Sinhala
Encyclopedia
Sinhala also known as Helabasa, is the mother tongue of the Sinhalese people
, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka
, numbering about 15 million. Sinhala is also spoken by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 3 million. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch
of the Indo-European languages
. Sinhala is the official and national language of Sri Lanka.
Sinhala has its own writing system (see Sinhala alphabet
) which is a member of the Brahmic family of scripts
, and a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script
.
The oldest Indian Prakrit inscriptions found are from the 6th century BCE, on pottery; the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE.
The closest relative of Sinhala is the Vedda language
of the Indigenous tribes of Sri Lanka
and the language of the Maldives
and Minicoy
Island (India
), Dhivehi
.
term; the corresponding Middle Indic
word is Sīhala; the actual Sinhala term is Hela*
(also Elu, Helu). The Sanskrit and the Middle Indic words have as their first element (siṃha and sīha) the word "lion" in the respective languages.
. According to the chronicle Mahavamsa
, this first of settlers as was Prince Vijaya and his entourage. These new settlers merged with the native Hela tribes known as Yakka, Naga who spoke Elu
language, and a new nation called Sinhala came to exist. In the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India-Bengal (Kalinga
, Magadha
) which led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrit
s.
, e.g. the words mässā ("fly") and mäkkā ("flea"), which both correspond to Sanskrit but stem from two regionally different Prakrit words macchiā and makkhikā (as in Pali
).
. Sinhalese has many words that are only found in Sinhalese, or shared between Sinhalese and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Common examples are Kola for leaf in Sinhalese and Vedda, Dola for pig in Sinhalese and offering in Vedda. Other common words are Rera for wild duck, and Gala for stones (in toponyms used throughout the island). There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhalese such as Olluva for head, Kakula for leg, Bella for neck and Kalava for thighs that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The author of the oldest Sinhalese grammar, Sidatsangarava, written in the 13th century CE, recognized a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhalese. The grammar lists naramba (to see) and kolamba (fort or harbor) as belonging to an indigenous source. Kolamba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo
.
"I know that it is new."
"I do not know whether it is new."
.
or Macau Creole (known as Patuá to its speakers) is a creole language
derived mainly from Malay
, Sinhalese, Cantonese, and Portuguese
, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community
of the Portuguese
colony of Macau
. It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora
.
The language developed first mainly among the descendants of Portuguese settlers whom often married women from Malacca
and Sri Lanka
rather than from neighboring China
, so the language had strong Malay
and Sinhalese influence from the beginning.
languages. Shared vocabulary includes the numbers up to ten:
, Matara
and Hambantota
districts) uses several words that are not found elsewhere in the country; this is also the case for the Central province, North-Central province and south-eastern part (Uva & the surrounding area). For native speakers all dialects are mutually intelligible, and they might not even realize that the differences are significant.
The language of the Veddah people
resembles Sinhala to a great extent, although it has a large number of words which cannot be traced to another language. Rodiya people
use another dialect of Sinhala.
, as in many languages of South Asia. The literary language
and the spoken language
differ from each other in many aspects. The written language is used for all forms of literary texts
but also orally at formal occasions (public speeches, TV and radio news broadcasts, etc.), whereas the spoken language is used as the language of communication in everyday life (see also Sinhala slang
and colloquialism
). As a rule the literary language uses more Sanskrit
-based words.
The most important difference between the two varieties is the lack of inflected
verb
forms in the spoken language.
The situation is analogous to one where Middle
or even Old English would be the written language in Great Britain
. The children are taught the written language at school almost like a foreign language
.
Sinhala language also has diverse slang
. Some is regarded as taboo and most is frowned upon as non-scholarly.
