Alistair Maclean on Educated Sinhalese

Strewth, mate! Check out what I found on page 138 of Alistair Maclean's Ice Station Zebra:

... he reminded me of educated Sinhalese I'd met with their precise, lilting, standard southern English interlarded with the catch-phrases of forty years ago. Topping, old bean, simply too ripping for words.

I don't think Maclean's being rascist - he's right! In the subcontinent, we're taught the Queen's English. Like you hear on the BBC. All very clipped and precise. More British than the British. The kind of English that apprently no-one actually speaks in England.
If you're wondering why I'm so interested in this - let me remind you that I am Sinhalese. Well, goodness gracious me...

Comments

Anonymous said…

Given that you're also half-Tamil, does this mean that you need to be thinking about forth-culture ministry?

19 July 2008 at 19:35

Kamal Weerakoon said…

Heh, heh, heh... thanks for drawing attention to my mongrel-ness...!
I only speak Sinhalese. I think like a Sinhalese. I have to identify as a Sinhalese. Which means taking responsibility of the sins of the Sinhalese against the Tamils.

19 July 2008 at 22:16

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another. Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else. The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...

A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders, Ryan Burge of Washington University, posted some really interesting preliminary results on his Substack. 1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional. 2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...

Wax and Wright on the definition of "mission"

Trevin Wax has written a clear, simple, and charitable introduction to a debate about the nature and boundaries of the kinds of Christian activities that validly should be called "mission." In brief: Should we use a broad definition, where "mission" encompasses all the various purposes which God calls Christians and the church in general to perform, e.g. being ethical at work; general acts of care and charity; standing against systematic oppression and working towards justice instead? If so, "evangelism" is only one part of the church's mission - a central, necessary, and irreplaceable part, but only one part nonetheless. The latter kinds of activities don't save anyone for eternity, but they do genuine good in this world which please God. And that kind of good makes a real difference in many parts of the world which have not benefited from the kind of Christian moral transformation which the West benefited from - the kind of moral transformation...

Multicultural Ministry Matters

Search This Blog