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Use three national languages, Government to Port City

24 May 2021

By Dinitha Rathnayake   The Government has instructed the Colombo Port City construction company, China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd., to mandatorily use Sinhala, English, and Tamil languages in signboards within the Port City. Speaking to The Morning, State Minister of Money, Capital Market, and State Enterprise Reforms Ajith Nivard Cabraal said he strictly advised the construction company to follow the national language policy at the Port City during the constructions. “Using Sinhala, English, and Tamil will be compulsory on all sites. But in public utility facilities such as washrooms, it would be necessary to use only the English language on signboards.” The Colombo Port City had to issue an explanation last week regarding the image of a signboard at the Port City circulating on social media which features text only in the English, Mandarin (Chinese), and Sinhala languages without the Tamil language. Sinhala and Tamil are the country’s official languages, with English being the link language. Speaking to The Morning last week, Colombo Port City Head of Public Relations Kassapa Senarath said that this was an outdated image of an internal sign board that has resurfaced and is currently circulating on social media, creating misconceptions among the public. The name board, which did not feature Tamil text, was shared especially among Tamil social media users in Sri Lanka, claiming the Tamil language has been replaced by Mandarin in public signboards in Sri Lanka. “This internal signboard without the Tamil language text at the Colombo Port City construction site was removed even before the picture was first circulated on social media back in December 2020. We did a YouTube programme with one of Sri Lanka’s social media influencers. The internal signboard without the Tamil language was part of that video which went viral on social media during that time. We clarified it through social media but not through mainstream media. However, this has come to a point where we have to clarify it for the mainstream media as well,” Senarath said. Meanwhile, the Port City Economic Commission Bill was passed in Parliament last Thursday (20) with a massive majority following the amendments that were made to it as per a Supreme Court determination earlier.


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