This article should specify the language of its non-English content, using {{lang}}, {{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and {{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriate ISO 639 code. Wikipedia's multilingual support templates may also be used. See why.(March 2021)
Sinhala
සිංහල Siṁhala
Pronunciation
IPA:[ˈsiŋɦələ]
Native to
Sri Lanka
Ethnicity
Sinhalese
Speakers
L1: 16 million (2021)[1] L2: 2.0 million (1997)[1]
Language family
Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Southern Zone
Insular Indo-Aryan
Sinhalese–Maldivian
Sinhala
Early form
Elu
Dialects
Vedda (perhaps a Creole language)
Writing system
Sinhala script
Sinhala Braille (Bharati Braille)
Official status
Official language in
Sri Lanka
Language codes
ISO 639-1
si
ISO 639-2
sin
ISO 639-3
sin
Glottolog
sinh1246
Linguasphere
59-ABB-a
Sinhala (/ˈsɪnhələ,ˈsɪŋələ/SIN-hə-lə, SING-ə-lə;[2] Sinhala: සිංහල, siṁhala, [ˈsiŋɦələ]),[3] sometimes called Sinhalese (/ˌsɪn(h)əˈliːz,ˌsɪŋ(ɡ)əˈliːz/SIN-(h)ə-LEEZ, SING-(g)ə-LEEZ), is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million.[4][1] Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million speakers as of 2001.[5] It is written using the Sinhala script, which is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India.[6]
Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, alongside Tamil. Along with Pali, it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature.[1]
Early forms of the Sinhala language are attested as early as the 3rd century BCE.[7] The language of these inscriptions, still retaining long vowels and aspirated consonants, is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi, a regional associate of the Middle Indian Prakrits that had been used during the time of the Buddha.[8] The most closely related languages are the Vedda language (an endangered, indigenous creole still spoken by a minority of Sri Lankans, mixing Sinhala with an isolate of unknown origin and from which Old Sinhala borrowed various aspects into its main Indo-Aryan substrate), and the Maldivian language.
It has two main varieties, written and spoken, and is a conspicuous example of the linguistic phenomenon known as diglossia.[9][10]
There are 1,500 poems written in the 6th-10th centuries on the Sigiriya Mirror Wall. These poems are believed to have been composed by pilgrims who came to visit the Buddhist monastery of Sigiriya, which was active at this time.[11]Letters of the Sinhala script.
^ abcdSinhala at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
^Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook
^"Census of Population and Housing 2011". www.statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
^"Census of Population and Housing 2001" (PDF). Statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
^Jayarajan, Paul M. (1 January 1976). History of the Evolution of the Sinhala Alphabet. Colombo Apothecaries' Company, Limited.
^Prof. Senarat Paranavithana (1970), Inscriptions of Ceylon Volume I – Early Brāhmī Inscriptions
^Dias, Malini (2020). The language of the Early Brahmi inscriptions of Sri Lanka# Epigraphical Notes Nos.22-23. Department of Archaeology. pp. 12–19. ISBN 978-955-7457-30-7.
^Paolillo, John C. (1997). "Sinhala Diglossia: Discrete or Continuous Variation?". Language in Society. 26 (2): 269–296. doi:10.1017/S0047404500020935. ISSN 0047-4045. JSTOR 4168764. S2CID 144123299.
^Gair, James W. (1968). "Sinhalese Diglossia". Anthropological Linguistics. 10 (8): 1–15. ISSN 0003-5483. JSTOR 30029181.
^"Sigiri Graffiti: poetry on the mirror-wall". Lanka Library. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
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