, Sinhala hodiya, is based on ancient Brahmi
, as are most Indo-Aryan scripts. In design, the Sinhala alphabet is what is called an "abugida
" or "alphasyllabary", meaning that consonants are written with letters while vowels are indicated with diacritic
s (pilla) on those consonants, unlike English where both consonants and vowels are full letters, or Urdu where vowels need not be written at all. Also, when no diacritic is used, an "inherent vowel" /ə/ is understood. For example, the letter ක k on its own indicates ka /kə/. The various vowels are written කා kā, කැ kä, කෑ kǟ (after the consonant), කි ki, කී kī (above the consonant), කු ku, කූ kū (below the consonant), කෙ ke, කේ kē (before the consonant), කො ko, කෝ kō (surrounding the consonant). There are also a few diacritics for consonants, such as r. For simple /k/ without a vowel, a vowel-cancelling diacritic (virama
) called hal kirīma is used: ක් k. Several of these diacritics occur in two forms, which depend on the shape of the consonant letter. Vowels do have their own letters, actually, but these are only used at the beginning of a word, where there is no preceding consonant to add a diacritic to.
The complete alphabet consist of 54 letters, 18 for vowels and 36 for consonants. However, only 36 (12 vowels and 24 consonants) are required for writing colloquial spoken Sinhala (suddha Sinhala). The rest indicate sounds that have gotten lost in the course of linguistic change, such as the aspirates, are restricted to Sanskrit
and Pali
loan words.
Sinhala is written from left to right and the Sinhala character set (the Sinhala script) is only used for this one language. The alphabetic sequence is similar to those of other Brahmic scripts:
.
by some scholars. Depending on how far an independent word has progressed on a grammaticalization path, scholars will see it as a case marker or not.
The brackets with most of the vowel length symbols indicate the optional shortening of long vowels in certain unstressed
syllables.
plus -u, or with -la(ː). Most of the inanimates mark the plural by subtractive morphology. Loan words from English mark the singular with ekə, and do not mark the plural. This can be interpreted as singulative.
On the left hand side of the table, plurals are longer than singulars. On the right hand side, it is the other way round, with the exception of paːrə "street". Note that [+animate] lexemes are mostly in the classes on the left-hand side, while [-animate] lexemes are most often in the classes on the right hand.
Spoken Sinhala does not mark person, number or gender on the verb (literary Sinhala does). In other words there is no subject–verb agreement.
Example: The sentence koɦed̪ə ɡie, literally "where went", can mean "where did I/you/he/she/we... go".
Sinhalese people
The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group,forming the majority of Sri Lanka,constituting 74% of the Sri Lankan population.They number approximately 15 million worldwide.The Sinhalese identity is based on language, heritage and religion. The Sinhalese speak Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language and the...
, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, numbering about 15 million. Sinhala is also spoken by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 3 million. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
of the Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
. Sinhala is the official and national language of Sri Lanka.
Sinhala has its own writing system (see Sinhala alphabet
Sinhala alphabet
The Sinhala alphabet is an abugida used in Sri Lanka to write the official language Sinhala and also sometimes the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit...
) which is a member of the Brahmic family of scripts
Brahmic family of scripts
The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
, and a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
.
The oldest Indian Prakrit inscriptions found are from the 6th century BCE, on pottery; the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE.
The closest relative of Sinhala is the Vedda language
Vedda language
The Vedda language is the language of the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. But communities, such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas, that do not strictly identify themselves as Veddas also use the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and or for religious chants,...
of the Indigenous tribes of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and the language of the Maldives
Maldives
The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...
and Minicoy
Minicoy
Minicoy, locally known as Maliku is a census town in the Indian union territory of Lakshadweep and was formerly a part of Maldive Islands.-Etymology:...
Island (India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
), Dhivehi
Dhivehi language
Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Maldives where it is the national language. It is also the first language of nearly 10,000 people in the island of Minicoy in the Union territory of Lakshadweep, India where the Mahl dialect of the Maldivian...
.
Etymology
Sinhala is actually a SanskritSanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
term; the corresponding Middle Indic
Middle Indo-Aryan languages
The Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as Vedic & Classical Sanskrit, and the predecessors of the late medieval languages such as Apabhramsha or Abahatta, which eventually evolved into the...
word is Sīhala; the actual Sinhala term is Hela*
Elu
The Elu language is the name given to the ancient form of the Sinhala variant of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages...
(also Elu, Helu). The Sanskrit and the Middle Indic words have as their first element (siṃha and sīha) the word "lion" in the respective languages.
