From the British Isles to Ceylon, or English in Sri Lanka
Journal Title: Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies - Year 2018, Vol 27, Issue 2
Abstract
Although Sri Lanka was a site of colonization of the Portuguese, Dutch and (under the treaty of Amiens in 1802) British, it was the English language that had the strongest infl uence on the indigenous population of the island as the earlier colonizers were less interested in disseminating their culture. Taking into consideration the fact that English was established in Sri Lanka by missionaries and British officers, it can be assumed that the language brought to the island of Ceylon was the Standard English of the turn of the 19th century. Exploiting data from International Corpus of English – Sri Lanka and articles on Sri Lankan English, the present study contains a comparison of contemporary Sri Lankan English and the English of the period when the language was brought to the Island (early 19th century). Thus, an effort is made to show the conservative features of the language of the first British settlers, which survive in English spoken in contemporary Sri Lanka.
Authors and Affiliations
Olga Laskowska
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP448227
- DOI 10.7311/0860-5734.27.2.09
- Views 37
- Downloads 0
Happy is the Land that Needs No Heroes
This essay interrogates two articles by the Canadian historian Jeff Keshen and the Australian historian Mark Sheftall, which assert that the representations of soldiers in the First World War (Anzacs in Australia, member...
No Fear Shakespeare?
Introduction article on Shakespeare's plays and theatrics and their surprising, sometimes awry, meaningful adaptability to changing historical times.
Genius, Appropriation and Transnational Collaboration in Ezra Pound’s Cathay
When we discuss the cross-cultural relationships of Euro-American modernists we often fall between the poles of either celebrating the ‘coming together of traditions’ or suspiciously decrying the power play involved. A c...
The “Cultural Landscape” of Australia in Bush Ballads: Slim Dusty’s Aussie Sing Song
The concept of the “cultural landscape” designates tangible and intangible elements of human activity, such as the natural environment, material culture, values, behaviours, and language (Taylor 2008, 6; Taylor and Lenno...
“Like being trapped in a drum”: The Poetics of Resonance in Frances Itani’s Deafening
This paper considers how Frances Itani’s Deafening imaginatively rethinks our understanding of the Great War in the age of postmemory. Seeing as the novel is set in Canada and Europe during the First World War and takes...