Sri Lankan English

This page contains updates to the dictionary beginning with the letter P. 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.

Latest update: July 2010. New additions are in red.

NEW ENTRIES:

palayakat sarong: a South Indian style cotton sarong with coloured checks on a white background
The handwoven, handprinted lungis of Pulicat became the traditional wear in the Malay Archipelago, Ceylon and the Arabian Sea islands. In fact, when I was a boy, Palayakat was virtually a generic name for sarongs in Ceylon. (The Hindu online 13/08/2007)
A colourful palei-kart sarong was the single feature that announced his presence to the world. (Can You Hear me Running, by Lal Medawattegedara, page 9)
His greased black, dirt-brown shorts … had been exchanged for a sakaramutai pink Palayacart sarong … (Rainbows in Braille, by Elmo Jayawardena, page 90)
My father is wearing a green and white checked Palayakat sarong and a white shirt. (The Moon in the Water, by Ameena Hussein, page 33)

pallang: down the pallang: (coll.) downhill, down the drain (Sinhala: pallang = slope)
> I am grateful to Osmund Perera for pointing out this omission from the dictionary – a popular term judging by these newspaper headlines taken from the internet:
Engine of growth ‘Down the Pallang?’ (Island 26/07/02)
UPFA down the pallang with UNP right behind (Sunday Leader 01/08/04)
Negotiations going down the pallang? (Island 11/02/06)
Mahela takes SL cricket down the ‘pallang’ (Island 23/04/08)
Down the pallang? No Budget, two overdrafts (Lakbima 02/05/10)

palmyrah fence: a fence made out of dried palmyrah leaves
(Click here to see a photograph)
... the heavily thatched palmyrah fences hid everything else from view. (When Memory Dies, by A. Sivanandan, page 337)
… the Renault purred smoothly between two woven palmyra fences and came to rest in front of a white-painted house. (The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne, page 395)

palmyrah flour: flour made from the root of the palmyrah tree
… the palmyrah flour out of which the 'soup' was made ... (When Memory Dies, by A. Sivanandan, page 141)

palmyrah grove: a grove of palmyrah trees
As I remember it, the palmyrah grove was dense and dark. (All is Burning, by Jean Arasanayagam, page 218)

panchayudha: a gold pendant with a charm (Sinhala)

parallel cousin: a cousin who is the child of your maternal aunt (loku amma or punchi amma) or your paternal uncle (loku thaaththa or baappa) (> cross cousin)

parana coat man, parana coat karaya: (dated) a man who collects old clothes for recycling (from Sinhala)
Most probably all those clothes had been brought there for sale by the parana coat karayas, men who go from house to house collecting suits of tweed and wool and silk sarees disintegrating with age, … (All is Burning, by Jean Arasanayagam, page 285)

parinirvana: the death of the Buddha (Sanskrit)
… the Aryan prince Vijaya had landed the same day that the Lord Buddha had attained parinirvana. (Theravada Man, by Manuka Wijesinghe, page 144)

patana: open plain or grassland in the hill country (Sinhala)
> This is one of relatively few words of Sinhala origin that appear in the OED, with numerous references from the 19th and 20th centuries. As such it was a regrettable omission from my dictionary, which I am glad to be able to put right here.
(Click here to see a photograph)
... from the stunning, mist-laden patanas and montane forests of Horton Plains to the expanses of monsoon forests of Wasgamuwa; ... (Sriyanie Miththapala, in The Nature of Sri Lanka by Luxshmanan Nadaraja, page 38)
“Is someone deliberately setting the patanas alight?” (The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne, page 418)
Despite the early hour, tidings of the shooting on the Green had spread like a patana fire in July. (The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne, page 584)

PC: a desktop computer as opposed to a laptop
> In BSE a “PC” refers to any personal computer (desktop or laptop).

pen drive: computer memory stick

perethaya: a greedy spirit (Sinhala)
The peretayas, spirits of the departed, lurked in graveyards and desolate places. (All is Burning, by Jean Arasanayagam, page 299)
“That is the mother of my children’s mother chasing the ‘perethayas’ that come here at dusk. I have told that ignorant woman that all the perethayas have been exorcised.” (Theravada Man, by Manuka Wijesinghe, page 34)

photo catcher: (dated and humorous) photographer

pilimage: Buddhist image house (Sinhala)
In the largest cave is the Pilimage, with a statue of a recumbent Buddha image. (Shirley Perera, in The Nature of Sri Lanka by Luxshmanan Nadaraja, page 95)

pin (= merit): (in Buddhism) moral credit gained through meritorious acts such as charitable deeds, alms-givings, pilgrimages, etc. (Sinhala)
“Very good, Sir, I wanted to ask you. You’ll get a lot of pin.” (Can You Hear me Running, by Lal Medawattegedara, page 39)

polkatu handa (= coconut shell spoon) (Sinhala; plural: polkatu handi)

polos mallung: a mallung made with polos (young jakfruit) (Sinhala)
… if she needed a young jackfruit to make the tongue-searing hot polos mallung that Harriet hungered for … (The Banana Tree Crisis, by Isankya Kodithuwakku, page 165)

pound: to pound rice: to make rice flour using a vangediya and molgaha (> rice pounder)
Six-thirty in the morning, and from the kitchens came the distant sound of a pestle pounding rice into flour for the preparation of breakfast. (The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne, page 462)

pre-poya: the day before a poya day
> The term pre-poya originated in the 1960s during the period when Ceylon adopted a lunar calendar. Instead of the normal Saturday-Sunday weekend, each quarter moon was a holiday (poya), and the previous day (pre-poya) was a half-day. The days inbetween were labelled P1, P2, P3, etc. The problem was that each week had a different number of days, and the weekends were out of sync with the rest of the world. This system, which was adopted by Dudley Senanayake’s UNP government in 1966, was abandoned by Sirima Bandaranaike after the SLFP election victory in 1970.

principal: headteacher (also US, India, etc.)
> ‘Principal’ is rare in this context in the UK, and even the terms ‘headmaster’ and ‘headmistress’ have now been replaced by ‘headteacher’.
“The Principal showed me round some new buildings in the school, and thanked me for the contribution I had made to the College building fund.” (The Sweet and Simple Kind, by Yasmine Gooneratne, page 257)
“I have made an appointment with the Principal and we can go there in a little while.” (The Mango Tree, by Anthea Senaratna, page 39)

province: one of 9 administrative regions of Sri Lanka (> Provincial Council, district)
> The 9 provinces (with their provincial capitals in brackets) are: Northern (Jaffna), Southern (Galle), Eastern (Trincomalee), Western (Colombo), North-Western (= Wayamba, capital Kurunegala), North-Central (Anuradhapura), Central (Kandy), Sabaragamuwa (Ratnapura), and Uva (Badulla).

public holiday: a holiday for the public sector (government offices, schools, etc.) but not necessarily for private companies (> bank holiday, mercantile holiday)

punt: (coll., dated) cigarette
Let’s go for a punt.

put to fall: (coll.) a humorous term referring to drinking too much (till you fall over)

COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS:

put: In BSE, the verb put normally requires a direct object (it, the keys, the money) and a place (in the car, on the table, in the drawer). In colloquial SLE either of these can be omitted:
“Take this and put in the car.” (Sam’s Story, by Elmo Jayawardena, page 170)

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