History
It is believed that about the 5th century BCE, settlers from North-Eastern India reached the island of Sri LankaSri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. According to the chronicle Mahavamsa
Mahavamsa
The Mahavamsa is a historical poem written in the Pali language, of the kings of Sri Lanka...
, this first of settlers as was Prince Vijaya and his entourage. These new settlers merged with the native Hela tribes known as Yakka, Naga who spoke Elu
Elu
The Elu language is the name given to the ancient form of the Sinhala variant of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages...
language, and a new nation called Sinhala came to exist. In the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India-Bengal (Kalinga
Kalinga (India)
Kalinga was an early state in central-eastern India, which comprised most of the modern state of Orissa/Utkal , as well as the Andhra region of the bordering state of Andhra Pradesh. It was a rich and fertile land that extended from the river Damodar/Ganges to Godavari and from Bay of Bengal to...
, Magadha
Magadha
Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or kingdoms in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganga; its first capital was Rajagriha then Pataliputra...
) which led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrit
Prakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
s.
Stages of historical development
The development of the Sinhala language is divided into four periods:- Sinhala Prakrit (until 3rd century CE)
- Proto-Sinhala (3rd - 7th century CE)
- Medieval Sinhala (7th - 12th century CE)
- Modern Sinhala (12th century - present)
Phonetic development
The most important phonetic developments of the Sinhala language include- the loss of the aspirationAspiration (phonetics)In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
distinction in stopsStop consonantIn phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
(e.g. kanna "to eat" corresponds to Sanskrit khādati, Hindi khānā) - the shortening of all long vowelVowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s (compare example above) [Long vowels in the modern language are due to borrowingsLoanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
(e.g. vibāgaya "exam" < Sanskrit vibhāga) and sandhiSandhiSandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
phenomena either after elisionElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
of intervocalic consonants (e.g. dānavā "to put" < damanavā) or in originally compoundCompound (linguistics)In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
words.] - the simplification of consonant clusterConsonant clusterIn linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s and geminateGeminationIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
consonants into geminates and single consonants respectively (e.g. Sanskrit "time" > Sinhala Prakrit > Modern Sinhala ) - development of /j/ to /d/ (e.g. däla "web" corresponds to Sanskrit jāla)
Western vs. Eastern Prakrit features
An example for a Western feature in Sinhala is the retention of initial /v/ which developed into /b/ in the Eastern languages (e.g. Sanskrit "twenty", Sinhala visi-, Hindi bīs). An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular (instead of Western -o) in Sinhala Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doubletsDoublet (linguistics)
In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins when they have different phonological forms but the same etymological root. Often, but not always, the variants have entered the language through different routes...
, e.g. the words mässā ("fly") and mäkkā ("flea"), which both correspond to Sanskrit but stem from two regionally different Prakrit words macchiā and makkhikā (as in Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
).
Sri Lankan Politics
In 1956 Sinhala replaced English as the official language. This has historically been viewed by academics as a key point in the development of ethnic discontent between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils. It was implemented by the Sri Lankan Freedom Party as one of its first acts in government and was perceived by the Tamils as a part of a strategy of placing "Sinhalese culture, language, and religion (Buddhism) to a position of dominance in the society." (Baxter, 2002, p. 354).Substratum influence in Sinhalese
According to Geiger, Sinhalese language has features that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages. Some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of parent stock of the Vedda languageVedda language
The Vedda language is the language of the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. But communities, such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas, that do not strictly identify themselves as Veddas also use the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and or for religious chants,...
. Sinhalese has many words that are only found in Sinhalese, or shared between Sinhalese and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Common examples are Kola for leaf in Sinhalese and Vedda, Dola for pig in Sinhalese and offering in Vedda. Other common words are Rera for wild duck, and Gala for stones (in toponyms used throughout the island). There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhalese such as Olluva for head, Kakula for leg, Bella for neck and Kalava for thighs that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The author of the oldest Sinhalese grammar, Sidatsangarava, written in the 13th century CE, recognized a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhalese. The grammar lists naramba (to see) and kolamba (fort or harbor) as belonging to an indigenous source. Kolamba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
.
