri Lankan English speakers. A relatively-small portion of Sri Lankans, namely the Colombo elite, considers English its

first language A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period hypothesis, critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' ...

. That community arguably makes up a prominent part of Sri Lanka's social, cultural, political, and commercial circles. Additionally, just like any other language, SLE is constantly evolving with the new generation. That is particularly noticeable when one compares the English used by older generations who spoke a more "colonial" English that was highly influenced by the British during and after

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

. Despite such changes, the question of what constitutes a standard form of Sri Lankan English remains unanswered. Within certain social circles, the term "Sri Lankan English" is closely referred to a form of "broken" English, which is not spoken fluently. However, others disagree with that notion and acknowledges that SLE is a valid form. In spite of its wide usage, many English-speakers do not acknowledge the existence of the Sri Lankan variety of English. In terms of class distinctions, the so-called

Colombo Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...

elite of the "Colombo 07" families of Sri Lanka consider English to be their first language, and the variety of English spoken by them is considered to be closer to the international standard of English. However, the further one goes from the main areas of Colombo, the greater is the influence of Sinhalese and

on the English that is spoken there, with varying degrees of bilingualism.

Colloquialisms

Colloquialism Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

s have emerged in SLE. Some involve

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

. Others involve

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

(such as tense and

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

s),

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

, and intonation.

Vocabulary

Grammar

Words and tags may be added, subtracted, overused, or changed in order and tense in SLE.

Pronunciation

Speakers of Sri Lankan English have varying ability to produce certain sounds. Again, the sound of in "f''a''ther" and in "l''u''ck" are absent in Sinhala; so, Sri Lankans may have difficulty pronouncing them in SLE. However, these sounds were adapted to Sinhalese alphabet, (e.g., ෆ, and fa), thus many Sri Lankans experience no trouble in proper pronunciation of these sounds. Syncope occurs, as it does in many other languages. For example, "exercise" and "conversation" may be pronounced "excise" and "conversion". Additionally, some differences in pronunciation may relate to

socioeconomic Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

background and level of education. For example, a word like "note" is pronounced with a

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

, , in standard English. In SLE, it is pronounced with the

monophthong A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...

; and is accepted as normal in Sri Lanka. However, pronouncing a word like "hall" () as * is not accepted. The non-standard variety "Not Pot English" is formed based on the variant pronunciations of /o/ and /ɔ/ sounds by the Sri Lankan speakers. The confusion between full and half /o/ sounds is noted as a class marker; the label "Not Pot" itself reflects this mispronunciation. Confused words for Sri Lankan speakers include hall and hole, ball and bowl, and phone and call. Examples of some other words pronounced with a monophthong include "take" and "made", "cake" and "rake", and "go" and "no". Those unfamiliar with English may add an involuntary /i-/ prior to words like "skill" and "smell". However, this is not standard in SLE.

Other features

Some elided

syllables A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

in English are pronounced in SLE. For example, "different" would be pronounced "diff-er-ent" () and "basically" would be pronounced "bay-si-cal-ly" (). Also, some syllables normally unstressed and sounded as /ə/ may be sounded as /a(ː)/ (or, /o/, /u/, /e/, or /i/). For example, the word "camera" () may become . In SLE, the first syllable may be emphasised rather than the usual second or third. Examples include "address", "cassette", "dessert", "museum", "hotel", and "gazette". One may also see differences in the allocation of primary and secondary syllable stresses. However, in SLE, usual British English pronunciations are favored over American English pronunciations.

Major Publications

* ''The Postcolonial Identity of Sri Lankan English'' by Manique Gunesekera * ''A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English'' by Michael MeylerMeyler, M., & Fernando, D. (2007). ''A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English''. Colombo: Michael Meyler.

References

External links

* Hussein P. Dictionary of Sri Lankan English. Self-published and sold at ''Mirisgala'' website. Accessed 30 January 2014.
A brief history of Sri Lankan English
Newsletter article at (archived)

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

website.
An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies

Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...

.
A review of ''Knox's Words''
'' Sunday Observer'', Sri Lanka. 15 August 2004.
''Knox's Words.''
Ondaatje website.

''Sunday Observer'', Sri Lanka. 3 February 2002.
Sri Lankan English (SLE) Vocabulary: A New Vocabulary in a New Variety of English
Article in a journal on OUSL website.
OED Introduction to Sri Lankan English
{{British Ceylon period topics E Dialects of English