Oxford English Dictionary

Be it asweddumized fields or mallung in a rice and curry meal, kiribath for a special occasion, sizzling kottu, scrumptious watalappam or a happening baila song each one of these examples provides a glimpse of Sri Lanka in a nutshell.

- By Kamanthi Wickramasinghe

The aforementioned words have been used in our vocabulary for decades, highlighting the unique cultural, social and culinary diversity of Sri Lanka. This is why these words and a few others made their mark in the Oxford English Dictionary's (OED) latest update, in appreciation of the origins and evolution of Sri Lankan English. To find out more about how these words made their entry into a world-acclaimed dictionary, the Daily Mirror spoke to Rochana Jayasinghe, the consultant for Sri Lankan English for the OED's World Englishes update.

A journey shaped by a fascination for language

Jayasinghe's journey into language study had begun with a deep love of reading from a young age. "I was always fascinated by words their histories, meanings, and the patterns that connected languages across cultures. As a child, I enjoyed learning new languages and instinctively noticed similarities among them, which I later came to understand as an early curiosity in etymology and historical linguistics," she said.

Her academic path was shaped significantly during her time at the Department of English at the University of Peradeniya, "where conversations around language use, and in particular, World Englishes, were particularly vibrant and intellectually stimulating," as described in her own words. Jayasinghe said that the Department has long been at the forefront of interrogating language, identity, and post-colonialist. "Their scholarship has contributed much to thinking critically about the politics of English, the localisation of the language, and its ideological implications," she added.