Affinities to neighbouring languages
Sinhalese has been heavily influenced by Dravidian; relevant examples include:- loss of aspiration
- left-branching syntaxBranching (linguistics)In linguistics, branching is the general tendency towards a given order of words within sentences and smaller grammatical units within sentences...
- use of the verbal adjective of kiyanavā "to say" as a subordinating conjunctionGrammatical conjunctionIn grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
with the meanings "that" and "if", e.g.:
| ēka | aluth | kiyalā | mama | dannawā |
| it | new | having-said | I | know |
"I know that it is new."
| ēka | aluth-da | kiyalā | mama | dannē | nähä |
| it | new-? | having-said | I | know | not |
"I do not know whether it is new."
Foreign influences
As a result of centuries of colonial rule, contemporary Sinhala contains many Portuguese, Dutch and English loanwordsSinhalese words of English Origin
Sinhala is the mother tongue of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 15 million. Sinhala is also spoken by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 3 million. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages...
.
Influences on Other Languages
Macanese languageMacanese
Macanese may refer to:* Macanese people, the people of Macau* Macanese people , an ethnic group in Macau of mainly Portuguese, and some with African, Cantonese, South Asian, Southeast Asian or other origins...
or Macau Creole (known as Patuá to its speakers) is a creole language
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
derived mainly from Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
, Sinhalese, Cantonese, and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community
Macanese people
The Macanese-born Portuguese people or simply the Macanese people refer to an ethnic group which originated in Macau since the 16th century, consisting mostly of people with some Portuguese ancestry.-Culture:...
of the Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
colony of Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
. It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
.
The language developed first mainly among the descendants of Portuguese settlers whom often married women from Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
rather than from neighboring China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, so the language had strong Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
and Sinhalese influence from the beginning.
Numerals
Sinhala shares many features common to other Indo-EuropeanIndo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
languages. Shared vocabulary includes the numbers up to ten:
| Numeral | Sinhala | Konkani | Sanskrit Sanskrit Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand... |
Telugu Telugu language Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu... |
Greek | Latin Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and... |
Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... |
German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... |
French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
Latvian Latvian language Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language... |
| 1 | eka (එක) | eka | éka | okati (ఒకటి) | heis | unus | um | eins | one | un | odin | viens |
| 2 | deka (දෙක) | don | dvá | rendu (రెండు) | dúo | duo | dois | zwei | two | deux | dva | divi |
| 3 | thuna (තුන) | theen | trí | moodu (మూడు) | treis | tres | três | drei | three | trois | tri | trīs |
| 4 | hathara (හතර) | chaar | chatúr | naalugu (నాలుగు) | téttares | quattuor | quatro | vier | four | quatre | chetyre | četri |
| 5 | paha (පහ) | panch | páñca | ídu (ఐదు) | pénte | quinque | cinco | fünf | five | cinq | pyat' | pieci |
| 6 | haya (හය) | sa | shat | aaru (ఆరు) | héx | sex | seis | sechs | six | six | shest' | seši |
| 7 | hatha (හත) | saath | saptá | yedu (ఏడు) | heptá | septem | sete | sieben | seven | sept | sem' | septiņi |
| 8 | ata (අට) | aat | aṣṭá | yenimidi (ఎనిమిది) | októ | octo | oito | acht | eight | huit | vosem' | astoņi |
| 9 | navaya (නවය) formal namaya (නමය) contemporary spoken |
nav | náva | tommidi (తొమ్మిది) | ennéa | novem | nove | neun | nine | neuf | devyat' | deviņi |
| 10 | dahaya (දහය) | dha | dáça | padi (పది) | déka | decem | dez | zehn | ten | dix | desyat' | desmit |
Accents and Dialects
Sinhalese spoken in the Southern province of Sri Lanka (GalleGalle District
Galle is a district in Southern Province, Sri Lanka.- Geological background :Its area is , in which is water and is land. Galle District bounded on the North by Benthara river, South and West by the Indian Ocean and East by Matara and Ratnapura Districts. Topography of Galle District is very...
