Sinhala or Tamil Language Proficiency
Sinhala or Tamil Language Proficiency is compulsory and marked separately from English. The paper combines comprehension, grammar, translation and free composition, and it rewards control of the formal written register rather than conversational fluency.
Legal and policy frame
Sinhala and Tamil are both official languages, with English as the link language; Tamil's official status flows from the 1987 Thirteenth Amendment, and implementation is supervised under the Official Languages Act No. 18 of 1991 and the Official Languages Commission. Expect administrative vocabulary, because the paper draws on circulars, gazettes, Cabinet memoranda and communiqués.
What is tested
- Comprehension of a prose passage, answered in the same language and in your own words.
- Grammar: in Sinhala, sandhi, case endings (vibhakti), verb forms and the written-versus-spoken distinction; in Tamil, case markers, conjugation, transitivity pairs and correct honorific and plural forms.
- Translation, usually in both directions, of short official passages.
- Composition: a formal letter, a report or a short essay on a public issue.
Worked example
Given 'The Ministry has decided to suspend the licence with effect from 1 January', do not translate word-for-word into a spoken register. In Sinhala use the formal passive and the correct case for the date; in Tamil use the formal construction and keep 'licence' as a recognised administrative term. Fix one term for one concept and keep it throughout, giving the English in brackets at first use where no settled equivalent exists.
Traps
- Slipping into colloquial forms inside an official letter.
- Translating proper nouns inconsistently, so one ministry appears under three spellings.
- Ignoring agreement in gender, number and person.
- Leaving a translation blank instead of attempting it; partial credit is real.
- Mismanaging time so the essay is written in the last ten minutes.