Date
Type Country & Island
Usage English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Polish, Romanian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Malay, Indonesian
Scripts Σρι Λάνκα(Greek)
Pronounced Pron. /ʃɹi.ˈlɑːŋ.kə/(English) /sɹi.ˈlɑːŋ.kə/(English) /sɹi.ˈlæŋ.kə/(English) /sʁiː.ˈlaŋ.ka/(German) /sri.ˈlɑŋ.ka/(Dutch) /ʃʁi.lɑ̃.ka/(French) /sʁi.lɑ̃.ka/(French) /es.ˌɾi.ˈlan.ka/(Spanish) /srʲi.ˈlan.ka/(Polish)
Note In Turkish this name is written with a dotted İ. It appears as SRİ LANKA in uppercase and sri lanka in lowercase.
Meaning & History
From Sinhalese ශ්රී ලංකා (Shrī Lankā), derived from the Sanskrit honorific श्री (śrī) meaning "holy, sacred" combined with the name of the legendary island of Lanka. This is an island nation in southern Asia. Formerly known as Ceylon when it was a colony of the Portuguese, Dutch and English, the country adopted the name Sri Lanka when it became a republic in 1972.