, Matara
Matara District
Matara is a district in Southern Province, Sri Lanka. Its area is 1,246 km². It is represented in the Sri Lankan Parliament following the Sri Lankan parliamentary election, 2010 by former Sri Lankan national Cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya who stood for the United People's Freedom Alliance....
and Hambantota
Hambantota District
Hambantota District is located on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka, in the Southern Province. It has an area of 2,593 km² and a very dry climate. The district capital is Hambantota town; the administrative headquarters are located there as well as the center of salt production...
districts) uses several words that are not found elsewhere in the country; this is also the case for the Central province, North-Central province and south-eastern part (Uva & the surrounding area). For native speakers all dialects are mutually intelligible, and they might not even realize that the differences are significant.
The language of the Veddah people
Wanniyala-Aetto
Veddas or Veddahs , are an indigenous people of Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. They amongst other self identified native communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas are accorded indigenous status...
resembles Sinhala to a great extent, although it has a large number of words which cannot be traced to another language. Rodiya people
Rodiya
Rodi or Rodiya are one of the widely reported untouchable social group or caste amongst the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka. Their status was very similar to all the Untouchable castes of India with segregated communities, ritualized begging, eating off the refuse of upper castes and refusal for the...
use another dialect of Sinhala.
Diglossia
In Sinhala there is distinctive diglossiaDiglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
, as in many languages of South Asia. The literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
and the spoken language
Spoken language
Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words derived from a large vocabulary together with a diverse variety of names are uttered through or with the mouth. All words are made up from a limited set of vowels and consonants. The spoken words they make are stringed into...
differ from each other in many aspects. The written language is used for all forms of literary texts
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
but also orally at formal occasions (public speeches, TV and radio news broadcasts, etc.), whereas the spoken language is used as the language of communication in everyday life (see also Sinhala slang
Sinhala slang
Sinhala slang is used by the Sinhala speaking majority of Sri Lanka, and other Sinhala speaking individuals.-Sinhala Dialects:Sinhala dialects are the various minor variations of Sinhala language which is based on the locale and the social classes and social groups . Most of the slang are common...
and colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...
). As a rule the literary language uses more Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
-based words.
The most important difference between the two varieties is the lack of inflected
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
forms in the spoken language.
The situation is analogous to one where Middle
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
or even Old English would be the written language in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. The children are taught the written language at school almost like a foreign language
Foreign language
A foreign language is a language indigenous to another country. It is also a language not spoken in the native country of the person referred to, i.e. an English speaker living in Japan can say that Japanese is a foreign language to him or her...
.
Sinhala language also has diverse slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
. Some is regarded as taboo and most is frowned upon as non-scholarly.
Writing system
The Sinhala alphabetSinhala alphabet
The Sinhala alphabet is an abugida used in Sri Lanka to write the official language Sinhala and also sometimes the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit...
, Sinhala hodiya, is based on ancient Brahmi
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
, as are most Indo-Aryan scripts. In design, the Sinhala alphabet is what is called an "abugida
Abugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
" or "alphasyllabary", meaning that consonants are written with letters while vowels are indicated with diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s (pilla) on those consonants, unlike English where both consonants and vowels are full letters, or Urdu where vowels need not be written at all. Also, when no diacritic is used, an "inherent vowel" /ə/ is understood. For example, the letter ක k on its own indicates ka /kə/. The various vowels are written කා kā, කැ kä, කෑ kǟ (after the consonant), කි ki, කී kī (above the consonant), කු ku, කූ kū (below the consonant), කෙ ke, කේ kē (before the consonant), කො ko, කෝ kō (surrounding the consonant). There are also a few diacritics for consonants, such as r. For simple /k/ without a vowel, a vowel-cancelling diacritic (virama
Virama
Virama is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts, including Devanagari and East Nagari, that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. The name is Sanskrit for "cessation, termination, end"...
) called hal kirīma is used: ක් k. Several of these diacritics occur in two forms, which depend on the shape of the consonant letter. Vowels do have their own letters, actually, but these are only used at the beginning of a word, where there is no preceding consonant to add a diacritic to.
The complete alphabet consist of 54 letters, 18 for vowels and 36 for consonants. However, only 36 (12 vowels and 24 consonants) are required for writing colloquial spoken Sinhala (suddha Sinhala). The rest indicate sounds that have gotten lost in the course of linguistic change, such as the aspirates, are restricted to Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
loan words.
