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Groundviews

Author: Michael Meyler

Year
Month
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Fiction / Creative Writing, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: O is for our people

Boys will not always be boys! Photo credit: National Geographic The possessive pronoun “our” is deceptively simple. But who are the “we” that it refers to? The expression our people is a…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 01/10/201201/11/2012
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: N is for na tree and nil manel

The national tree and the national flower were both in the news this year. In August the uprooting of the Indian willows lining Independence Avenue to be replaced by indigenous na trees…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 12/03/201111/30/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: M is for monitor lizard

Sunimal Fernando, speaking from the audience at my presentation on Sri Lankan English at the recent conference on Language and Social Cohesion (Colombo, 17-19 October), confirmed my own conclusion, that while the…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 11/02/201110/31/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: L is for link language

The A-Z of Sri Lankan English is back after a break. These short pieces focus on different aspects of the way English is used in Sri Lanka. Collectively they provide a cross-section…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 10/05/201110/03/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: K is for kadé

I normally try to stay on the right side of the descriptive-prescriptive divide, but today I’ve got my prescriptive hat on. I deplore the habit of some writers, editors and publishers of…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 05/05/201105/04/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: J is for jobless

In the UK and the US, being jobless is simply another word for being unemployed, not having a job – especially in newspaper headlines. Here in Sri Lanka it has an additional…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 03/15/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Fiction / Creative Writing

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: I is for isn’t it?

A tag question (or question tag) is a short question tagged onto the end of a sentence: “It’s raining, isn’t it?” It is usually pronounced with a rising-falling intonation (high pitch on…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 02/10/201102/08/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: H is for had

I recently listened to someone telling a story in the course of an informal conversation. The speaker was a Sri Lankan whose first language is English, and the story involved a group…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 01/03/201101/01/2011
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: G is for gode

Mahinda Rajapaksa makes no bones about his goday origins“ (Daily News 12/02/2010) The basic meaning of the Sinhala word gode (or goday) is rural, of the land, of the village, conjuring up…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 12/09/201012/13/2010
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language, Media and Communications

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: F is for for

Before reading on, try this short test. Which of the following sentences do you consider to be grammatically correct? 1. They have over a thousand visitors for a month. 2. They get…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 10/30/201012/28/2010
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Jaffna, Language, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: E is for Eelamist

The word Eelamist (as adjective or noun) refers to a person or organisation which supports the Tamil separatist cause in Sri Lanka. Like certain other -ist words (Zionist, Islamist, Loyalist), the word…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 10/02/201012/28/2010
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: D is for deffa

Eyebrows were raised when I included the word deffa on the mirisgala website under “new entries”. And it’s true that it is stretching the point to claim that it qualifies as standard…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 08/29/201012/28/2010
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

A-Z of Sri Lankan English: C is for cousin brother

The terms cousin brother and cousin sister are not used in standard British English. Nowadays they are used in Sri Lanka to refer to any male cousin or female cousin respectively, but…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 07/09/2010
Colombo, Language, Media and Communications

Letter to the Editor of Sunday Observer: Racism and editorial incompetence

This letter was published in the . Dear Sir, I am writing in response to Malinda Seneviratne’s article “Language standards: whose version of our reality should we inhabit?” (, 20 June 2010).…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 07/04/201007/04/2010
A-Z of Sri Lankan English, Colombo, Language

B is for balls (and bowls)

In the article “The bowl-or-ball dilemma of rubbishing English standards” (6/6/2010), Dilshan Boange adds his voice to the growing clamour of protest at the idea of speaking English “our way”. He recounts…

Michael Meyler Michael Meyler on 06/29/201012/28/2010

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