Sinhala words that do not translate
A dhow, a kottu roshi, a khachapuri — words a dictionary can only give as a description in brackets, because the thing is not part of everyday life here. All such Sinhala words are collected here: 44 words with an explanation of what it is and what it is for.
Words and what stands behind them
A sour green fruit the size of a plum, growing in clusters. Eaten unripe, dipped in salt and chilli — the taste is on the very edge of bearable, and that is the point. Sold sliced in packets by schools and bus stops.
Cloth with a pattern applied in wax before dyeing: the wax keeps the dye out, and after it is removed the pattern stays. The Dutch brought the craft from Java; the Lankan batik differs by its subjects — elephants, masks, temples.
A sacred fig by the temple, tied with flags, with a platform and oil lamps at the roots. The tree in Anuradhapura was grown from a cutting of the very tree the Buddha sat under — the oldest human-planted tree with a known date.
A bus stop: a shelter by the road or just a post with a plate. The bus is hailed with a wave of the hand, and getting off is asked with a bell or a knock on the roof. Between stops it will still pick you up.
A white dome over a relic — what other countries call a stupa. There is no room inside: it is solid brickwork. The oldest ones stand in Anuradhapura, and some argue in height with the Egyptian pyramids.
An offering of food to monks that a family hosts to mark a death anniversary, a housewarming, or simply to make merit. Cooking starts the night before; monks eat before noon. Declining to take part is awkward.
Free food and drink that families and offices set up right by the road during Vesak and Poya: rice, tea, ice cream, anything. They stop passers-by and press a plate on them; refusing is hard, and that is the point.
The Asian elephant: working, temple and wild. There are a few thousand wild ones; they come onto the roads at dusk, and collisions with them are a constant grief of villages by the forest. The temple elephant is bowed to.
A triangular bun with a spicy fish filling, delivered around the streets by bakery vans playing 'Für Elise'. A Lankan recognises the tune before seeing the van.
A salad of finely chopped gotu kola leaf with grated coconut, onion and lime. The leaf is slightly bitter and grows by the water on its own. It is held to be good for memory, and it is the only salad eaten on the island every day.
A greeting with palms pressed together at the chest: literally 'may you live long', from āyus, a lifespan, and bō, 'may it be much'. Fits any time of day and also the farewell. In town, among friends, people more often say 'hi', while āyubōvan sounds respectful.
A cup of fermented rice batter baked in a small round pan: thin crisp edges, a soft bottom. With an egg cracked inside it is called bittara appa. In English they are known as hoppers.
A stone weir across a river that diverts water into a channel toward the fields and reservoirs. The ancient amunas on the Mahaweli have worked for fifteen hundred years; the gradient of their channels is held with a precision long unexplained.
Hard palm sugar, set in a coconut shell and therefore half-sphere in shape. A piece is broken off and held in the cheek with tea: a Lankan won't put sugar in the cup.
A city in the hills by a lake, the last capital of an independent kingdom, which fell only in 1815. The relic — the Buddha's tooth — is kept here, and the August perahera sets out from here. The Sinhala name means 'the great city'.
An oil sweet of rice flour and treacle, fried so that a sharp spout stays on top. Made for the Sinhala-Tamil New Year, and by its look the housewife is judged.
The king coconut — orange, with a thin shell and plenty of sweetish water. Sold by the road: the top is lopped off with a cleaver and a straw is stuck in. There is almost no flesh inside.
Rice cooked in thick coconut milk and set in a slab, cut into diamonds. Made on the first day of the month, at New Year, and for any good beginning. Eaten with sambol or with palm sugar.
Syrup and sugar from the sap of the kitul palm: dark, thick, with a smoky tang. The tapper climbs to the flower spike twice a day. The syrup is poured over curd, the sugar is nibbled with tea.
A crisp rosette of rice batter: a hot flower-shaped mould is dipped in the batter and lowered into the oil. The name and the shape came from the Dutch; the batter stayed local.
Roti chopped on a hot plate with two blunt blades together with vegetables, egg and meat. It is made on the street, and the clang of blades on iron carries a block away — you find kottu by ear, without reading the sign.
Most often not a natural lake but a wewa — a man-made reservoir with an earthen dam that feeds the rice fields. The oldest are over two thousand years old and still work; the network of wewas is the island's chief engineering heritage.
Strong black tea with condensed milk and sugar, poured from a height so that it froths. The ordinary cup in any tea shop. Tea without milk is called 'plain tea' and is drunk less often.