Sinhala is written from left to right and the Sinhala character set (the Sinhala script) is only used for this one language. The alphabetic sequence is similar to those of other Brahmic scripts:
- a/ā ä/ǟ i/ī u/ū [ŗ] e/ē [ai] o/ō [au] k [kh] g [g] ṅ c [ch] j [jh] [ñ] ṭ [ṭa] ṭ [ṭh] ḍ [ḍh] ṇ t [th] d [dh] n p [ph] b [bh] m y r l v [ś ṣ] s h ḷ f
Phonology
- The presence of so-called prenasalized stops. A very short homorganic nasalNasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
is added before a voicedVoice (phonetics)Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate...
stop. The nasal is syllabified with the onset of the following syllable, which means that the moraic weightMora (linguistics)Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
of the preceding syllable is left unchanged. - The pronunciation of unstressed short a as schwa ə, which otherwise has no written symbol.
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental/ Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n̪ | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Stop Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | tʃ | k | |
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| prenasalized | ᵐb | ⁿ̪d̪ | ᶯɖ | ᵑɡ | |||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
(f) | s | (ʃ) | h | |||
| Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet... |
r | ||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
ʋ | l | j | ||||
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| long | short | long | short | long | short | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
iː | i | uː | u | ||
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
eː | e | (ə) | oː | o | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
æː | æ | aː | a |
Nominal morphology
The main features marked on Sinhala nouns are case, number, definiteness and animacyAnimacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
.
Cases
Sinhala distinguishes several cases. Next to the cross-linguistically rather common nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and ablative, there are also less common cases like the instrumental. The exact number of these cases depends on the exact definition of cases one wishes to employ. For instance, the endings for the animate instrumental and locative cases, atiŋ and laᵑgə, are also independent words meaning "with the hand" and "near" respectively, which is why they are not regarded to be actual case endingsAffix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
by some scholars. Depending on how far an independent word has progressed on a grammaticalization path, scholars will see it as a case marker or not.
The brackets with most of the vowel length symbols indicate the optional shortening of long vowels in certain unstressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
syllables.
| animate sg | inanimate sg | animate pl | inanimate pl | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOM Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
miniha(ː) | potə | minissu | pot |
| ACC Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
miniha(ː)və | potə | minissu(nvə) | pot |
| INSTR Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
miniha(ː) atiŋ | poteŋ | minissu(n) atiŋ | potvəliŋ |
| DAT Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
miniha(ː)ʈə | potəʈə | minissu(ɳ)ʈə | potvələʈə |
| ABL Ablative case In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ... |
miniha(ː)geŋ | poteŋ | minissu(n)geŋ | potvaliŋ |
| GEN Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
miniha(ː)ge(ː) | pote(ː) | minissu(ŋ)ge(ː) | potvələ |
| LOC Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... |
miniha(ː) laᵑgə | pote(ː) | minissu(n) laᵑgə | potvələ |
| VOC Vocative case The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence... |
miniho(ː) | - | minissuneː | - |
| Gloss | man | book | men | books |
Number marking
In Sinhala animate nouns, the plural is marked with -o(ː), a long consonantGemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
plus -u, or with -la(ː). Most of the inanimates mark the plural by subtractive morphology. Loan words from English mark the singular with ekə, and do not mark the plural. This can be interpreted as singulative.
| SG | ammaː | deviyaː | horaː | potə | reddə | kantoːruvə | satiyə | bas ekə | paːrə |
| PL | amməla(ː) | deviyo(ː) | horu | pot | redi | kantoːru | sati | bas | paːrəval |
| Gloss | mother(s) | god(s) | thief(ves) | book(s) | cloth(es) | office(s) | week(s) | bus(ses) | street(s) |
On the left hand side of the table, plurals are longer than singulars. On the right hand side, it is the other way round, with the exception of paːrə "street". Note that [+animate] lexemes are mostly in the classes on the left-hand side, while [-animate] lexemes are most often in the classes on the right hand.
