Abstract:
This study aims to expand the description of Sri Lankan English through
a descriptive analysis of the sub-variety produced by the Sri Lankan Moor
community, reflecting on the multilingual, multi-ethnic, and multicultural
landscape of the country. The current description not only involves the
speaker’s status and region in society but can involve religious, ethnic, and
racial background as well in addition to the relevance and priority given
to said background. Researchers have acknowledged the existence of sub
varieties spoken by Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, and Burghers and the unique
vocabulary used by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. At present,
a significant amount of research on lexical differences seen in SLE has been
dominated by the influence of the Sinhala language and culture due to
the hegemonic role it plays in Sri Lankan society, its wider use and larger
population, as well as linguistic ideologies. Whereas little attention has been
paid to the contact and influence of not just Tamil, but also Sri Lankan Muslim
Tamil, which has been considered to be a less prestigious variety of Tamil in
Sri Lanka and faces negative connotations. The contact and influence of
other languages that are not commonly spoken by the Sinhala majority and
are relevant in terms of religion and ethnicity, such as Quranic Arabic, is also
a gap to be explored as little research has been done on the sub-variety of Sri
Lankan English that is used by Moors. This study thus explores the borrowings
from Sri Lankan Muslim Tamil and Arabic in the Sri Lankan English spoken
by Moors. As the researcher is a member of the Sri Lankan Moor community
the study uses consensually recorded conversations, recorded interviews
in the home of informants and a focus group discussion with members of
the community in order to compile a small corpus. Through a descriptive
analysis of the collected data, the study identifies context-relevant borrowings
that include those that occur during weddings, funerals, festivals, and prayer
functions as well as those used in day-to-day life to talk about things, feelings,
actions, greetings, and terms of address. Through this, the study seeks to
understand how users of English adapt the language to suit their requirements
and contexts. The results are indicative of how users decolonise English by
taking ownership of it thus moulding it to suit their communicative needs
in a post-colonial context. It also draws attention to the de-hegemonising
of SLE and research done on it, now expanding its description beyond the Sinhala dominant studies, reflecting the multiethnic and multicultural speech
communities in Sri Lanka.
