Sinhala language

Sinhala
සිංහල (Siṁhala)
PronunciationIPA: [ˈsiŋɦələ]
Native toSri Lanka
EthnicitySinhalese
SpeakersL1: 16 million (2021)[1]
L2: 2.0 million (1997)[1]
Early form
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Sri Lanka
Language codes
ISO 639-1si
ISO 639-2sin
ISO 639-3sin
Glottologsinh1246
Linguasphere59-ABB-a
   Sinhala is the majority language where the vast majority are first language speakers
   Sinhala is the majority language, with other languages being spoken largely or as a second language (such as Tamil and Malay)
   Sinhala is a minority language

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.
  1. ^ a b c d e Sinhala at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  3. ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook
  4. ^ "Census of Population and Housing 2011". www.statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  5. ^ "Census of Population and Housing 2001" (PDF). Statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  6. ^ Jayarajan, Paul M. (1 January 1976). History of the Evolution of the Sinhala Alphabet. Colombo Apothecaries' Company, Limited.
  7. ^ Prof. Senarat Paranavithana (1970), Inscriptions of Ceylon Volume I – Early Brāhmī Inscriptions
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ Gair, James W. (1968). "Sinhalese Diglossia". Anthropological Linguistics. 10 (8): 1–15. ISSN 0003-5483. JSTOR 30029181.
  11. ^ "Sigiri Graffiti: poetry on the mirror-wall". Lanka Library. Retrieved 15 January 2023.