Here, in Sri Lanka, some of the programmes on Sirasa TV evince the intrusion of English, perhaps modelling themselves on the aforementioned Pakistan and Indian shows. Apart from Sirasa, Swarnavahini, Derana and perhaps some others, highlight their musical shows using English; for example, Shadow Star, Comedy Star, Loving Star, Dream Star etc. Apparently, using Sinhala has no appeal, given the fact that English is the language of advertising and commerce.

On 27. 11. 2008 I was watching the ‘Thar-umansala’, a talent outlet for dancing and comedy and finally when the winner was declared, the English wording on TV went as the winning dancer instead of ‘winning’. As you know, there is a wide disparity in meaning between the two words. Soon after, the word Liberty was spelt as ‘Leberty’. These are just isolated examples, because incidents of such howlers on TV screens are rather common.

Surely, these channels could employ somebody to edit the English that is used or in the alternative make such announcements in Sinhala as Sevaneti Tharuwa, Vihilu Tharuwa etc., which I’m sure would satisfy the pseudo nationalists, both here and abroad.