Advertisement in Sri Lanka : A country with Bilingual and Trilingual Logos and Banners
“Sri Lanka” means Resplendent Island, and I had the luck to travel around this marvelous country for eleven days during spring break. It was around the eighth day of my trip that I noticed I could write my next blog entry on the bilingual and trilingual logos and banners that I’ve been observing throughout my trip, but sadly at that point of the journey we were already at some of the most remote places we were going to visit, so it was already late to take pictures for my blog. Fortunately, with some research, I found some examples of what I’m going to talk about.
Me in Galle, a town in the south coast of Sri Lanka
Meanings Everywhere
Before approaching the logos, I’ll share some of the other things I learned throughout my trip related to the symbology of the country.
Sri Lankan Flag
One of these elements is the country’s flag. It was designed in 1950, two years after the island’s independence from Great Britain on February 04, 1948. The flag tries to include the minorities and majorities of the country in its elements. The lion represents the Sinhala race, the sword the sovereignty of the country, the lion’s curly hair indicates religious observance, wisdom, and meditation, its beard indicates the purity of words; the handle of the sword includes elements that represent water, fire, air, and earth. The orange vertical stripe represents the Tamil race which is a minority in the country, and the green vertical stripe stands for the Muslim members of the Sri Lankan population, which are also a minority. In the same way, the yellow color represents all the other races that are a minority in the country, and the brown color, the other minor religions.
Illustration of a Sri Lankan street by Ulrike Bachmayer
Why are there three main languages spoken in Sri Lanka?
As I mentioned, the country’s population is conformed of majorities and minorities and this is one of the reasons behind the bilingual and trilingual logos and advertising. Sri Lanka suffered from the Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonization starting in the 16th century. Today, the population is 74.9 percent Sinhalese and 11.2 percent Sri Lankan Tamil and each one of these portions have its language: Sinhala and Tamil. It is believed that the Tamils arrived from India later that the Sinhalese on the island, around the 3rd Century BC. Since the Tamil arrival in Sri Lanka, power disputes between the two groups arose, leading to the 2009 civil war, which apparently ended with the disputes. Nonetheless, today both groups are constant targets of the government’s undemocratic actions.
Map showing the Demographics of Sri Lanka. Source: https://medium.com/on-politics/multi-ethnic-sri-lanka-7c9956f6d44
Seeing this, we can understand the importance of representation and inclusion in Sri Lanka at all levels, including logos.
Oh, and I forgot about English. It is not considered an official language, but a “link” language. It was introduced to the country by the British during their colony that started in 1796. It is fluently spoken by 23.8% of the population.
Illustration of the British Colonization of Sri Lanka
Tamil and Sinhala
Tamil and Sinhala, the two official languages in Sri Lanka, originated from India. Tamil comes from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and Sinhala was brought from the northern part of India by migrants.
Sinhalese Alphabet
Tamil Alphabet
Both languages come from the same territory, but as you can see up here, they have different alphabets and sounds, and in general, they are two completely different languages. Sinhala comes from the family of the Indo-Aryan languages, and it is actually very different from any other language from this family given that it evolved significantly with its arrival in Sri Lanka. Tamil, on the other hand, belongs to the family of the Dravidian languages, mostly spoken in the south. Therefore, visual communications in Sri Lanka are written in these two languages and in a lot of cases, also in English, including road signs.
Road Sign in Sri Lanka including the three languages
Logos and Commercial Banners in Sri Lanka
In this section, I’ll show you some examples of what I’ve been talking about. Sorry for the long wait.
Commercial banner and a Soap Ad
Here are some of the logos of the brands with an important presence in the country:
Bank of Ceylon logo
In the case of this logo, we can find the three languages in the circle surrounding the lion inside the letter “o”. Also, in the superior part of the logo, the name of the brand is in English, and in the bottom part is first in Sinhala and then in Tamil.
People’s Bank logo
The same happens here with the circle.
Sampath Bank logo
And here, the name of the brand is written in the three languages to the right side of the logo.
This is my perception, but I think that the font for most of the logos for Sri Lankan brands is very simple, perhaps to simplify the inclusion of the three languages which for sure is not an easy task. And also, maybe because of my lack of reading comprehension in Sinhala and Tamil, I feel that these two languages when they are used in any visual communication, are written with the same font all the time.
Nonetheless, there exist different fonts for these languages (obviously). 
Different fonts in Sinhala
Different fonts in Tamil
More fonts in Tamil
Lanka Sathosa
This is the brand that gave me the idea to write this blog. It is considered the largest state-owned retail chain.
Lanka Sathosa Logo
Normally the banners outside these supermarkets display together the two logos up here, one next to the other. Sadly, it doesn’t exist a version of the logo with the yellow part in Tamil, probably because the word “sathosa” is in Sinhala.
Lanka Sathosa logo
In this more modern version of the logo in Sinhala we can see that they played with the letter that is at the beginning and at the end of the word to make it look like an apple. Also, in the letter in middle, there’s a shape that is the outline of Sri Lanka’s territory. They could have kept this feature in the English version by putting this outline inside the letter “o”.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola was the only international brand for which I could find a version of its logo in Sinhala and Tamil. 
Coca-Cola logo in Sinhala and Tamil
And on this old bottle cap, we can see an effort to modify the fonts in Sinhala and Tamil to make them look more similar to the English version of the logo.
In this version of the Coca-Cola logo in Sinhala and Tamil we can see that the shape of the C in “Cola”is copied.
In conclusion, I think it is very important that the brands keep trying to include the three languages in their logo for matters of inclusion and equality. Especially given that transnational brands are sometimes sold in remote places and people are in all their right to don’t speak and read English since it’s not even an official language.
P.S.
Thanks for reading this blog entry! On a sadder note, Sri Lanka is right now going through its worst economic crisis since 1948, and its worse political crisis since the Civil War. Please get informed, spread the word, and/or donate. Here and here are two articles written by Sri Lankan NYUAD students regarding the situation and this document explains how you can donate.
References:
https://www.srilanka.org.tr/national-flag_2-2956
https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-civil-war/
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/sri-lanka
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sinhalese-language
https://www.britannica.com/search?query=tamil+language
Beautiful and very rich entry, Miriam ! I agree with the fact that inclusion and equality should be key elements when designing brands, banners and visuals, especially in countries where different minorities and majorities cohabit together. For instance, in Morocco, Amazigh/Berber has always been the first language that our ancestors spoke. However, it has never been used in any type of branding whatsoever even if Tamazight speakers constitute now 28% of the Moroccan population. Recently and after popular demand, we have started to see some highway signs in Tamazight Language written in Tifinagh alphabet, along side Arabic and French. However, it also got lots of criticism from the rest of the population for being useless, disturbing and hard to understand, especially for foreigners. While I think these points are valid, my approach may be too sentimental but I think that in this specific case, cultural heritage matters more than just practicality. Again, thank you for this insightful post and `I hope things get better in Sri Lanka very soon <3
Another insightful post by Miriam! I love reading your blogs and learning about history and design practices in different parts of the world. It’s sad to see how the older CocaCola logo incorporated the modified, “English looking” fonts, but the newer logo did not. I wonder why such decision was made.
Very interesting! I really had no idea that the country was so diverse in its languages and religions. I especially like how you premised the blog post with dissecting the flag because it sets the tone for the rest of the piece, just as the inclusion of minorities in the flag set the tone for the need for trilingual branding.
Very informative article Miriam! It’s always interesting to learn more about how brand designs need to adapt in different countries based on the languages spoken and how the demographics are spread. The need to include three different languages in one logo seems like it could be a headache for the designers, but it is definitely a necessity.