If we draw an analogy between language and music, I seriously doubt that Coltrane, Monk and Miles Davies could have contributed to the creation of a new music language like Jazz unless they were fully conversant with the basics of music. Fundamentals precede improvisation. The discussion about Sri Lankan English I believe is putting the cart before the bullock.

As others have argued, learning internationally accepted English facilitates better communication with a wider audience. This doesn’t preclude the use of Sri Lankan idioms or “colour” to enhance the narration of something specific to Sri Lanka. This type of improvisation can be made possible only with the mastery of the “standard” language and not by standardising our version of it. What is interesting about improvisation is that it takes you to a place where you’ve never been before. Standardising the improvisation undermines reaching that place as it becomes just part of the commonplace.

On a more practical note, as it has been argued by others, being hindered by the use of idiosyncratic Sri Lankan English cannot be a good thing. It was only after I read Strunk and White’s “Element’s of Style” that I went from being a C+ student to an A student. All of a sudden my professors could understand what the hell I was writing about! My Sri Lankan English obviously confused the hell out of them prior to that.

I must say that I do appreciate the work that you are doing with relation to documenting the idiosyncrasies of Sri Lankan English as it is a rich vein to be mined. Let’s however keep Sri Lankan idiosyncrasies just the way they are – idiosyncratic.

Cheers mate

In each college program I have taught in we have used American textbooks, American English writing conventions–all for the purpose of supporting students majoring in subjects like Science, IT, Business Management. Why? Simply put: most of the learning materials today are in US English. And, if students wish American degrees, well, they need to be able to write American English.

The Chinese at first thought they could do without this universal language. Well, go to China today. Hundreds of millions of students are learning American English, not least because, individually and collectively, they have understood its necessity. No one is talking of Chinese-English, nor are Arabs debating Arab-English. Nor is this an issue in any other land that I can think of. Why it should surface in Lanka is beyond me. I suspect politics is behind it all.

Distasteful as this must be to nationalistic-minded people, we need to be practical and think of the future of our students. Encouraging local ESL use is detrimental to the acquisition of English that is incomprehensible outside our borders.

I understand the costs involved in ESL re-training teachers in a more universal tongue. Sri Lankan English would be the cheaper option, but only in the short term. The costs will come in lost opportunities internationally, not least in our students missing out on higher education abroad.

As Banangoda Man vividly explains it is a case of the “hunter becoming the hunted”.The English speaking elites who flaunt their refinement to others by speaking English in a way that they think is close to the Queen of England find themselves in an embarrassing situation when the native English speakers in England say that they can’t understand!This is the result of treating an instrument of knowledge as a sacred object that should be worshipped! Another humourous equivalant is the way the village officers or Aarachchilas treated the villagers in the colonial days.They showed to the villagers that they were very close to the British Officers in the city and treated the villagers like trash. But when they were in the company of the “White Masters” they were treated in the same way,which they would like to keep away from the villagers!

One cannot move forward in this global village unless we look at the idiosynchrocasies of a nation.

As I have pointed out ad nauseam that we need to gear ourselves forward to the 21st century and not be hung up on medieval English.

Wicked is no longer a term for being cruel. It means in teenage parlance ‘brilliant’.

So cannot we be a wee bit tolerant and swallow our pride in assimilating Sri Lankan English.

Once you have mastered the rudiments of a language it is only befitting that we make our own interpretations.

We honestly need tofat-forward to the 21st century.

I read what you had written with a great deal of interest..There is nothing ‘wrong’ with SL Eng. and perhaps it will fit well into the literature mode like other Englishes have around the world..however I don’t believe that it will be ‘accepted’ as the ‘correct English’.
All who have ventured into this study are educated in the SE to begin with and THEY will never use SL. E. unless and when necessary.
It will also be seen as ‘standardising ‘broken’ English’ . For as long as SE rules the job market where the writing of it is required the users of SE will always be prefered or even required to those who use other Englishes for the simple reason that it is the most understood globally. Even in the Public and Private enterprises in SL those who use the queen’s english will have an advantage. SL E can stand as a derivant of SE because there is no real grammer or structure to it..
Like your work, congrats..take care! Suha.

Michael, I was unfamiliar with your work until now. I can now see the focus of ‘Sri Lankan English’ in your work – the English as is spoken/used in Sri Lanka.

I now realise, my piece is way off topic – as it is about English as spoken by Sri Lankans abroad and how we are perceived in some international settings from our ‘lingual presentation’. (an afterthought. Audiences are puzzled because SL people sound extremely fluent in English yet make fundamental mistakes phonetically. I am often asked why)

On the other hand, more and more affluent Sri Lankans send their children abroad for their studies at present, and it goes without saying that they will pick up international English in the process. Isn’t there the chance that those who follow their studies here will find themselves at a certain disadvantage even here in the future because of their local English, especially when it comes to higher-paying types of employment? Isn’t there the possibility that what happened to the present generation of Sri Lankans because of their “Sinhala only” (for reasons too well-known to discuss here) could happen to the next one because of their “Sri Lankan English only”?

The second comment by Advocate about the ‘pin’ ‘king’ and ‘tin’ has an important relevance, if I may elaborate.

I have a few more examples below but first, in my view HOW you speak (abroad) does a lot more than convey what you are trying to say. Also if English is used as an international language it is necessary that everyone understands it, whatever English it is. IOW, it has to be recognised as ‘English’ by people internationally, not just other Sri Lankans.

