Sinhalese Language | Britannica

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• Omniglot - Sinhala Alphabet

Sinhalese language Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Cingalese language, Simhali language, Singhalese language, Sinhala(Show More) Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Sinhalese language, Indo-Aryan language, one of the two official languages of Sri Lanka. It was taken there by colonists from northern India about the 5th century bc. Because of its isolation from the other Indo-Aryan tongues of mainland India, Sinhalese developed along independent lines. It was influenced by Pāli, the sacred language of the Sri Lankan Buddhists, and to a lesser degree by Sanskrit. It has borrowed a considerable number of words from the Dravidian languages, mostly from Tamil, which is also spoken in Sri Lanka.

Also spelled: Singhalese or Cingalese (Show more) Also called: Sinhala (Show more) Related Topics: Indo-Aryan languages Sinhalese literature (Show more) See all related content

The earliest inscriptions in Sinhalese, written on rock in Brāhmī characters, date from about 200 bc. By about 1250 the literary language had attained a form from which it has varied little since, although the modern spoken language differs considerably from it. Much literature was produced, nearly all of Buddhist inspiration, from 1000 on; modern secular literature began in the 20th century. Modern Sinhalese has its own syllabic script. Dialects of Sinhalese are spoken in the Lakshadweep and Maldive islands.