I have noted that many Sri Lankans can pronounce most languages ( English, Tamil, French, Japanese ) quite well. How come? Does it have anything to do with their mother tongue?
2006-12-28 16:09:15 · 6 answers · asked by B 3 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
I don't know about Sinhalese Sri Lankans, but I do believe it is true of Tamil Sri Lankans. I suspect you may think this because you have met Tamil people in the west - most of them are Middle Class emigrants from Sri Lanka's civil war.
The phenomenon you describe is more true of the middle classes and is related to the fact that many people in Sri Lanka are brought up from a relatively young age bilingual in English and Tamil.
Recent studies on language acquisition that those who are bilingual from a young age have much less difficulty in acquiring new languages when they are older. Those who are monolingual will struggle with the acquisition of new sounds at later ages.
This is probably a function of the greater number of sounds they acquire in childhood.
As an example, the typical Japanese accent in English is a result of the lack of the letter L in Japanese, leading to the substitution of a mutated R in it's place, as well as the. Similarly, many Indians will substitute the letter V for the letter W (the W sound being absent in many indian languages including Hindi and Tamil). Similarly monolingual English speakers would greatly struggle with the 3 different L sounds present in Tamil, and have difficulty with the aspirated consonants of Hindi, as they are alien.
People who are brought up speaking multiple languages acquire wider experience of these sounds and therefore have much fewer problems with pronunciation.
2006-12-28 18:40:08 · answer #1 · answered by the last ninja 6 · 6⤊ 0⤋
It depends on the person. Most likely, you've just met Sri Lankans who are easily able to pronounce things. I'm not Sri Lankan, but I can pronounce most any language I hear with ease.
Also, do you know how much practice they've had? Perhaps they've had a great deal of experience speaking the languages, and so have developed an innate ability pronounce anything.
2006-12-28 16:14:52 · answer #2 · answered by blizzy 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
yeah sinhalese sri lankans have big alphabet and have all most all the sounds there. so they can pronounce any word from any language easily. and it is a multicultural country where they hear so many languages from their birth.
2015-04-04 22:00:48 · answer #3 · answered by anastasia 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
i would beg to differ, farsi and arabic have more sounds in their vocabulary (in terms of leters, vocal etc...) but they have one of the most distinct accents
2006-12-28 16:46:04 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
not only srilankans... pakistani's are also...and yeah it coz of their mother tongue....
2006-12-29 02:31:51 · answer #5 · answered by yaya 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
They do?
2006-12-28 16:12:21 · answer #6 · answered by DORY 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