Sri Lankan English - Detailed Description of Pronunciation Differences - Consonants

Consonants

• cat, lad

The sounds of “t” (/t/ - voiceless alveolar plosive) and “d” (/d/ - voiced alveolar plosive) in words like cat /kæt/ and lad /læd/ are often replaced by /ʈ/ (voiceless retroflex plosive) and /ɖ/ (voiced retroflex plosive) respectively in SLE.

• pull, take, kit

When “p”,”t” or “k” occur at the beginning of a word (as in “pull”, “take” and “kit”) or a stressed syllable (as in the second syllable of “potato”), they are aspirated (pronounced /pʰʊl/, /tʰeɪk/, /kʰɪt/…) in BrE and AmE. This is rare among Sri Lankans.

• thin, this

These two sounds of “th” (in /θɪn/ and /ðɪs/) are fricatives (/θ/ - voiceless dental fricative, /ð/ - voiced dental fricative) in BrE and AmE, but plosives - /t̪/ (voiceless dental plosive) and /d̪/ (voiced dental plosive) respectively - in SLE.

• ship, chin

The “sh” sound (/ʃ/- voiceless postalveolar fricative)in “ship /ʃɪp/” and “ch” sound (/tʃ/) in “chin /tʃɪn/” are produced further back in the mouth in SLE than in BrE and AmE. So /ʃ/ becomes /ɕ-/ (voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative) in SLE. Though some people unfamiliar with English even replace /ʃ/ with /s/ (voiceless alveolar fricative), making “ship” sound like “sip,” it is not an acceptad form.

• vision, measure

Most Sri Lankans are unfamiliar with the /ʒ/ (voiced postalveolar fricative) sound in words like “vision /ˈvɪʒən/” and “measure /ˈmɛʒə(r)/”, and therefore replace it with their “sh” sound in “ship.”

• sip, zip

As the “z” sound (/z/ - voiced alveolar fricative) does not occur in Sinhala, some Sri Lankans tend to pronounce “zip /zɪp/” like “sip /sɪp/” (/s/ - voiceless alveolar fricative), or even ship /ʃɪp/ (/ʃ/- voiceless postalveolar fricative), but those familiar with English generally pronounce it correctly (unlike in the preceding case).

• wail, veil

Many Sri Lankans tend to pronounce both “w” (/w/ - voiced labiovelar approximant) and “v” (/v/ - voiced labiodental fricative) as /ʋ/ (labiodental approximant).

• pin, fin

As the “f” (/f/ - voiceless labiodental fricative) sound do not occur in Sinhala, some Sri Lankans pronounce it like “p” (/p/ - voiceless bilabial plosive), but those familiar with English generally do not do so and ridicule that "p" pronunciation too. On the other hand, certain people - especially from rather unban areas - occasionally put the /f/ sound where /p/ should be, e.g. sales rep /-ref/

• skill, smell

Some people, generally those unfamiliar with English, tend to have an almost involuntary /i-/ before words that begin with an “s” preceding a consonant. So words like skill /skɪl/, smɛll /smel/… are pronounced /iskil/, /ismel/. This is also ridiculed by those who speak Standard Sri Lankan English.