Tuk Tuk Trouble

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I went into Kandy on my own for the first time the other day, accompanied by my classmates Carolina and Katie. It was an exciting trip for me, if for no other reason than it gave me an excuse to practice speaking Siŋhala with the three-wheeler drivers.
“Mee three-wheeler eke yannewade?”
“You want three-wheeler?”
“ŋ… ŋ… ou. Three-wheeler eke yannewade?”
“What?”
Much to my dismay, I have found that Sri Lankan Siŋhala speakers simply cannot understand my accent. In the end we usually fall into a Siŋglish discourse, whereby I repeat English nouns followed by the word ekak to indicate that I am not, in fact, speaking English, but rather an ill informed version of Siŋhala.
“Notebook ekak tiyenewade?”
“What?”

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