Vedda is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Vedda is an endangered language that is used by the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Additionally, communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas who do not strictly identify as Veddas also use words from the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and/or for religious chants, throughout the island.
When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, the language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana. In the 1990s, self-identifying Veddas knew few words and phrases in Vedda, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially there was considerable debate amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect of Sinhalese or an independent language. Later studies indicate that the language spoken by today's Veddas is a creole which evolved from ancient times, when the Veddas came into contact with the early Sinhalese, from whom they increasingly borrowed words and synthetic features, yielding the cumulative effect that Vedda resembles Sinhalese in many particulars, but its grammatical core remains intact.[3]
The parent Vedda language(s) is of unknown linguistic origins, while Sinhalese is part of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Phonologically, Vedda is distinguished from Sinhalese by the higher frequency of palatal sounds [c] and [ɟ]. The effect is also heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes. Morphologically, the Vedda word classes are nouns, verbs and invariables, with unique gender distinctions in animate nouns. It has reduced and simplified many forms of Sinhalese such as second person pronouns and denotations of negative meanings. Instead of borrowing new words from Sinhalese or other languages, Vedda creates combinations of words from a limited lexical stock. Vedda maintains many archaic Sinhalese terms from the 10th to 12th centuries, as a relict of its close contact with Sinhalese, while retaining a number of unique words that cannot be derived from Sinhalese. Vedda has exerted a substratum influence in the formation of Sinhalese. This is evident by the presence of both lexical and structural elements in Sinhalese which cannot be traced to either Indo-Aryan or neighboring Dravidian languages.
^Vedda language at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^"UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger". www.unesco.org. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
Vedda is an endangered language that is used by the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Additionally, communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura...
sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become...
used during the time of the Buddha. The most closely related languages are the Veddalanguage (an endangered, indigenous creole still spoken by a minority...
unclassified Harappan language small language families and isolates of the Indian subcontinent: Burushaski, Kusunda, and Nihali. The Veddalanguage of Sri Lanka...
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trance or spirit possession sometimes use a mixed language that contains words from the Veddalanguage. Most Vedar are Hindu Saivites and worship a plethora...
Dravidian language. It thus joins Burushaski, Nihali and (potentially) the substrate of the Veddalanguage in the list of South Asian languages that do...
Lanka who are descendants of indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka who have adopted the culture, religion and language of the dominant Sinhalese residents...
Asia include Burushaski, a language spoken in Gilgit–Baltistan (administered by Pakistan), Kusunda (in western Nepal), and Vedda (in Sri Lanka).: 283 The...
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is also home to a few language isolates, like Burushaski, Kusunda, Nihali, and Vedda. Areally, the influence of the languages extend beyond the subcontinent...
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see) and kolamba (fort or harbour) as deriving from the indigenous Veddalanguage. Kolamba may also be the source of the name of the commercial capital...
that they originally spoke as Veddalanguage is considered diverged from its original source (due to Sinhalese language influence). According to K. Indrapala...
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