Sri Lankan English

Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the English language as spoken in Sri Lanka.

The earliest English speakers in present-day Sri Lanka date back to the days of the British Empire, the era of Royal Navy dominance, and the British colonial presence in South Asia.

An SLE consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary and author of the book Knox's Words notes that British readers first encountered loan words from Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) in a book published in 1681 entitled An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies. Words from that book became used internationally: the best known is Buddha but others include Anaconda, betel leaf, bo tree, pooja, rattan, rillow, Vedda, and wanderoo.

SLE became more indigenous in the mid-19th century. In addition to the usual terms for flora and fauna, new idioms, referred to as Lankanisms, emerged.

Some years after independence in 1948, English ceased being the only official language of Sri Lanka, but it remained in use across the island's ethnic groups. It evolved to incorporate more Sinhalese vocabulary and grammatical conventions such as the use of "no?" as a tag question at the end of a sentence.

In spite of English's long history in Sri Lanka, 21st century Sri Lankan academicians debate about the legitimacy of SLE as a separate dialect.

A significant difference between British English and Sri Lankan English usage is its use of particular tenses. Many educated Sri Lankans would use past perfect tense to talk about things that happened at a fixed time in the recent past instead of past simple. Many Sri Lankans still use words such as frock (dress) and the question form 'to whom' which are not familiar to modern British English speakers below a certain age. Another example of typical Sri Lankan English is posing questions by changing the intonation, e.g. "you are hungry?"

There are certain nouns added to English by Sri Lankans and therefore a native English speaker coming to Sri Lanka for the first time would not know what Shorteats (snacks) and string hoppers (a typical Sri Lankan food) mean. If you read a daily newspaper, you may find a number of typical Sri Lankan usages, which may not be accepted in standard British English: such as 'lots of equipments', 'information system', 'education minister'

Some of the usages mentioned are common in Indian English as well