Professor D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke ‘Speak English Our Way’ is the catchy slogan, appealing to our patriotic instincts, adopted by the Presidential Task Force in English and IT to advertise the island-wide programme to teach Spoken English, using so-called Sri Lankan English. The basic question is whether the use of the so-called Sri Lankan English is to the social good.
English in Sri Lanka has not evolved to the required stage to be declared as a standard language. It should not be traced back to the era of Robert Knox or to the arrival of British in 1796, as has been done. It is wrong to say that it has an ancient history and that it is a native language in Sri Lanka. It should only be traced back to a period when there was a community of speakers of the so-called Sri Lankan English. This is of recent origin.
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Giving special emphasis to a Sri Lankan way of speaking English is not needed. It is not an issue as such. Our people speak naturally in a Sri Lankan way.
It is dangerous to teach Spoken English in one style while expecting people to write in a different way. It is an international variety of English that we should promote in the country both in speech and writing. It is with this variety that our people can have the access to books/journals in English published worldwide and to knowledge available in the Internet, and improve their educational and employment prospects.
Promoting Sri Lankan English would serve to widen the gap between the underprivileged and privileged sections of our society. The concept of Kaduwa (Sword) has emerged in a different guise; the new Kaduwa (Sword) of oppression is the so-called Sri Lankan English. The privileged classes will learn an international variety of English and will be able to maintain their higher position in society permanently. The underprivileged classes who are being taught a local variety of English will be further disadvantaged. Those who will stand to benefit, will be the elites. The President has to be applauded for seeing the immense importance of English and initiating an island-wide scheme to promote it, but the implementation of his policy has been misconceived and has resulted in a colossal waste of government money.
As a corollary, the move to introduce Spoken English as a subject at the G.C.E. (Ordinary Level) Examination is a terrible mistake, given the indefiniteness of the standard of English to be adopted, and given that the certification of written English is already unreliable.
I do hope the Head of the Presidential Task Force will seek disinterested and non-elitist advice – before more colossal sums are spent on a socially disastrous implementation of a good idea.
The Island
