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Glite Dictionary
🇱🇰 From Sri Lanka 🧑 A person from Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan

Sri Lankan

9 2.8
From Sri Lanka or connected to its people and culture
  • adjective
: sri lankés
  • The festival celebrated vibrant Sri Lankan culture with traditional music and dance.
  • Sri Lankan Tamil
  • Sri Lankan Tamils
  • Sri Lankan government

SJ Sendhu is a Sri Lankan writer and this book takes place in Tamil Nadu in India.

Examples

  • Sri Lankan Muslims also redefined their rights with respect to the new constitutional schemes put forward after 1995.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The transplant and related medical care are provided for free by the Sri Lankan public health system.

    Blog text (31)

  • For the first time in a quarter century, the Sri Lankan government controlled the entire island.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Additional research was carried out under a grant from the American Institute of Sri Lankan Studies in 2004.

    Academic text (2004)

  • According to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health, fifteen percent of the population here is affected.

    Blog text (31)

  • The first Sri Lankan FTZ was established in 1978 in Katunayake, near the capital city of Colombo.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The Sri Lankan Tamils understandably felt deeply threatened by this majoritarian uprising.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Victoria Burrows turns to the Sri Lankan Civil War context in "The Heterotopic Spaces of Postcolonial Trauma in Michael Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost."

    Academic text (2008)

  • Many Sri Lankan dishes feature spices unique to the island's cuisine.

  • During my trip, I learned a lot about Sri Lankan history and its rich heritage.

Synonyms

Lankan
vsSri Lankan
9 4.2

Relating to Sri Lanka, its people, or its culture

is broader and used generally without focusing on language
Ceylonese
vsSri Lankan
1 8.6

Relating to Ceylon, the old name for Sri Lanka before 1972, and its people and culture

is the neutral contemporary term without historical reference

Surface Forms

Sri Lankan positive

Morphology

Sri + Lankan

The meaning 'a person from Sri Lanka' is directly and compositionally derived from the constituent parts: 'Sri' as part of the country name and 'Lankan' indicating origin/nationality. This demonymic pattern (country name + adjective/noun for inhabitants) is cross-linguistically common and would be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituents.

Etymology

Sri Lankan comes from the country's name Sri and Lanka. Sri is an old respectful word meaning 'honoured' and Lankan means 'from Sri Lanka', so the adjective is used for things or people relating to that country.