Sri Lankan English

This page contains updates to the dictionary beginning with the letter E. It is divided into 2 parts: New Entries, and Comments and Corrections. Click here to return to the main updates page, or on the links on the left side of the page to go to another letter.

These pages are updated regularly; please contact me if you have any suggestions or feedback which can be included.

NEW ENTRIES:

eating-drinking: (coll.) enjoying the simple pleasures of life
We are eating drinking people and it is improper to criticise us on this score. (Sunday Island online, 08/07/07)

Eelamist: (a person or organisation) supporting the Tamil separatist cause; also Eelamism
> See A-Z of Sri Lankan English: E is for Eelamist
“Tamils in Australia are among the most loyal Eelamists in the world.” (Distant Warriors, by Channa Wickremesekera, page 48)
The burgeoning Eelamist movement, which was soon advocating violent struggle to achieve its aims, … (Accha House and Umma House, by Asiff Hussein, page 247)
Recently the Eelamist politicians have protested vehemently against the impending census in the North and East as well as the rest of the country. … It appears to me that the Eelamists are really afraid of the truth becoming known to the world. (Island 21/06/01)
To be sure, the Tigers, as a military force, are no more in Sri Lanka, although anyone in this country would be naive in the extreme to believe that Eelamism was dead and buried along with this LTTE fighting machine. … The fact is that Eelamism and its defenders are very much up and about, both locally and internationally, and they are, indeed, working surreptitiously but at a hectic pace to regroup and to get back into contention once again. (Daily News 20/05/11)
“We should not play into the hands of Eelamists” – President (Financial Times 17/08/12)

EGB: Elephant Ginger Beer (brand name)
One of Sri Lanka's iconic beverage brands Elephant House Ginger Beer or EGB as it is widely referred to, … (Daily News 28/03/14)

elders’ home, home for elders: old people’s home
Nestling in lush green surroundings the Lady Fareed Home for Elders is a haven for lonely elders; providing them comfort and love. The Lady Fareed Home for Elders was the brainchild of late Lady Ameena Fareed. In her time the mere idea of an Elders’ Home was remote to the Muslim community as it was considered a near crime to commit an elder to a Home. … The Lady Fareed Home with a capacity to house 60 elders is the only home catering to the Muslim community out of 250 such homes in operation islandwide. The Home opens its doors to elders who have no children, who are unmarried, widows, widowers and those whose children live abroad. (Sunday Times 03/04/11)

elephant corridor: a migration route used by elephants and so protected from development (also Africa)
> Although not unique to Sri Lanka, this term is in everyday use in SLE (for example in newspaper reports), whereas elsewhere it is restricted to the context of wildlife conservation.
Elephant corridors will be restructured to minimize the human-elephant conflict on a proposal by Wildlife Conservation Minister Vijith Vijithamuni Soysa. (Daily News 19/12/13)
Tracking elephant movement to identify elephant corridors (The Nation 06/04/14)

elephant gathering: an annual gathering of large numbers of elephants at Minneriya in the North-Central province
The Elephant Gathering probably has important social implications allowing animals from related groups to renew acquaintances. (Wild Sri Lanka, by Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, page 17)
The main reason for the ‘gathering’ of around 400 elephants in the Minneriya-Kaudulla National Parks every year is this dry season bonanza. (Sigiriya & Beyond, by Neranjana Gunetilleke et al, page 53)

Elu: (also Hela) the ancient language of Sri Lanka from which Sinhala is believed to have evolved (Sinhala)
“Our Sinhala does not come from a lion. It comes from Sivu Elu. Sivu is four and Elu was the language spoken by the tribes who lived on this island. ... They were the Yakkas, Nagas, Devas and Rakshas. ... They spoke Elu.” (Theravada Man, by Manuka Wijesinghe, page 170)
Sinhala, derived from the ancient Elu basa, spawned from Brahmi, Dravidian and finally Aryan languages, is the prodigal child of all these linguistic groups. (The Line of Lanka, by Sunela Jayewardene, page 35)

end of the day: (coll.) at the end of the day
End of the day they gathered for their daily wage, … (Somewhere, by Vijita Fernando, page 117)
End of the day if the fruit of peace is not seen and felt by an ordinary civilian all the pomp and glory on media does not mean anything. (Daily News 01/02/10)

English day: a day of English-language activities organised by one or more schools
The York International School Wattala branch held their English day at their school auditorium recently. (Daily News 19/08/14)

enlarge on bail: release on bail (most common in passive: enlarged on bail) (SAE)
Avissawella High Court Judge Ruvani Fernando yesterday ordered the Kaduwela Magistrate to enlarge on bail the 10 suspects … (The Island 13/10/09)
Land document forgery: suspects enlarged on bail (Daily Mirror 06/09/11)

erashtaka (= apale): bad time, an inauspicious period according to astrology (Sinhala)
“We have been having an eerashtaka period the last few months.” (Theravada Man, by Manuka Wijesinghe, page 90)
“Although lay men are afraid of ‘Erashtakas’, President Chandrika Kumaratunga had a landslide victory during her ‘Ashtama Erashtaka’ period. And any person who lives for 60 years would definitely go through two ‘Erashtaka’ periods in his life,” he claims. (Sunday Observer 03/12/06)
He won in 2010 as he was in the Erashtaka. He had the same Erashtaka this time as well but we did not take much notice of it. Maithripala Sirisena who is in the Libra house also had the Erashtaka. (Ceylon Today 18/01/15)

estate Tamil (= upcountry Tamil): a member of the Tamil community brought from South India to Sri Lanka by the British in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work on the tea estates (> Sri Lankan Tamil)
“He is an estate Tamil. Wife is ill. Lives in a wooden shack near the Elu Gala, …” (Can You Hear me Running, by Lal Medawattegedara, page 10)
“The idea of nationalising tea estates and sending the estate Tamils back to India!” (Sinhala Only, by Manuka Wijesinghe, page 200)
Our neighbour … had some Estate Tamils living in an annex in the rear portion of his house. (Accha House and Umma House, by Asiff Hussein, page 251-2)
… we kept expostulating without any legal or moral basis that the Estate Tamils were Indian citizens. (Palmyra Fallen, by Rajan Hoole, page 31)
The tragedy is that even today most of the estate Tamil population continues to live in line rooms. (The Island 04/08/14)

ex-estate: (of tea) sold directly from the estate, not via storage in Colombo
Instead, estate superintendents had to draw the samples at source and send them off to town for tasting, while the consignment itself remained in storage on the estate, awaiting news of sale and the confirmation of shipping arrangements. A new ‘Ex-Estate’ catalogue was introduced at the Colombo auctions to accommodate this practice – yet another ‘temporary’ innovation that has proved unexpectedly enduring. (Ceylon Tea: The Trade that Made a Nation, by Richard Simon, page 181)
In the Ex-Estate catalogues values slipped all round mostly for teas that have not maintained brightness. (Island 26/03/04)

COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS:

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