A diamond of ground mung bean and treacle, fried in a thin batter. One of the New Year sweets and the most laborious: the dough has to be rolled almost transparent.
The Sinhala and Tamil New Year falls in mid-April, set by the sun rather than the calendar. Astrologers fix the hour of lighting the hearth, the first meal and leaving the house, and the whole country keeps the schedule; between the old year and the new lie hours in which nothing may be begun.
The few hours between the old and the new year when astrologers forbid starting anything: no cooking, no work, no eating. People spend them at temple or in prayer. The exact interval is announced in advance, to the minute.
The Kandyan way of wearing a sari: with a frill at the waist and a fan of folds across the shoulder. Worn at weddings, by school teachers and at official receptions. It differs from the Indian way noticeably.
A rice field, flooded and terraced with low earthen ridges people walk on. The green carpet between the village and the forest is always kumbura, and by its colour you can tell the month. The word stands in hundreds of village names.
A night procession of caparisoned elephants, drummers, dancers and fire. The best known is in Kandy in August, when the casket with the relic is carried through the streets. It runs several nights in a row, each one longer.
Protective chanting of sutras by monks, often all night long. Listeners have a white thread tied around the wrist and wear it until it wears out. A recording of pirith is broadcast on the radio at dawn.
Rice flour with grated coconut, packed in layers into a bamboo or metal tube and steamed. It comes out as a cylinder that is broken apart by hand. Eaten with banana and coconut milk or with fish curry.
A dense flatbread of flour with plenty of grated coconut, baked on a dry pan. Denser and more filling than plain roti; eaten with sambol at breakfast or as a snack on the road.
Grated coconut hand-ground with chilli, red onion, lime and salt, sometimes with dried fish. It stands on the table always and goes with everything. Without it a Lankan breakfast is considered incomplete.
The full-moon day, a public holiday twelve times a year. Bars are closed, no alcohol is sold and no meat is cut; people in white go to temple. The country's calendar is built on the moon, not on the numbers.
A fruit in a red skin with soft curved spines; inside is white flesh with a stone, like a large grape. The season is short, July and August, and then it is sold along every road.
Not a dish but a way of eating: a mound of rice and around it five or six small portions — dal, vegetable, fish, sambol, papad. Each is mixed into the rice a little at a time with the fingers of the right hand. The whole country lunches this way.
A man's wrap-around skirt of checkered cloth, tucked at the waist. At home almost everyone wears one; on the street, mostly in villages. To temple or office one puts on a white one, not a checkered one.
Onion slow-cooked with chilli, sugar, tamarind and dried fish into a dark sticky mass. Sweet, hot and sour at once. Goes into buns, into roti, and alongside rice.
A rock two hundred metres tall with a palace on its flat top, built in the fifth century by King Kashyapa. Halfway up — frescoes of female figures and a wall polished to a mirror, covered with verses left by visitors of the eighth century.
Nests of rice-flour noodles pressed through a sieve straight onto a woven mat and steamed. Served in a stack with curry and coconut sambol, more often at breakfast or dinner.
A plantation on the hills: trimmed bushes in even waves to the horizon, pluckers with baskets on their backs and a factory at the bottom. The British brought tea here to replace the dead coffee, and it became the face of the country.
A three-wheeled taxi, the tuk-tuk: a cabin for three, a roof and canvas sides. The city's main transport. It comes with a meter and without; in the second case the price is named before boarding.
A tusked elephant is a rarity: in Asian elephants only a small part of the males grow tusks. It is exactly such a one that is chosen to carry the relic at the perahera, and its name is known across the country like a sportsman's.
The May full moon, the main festival of the year: the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing in one day. Streets hang with paper lanterns, picture panels line the roads, and free food is served to everyone who passes.
Why such words are in the course
These are a language's ID marks: they cannot be translated because the thing they name is not part of everyday life here, and they are exactly what you hear on day one. There are few of them on purpose — 44 words out of 4049 words in the course. A course where every seventh word is a local curiosity would teach local studies, not a language.
Every word here has its own page, with pronunciation, a look at the spelling and an example of use.
Frequently asked
Why can't these words simply be translated?
A translation assumes the thing exists here too and is just called differently. Not in this case: “a dhoni is a boat” is true and useless — there are many kinds of boat, and a dhoni is known by its tall curved prow and by being the only way between the islands. An explanation answers the question about the thing, not the word.
Do you have to learn them?
Not before everything else. But you will meet them early: local food is offered on the first day, and a festival is named without explanation. Knowing what stands behind a word is more useful than being able to translate it.