Sri Lanka
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Etymology
Borrowed from Sinhalese ශ්රී ලංකාව (śrī laṁkāwa), from Sanskrit श्री लङ्का (śrī laṅkā, literally “holy Lanka”).
Pronunciation
It should be noted that the Sanskrit honorific that the "Sri" comes from (श्री, ISO: Śrī) is pronounced [ɕriː], and while this pronunciation is preserved in Sinhalese, the closest English phoneme that best fits [ɕ] is /ʃ/, resulting in the approximation /ʃɹ/. /sɹ/ in English results from ignoring or dropping the diacritic on ⟨s⟩ in the romanization ⟨śrī⟩. In Sinhalese, [sriː] may occur as an acceptable variant pronunciation only in quick, uneducated speech, because [ɕ] is an uncommon phoneme in Sinhalese and is replaced with [s] in certain dialects.
Both stresses on the first and second syllables of "Lanka" are accepted, but the latter is closer to its native pronunciation.
Proper noun
Sri Lanka
- An island and country in South Asia, off the coast of India. Official name: Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Capital: Colombo.
Usage notes
“Sri Lanka” has been the official name since 1972; prior to that it was Ceylon.
Place names are a source of controversy in Sri Lankan politics, in connection with the Sri Lankan Civil War, and some find “Sri Lanka” to be too Sinhalese. A Tamil name is Eelam, and some Tamil political parties retain “Ceylon” in their name, such as the All Ceylon Tamil Congress and the Ceylon Workers' Congress.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
- → Japanese: スリランカ (Suri Ranka)
Translations
a country in South Asia
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See also
- Appendix:Countries and territories of the world
- (countries of Asia) country of Asia; Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, East Timor, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yemen
- Names of Sri Lanka
References
- (Please provide the book title or journal name), 2010 February 19 (last accessed), archived from the original on 1 November 2013
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