Indefinite article
The indefinite article is -ek for animates and -ak for inanimates. The indefinite article exists only in the singular, where its absence marks definiteness. In the plural, (in)definiteness does not receive special marking.Verbal morphology
Sinhala distinguishes three conjugation classes.Spoken Sinhala does not mark person, number or gender on the verb (literary Sinhala does). In other words there is no subject–verb agreement.
| 1st class | 2nd class | 3rd class | ||||
| verb | verbal adjective | verb | verbal adjective | verb | verbal adjective | |
| present (future) | kanəvaː | kanə | arinəvaː | arinə | pipenəvaː | pipenə |
| past | kæːvaː | kæːvə | æriyaː | æriyə | pipunaː | pipunə |
| anterior | kaːlaː | kaːpu | ærəlaː | ærəpu | pipilaː | pipicca |
| simultaneous | kanə kanə / ka kaa(spoken) | / | arinə arinə / ara ara(spoken) | / | pipenə pipenə/ pipi pipi(spoken) | / |
| infinitive | kannə/kanḍə | / | arinnə/arinḍə | / | pipennə/pipenḍə | / |
| emphatic form | kanneː | / | arinneː | / | pipenneː | / |
| gloss | eat | / | open | / | blossom | / |
Syntax
- Left-branching language (see branchingBranching (linguistics)In linguistics, branching is the general tendency towards a given order of words within sentences and smaller grammatical units within sentences...
), which means that determining elements are usually put in front of what they determine (see example below). - SOV (subject–object–verb) word orderWord orderIn linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
, common to most left-branching languages. - As a left-branching language, there are no prepositions, only postpositions (see AdpositionAdpositionPrepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
). Example: "under the book" translates to pot̪ə yaʈə, literally "book under". - There are almost no conjunctionsConjunctionsConjunctions, is a biannual American literary journal based at Bard College. It was founded in 1981 and is currently edited by Bradford Morrow....
as English that or whether, but only non-finite clauseNon-finite clauseIn linguistics, a non-finite clause is a dependent clause whose verb is non-finite; for example, many languages can form non-finite clauses from infinitives...
s that are formed by the means of participleParticipleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
s and verbal adjectives. Example: "The man who writes books" translates to pot̪ liənə miniha, literally "books writing man". - An exception to this is statements of quantity which usually stand behind what they define. Example: "the four flowers" translates to mal hat̪ərə, literally "flowers four". On the other hand it can be argued that the numeral is the head in this construction, and the flowers the modifier, so that a better English rendering would be "a floral foursome"
- Sinhala has no copula: "I am rich" translates to mamə poːsat̪, literally "I rich". There are two existential verbs, which are used for locative predications, but these verbs are not used for predications of class-membership or property-assignment, unlike English is.
Semantics
- There is a four-way deictic system (which is rare): There are four demonstrative stemsWord stemIn linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...
(see demonstrative pronouns) meː "here, close to the speaker", oː "there, close to the person addressed", arə "there, close to a third person, visible" and eː "there, close to a third person, not visible".
Discourse
- Sinhala is a pro-drop languagePro-drop languageA pro-drop language is a language in which certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically inferable...
; that is, arguments of a sentence can be omitted when they can be inferred from context. This is true for subjectSubject (grammar)The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
—as in Italian, for instance—but also objects and other parts of the sentence can be "dropped" in Sinhala if they can be inferred. In that sense, Sinhala can be called a "super pro-drop language", like JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
.
Example: The sentence koɦed̪ə ɡie, literally "where went", can mean "where did I/you/he/she/we... go".
See also
- Sinhala Wikipedia
- EluEluThe Elu language is the name given to the ancient form of the Sinhala variant of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages...
- Sinhala script
- Sinhala slangSinhala slangSinhala slang is used by the Sinhala speaking majority of Sri Lanka, and other Sinhala speaking individuals.-Sinhala Dialects:Sinhala dialects are the various minor variations of Sinhala language which is based on the locale and the social classes and social groups . Most of the slang are common...
External links
- Guide to Sinhala language & Culture
- Sinhala Language tools download center
- Sinhala Input Method Editor
- Kapruka Sinhala dictionary
- Madhura Sinhala English Dictionary
- Sinhala dictionary (Beta)
- Sinhala dictionary resources online
- Sinhala books/novels
- USA Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Sinhala basic course