Your English says a lot more than what you have to say: People in English speaking countries already have an awareness that there are countries where English is not the first language. When we make GAFFES (!) in our English abroad we immediately signal to our audience that we are from such a place. The problem is, perhaps unkindly, there is a presumption that the speaker hasn’t had a good education generally, as evidenced by that gaffe, when in reality the speaker may have had an excellent general education in SL. Maybe even went to Visaka Vidyalaya or St Thomas’ College.

We know this thing very well in SL already. Someone mentioned ‘iskool’ earlier and I would add ‘shoketsorber’ (shock absorber) and ‘put ball’. The previous generation to mine used to describe people from the outstations as ‘not, pot, got haaaa-u leeee-u’ (the ‘not’ pronounced as in the Sinhala short ‘o’ and the last two words should be ‘have’ and ‘leave’ but pronounced in a way more comfortable to the Sinhala tongue). People who pronounced like this signalled their origins and our narrow-minded society made judgements based on this (‘goday’). (I’m not sure if this is still true).

Exactly the same happens to the English speaking SL elite when they go abroad, to the UK say. I hear the words ‘allowed’ pronounced ‘aloved’ and New York becoming ‘Niv York’. And there is the ‘Niv ear’. There is often the accent on the wrong syllable (‘apparently’ with accent on first syllable) and mixing up of ‘v’ and ‘w’. I even hear ‘moowies’ and ‘wideo’ from SL people who have lived in the West for decades. The audience is puzzled. An English person once asked me if the speaker has a speech impediment!

(‘Aloved’ and ‘Niv York’ – this is because the ‘iskool’ people say ‘lau’ instead of ‘love’. So the mistaken SL elite abroad think ‘Allow’ and ‘New York’ if pronounced correctly is incorrect – ie. ‘goday’!)

Does the writer Mike mean Sri Lankan English should validate ‘aloved’ and ‘Niv York’ and ‘moovies’ and ‘wideo’?

If so, what chance the Oxford Dictionary picks it up as an alternative pronunciation?

Now an important distinction. Though we are English speakers (we are) but we may be speaking to ENGLISH-LISTNERS. In SL we are not English listeners, we are Sinhala or Tamil listers. Let me explain the difference. In SL whilst we speak grammatically correct English, we actually speak with Sinhala phonetics (see above Advocate’s observation about the aspirant in front of the plosives ‘k’ ‘t’ ‘p’, and the Sinhala long ‘o’ vowel sound in ‘home’ rather than the diphthong ‘eu’, and the Sinhala hard ‘r’ versus the English soft ‘r’. I can go on …). We listen in Sinhala-phonetics. We understand each other in both Sinhala and English but in both languages we speak with the same phonetics (with added ‘f’). But international speakers do not have that advantage in being able to hear in Sinhala, though the language spoken is English. Often English listeners hear a language being spoken but do not immediate realise it is English. For example, when the French speak English (except those with language laboratory training) it sounds like they are speaking French. Similarly with other nationalities. What does it sound like when an Englishman or a Japanese person speaks Sinhala? Isn’t it true that some of us find it funny?

Differentiating ‘SLE’ from incorrect English and slang is, whilst having its technical difficulties, is also in my experience heavily charged with social politics in SL and in the diaspora. The very people who look down upon the ‘goday’ in SL are in turn similarly regarded in the English speaking countries for their gaffes!
For this reason, after moving abroad I took a language lab training course from an audio course I bought from the BBC. My SL friends considered that to be an insult to …. (wait for it …) an insult to them (!) as apparently ‘we Sri Lankans speak the best English in the World’. Unfortunately, despite their sentiments and my excellent education in SL people had difficulty understanding what I was saying, until this audio course and some hard work.

We can learn from our children born and brought up in English-speaking countries I suppose. (but I have to relate an incident where I heard my SL friend telling off his 7 year old son – who was incidentally born and brought up in England – that it is pronounced ‘wegitables’ and not ‘vegitables’! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I should have killed him there and then! LOL!)

I might suggest to Mike that Sri Lankan English can be validated as something like Creole, in which case anything goes. But that may be considered somewhat derogatory by Sri Lankans.

I think the question is, in the international arena, would the international community take the trouble to ‘learn to hear’ SLE as enthusiastically as they have ‘learned to hear’ English with a French, German or Japanese accent? In other words, what’s in it for them? Are we that important to them?

I can understand the teachers who feel threatened by this. Until some reference and text books have been drawn up, it will feel like shifting sands underneath their feet.

Perhaps the key is to regularly update the works, with the debate – both public and academic – informing the new editions.

It is interesting to note that the English written and spoken in England and USA has moved on a long way from the Standard British English taught in schools around the world. And it is this ‘old’ English that has influenced the new Englishes of different countries. Now they can fly on their own.

“I can assure you that the proper use of English is one of the highest benchmarks, required to be demonstrated in the international arena. Coming from the field of Science, I would emphasis the need to educate the next generation to have proficiency (or mastery) in a global language, and English is my preference.”- Well said. In addition to the field of science this should also apply to all other disciplines.

I have met well educated English speaking, writing Sri Lankans who do not want others to learn English. I cannot name them on this forum. But one of them is a writer to the island newspaper.
The reason why they do not want others to learn the language is that they say that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala and Tamil speaking country and not an English speaking one. Sadly they forget that we live in an English speaking world and we need English more than ever to communicate with the outside world.