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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.
Sinhala words of Dutch origin came about during the period of Dutch colonial rule in Sri Lanka between 1658 and 1798. This period saw absorption of several Dutch words into the local language brought about by the interaction between Dutch colonials and the Sinhalese people, mainly in the coastal areas of the island.
Sinhala words of Portuguese origin came about during the period of Portuguese colonial rule in Sri Lanka between 1505–1658. This period saw rapid absorption of many Portuguese words into the local language brought about by the interaction between Portuguese colonials and the Sinhalese people, mainly in the coastal areas of the island.
Sinhala may be considered a combination of sinha (සිංහ) , literally "lion", and la (ල), for "slayer" or "taker", hence Sinhala may mean "lion-slayer". [25] The story of the derivation of Sinhala is told in Mahāvaṃsa , and it is believed to be a reference to the founding legend of Sri Lanka; the island was conquered by a descendant ...
Exception from the standard are the romanization of Sinhala long "ä" ([æː]) as "ää", and the non-marking of prenasalized stops. Sinhala words of English origin mainly came about during the period of British colonial rule in Sri Lanka. This period saw absorption of several English words into the local language brought about by the ...
Tamil loanwords in Sinhala can appear in the same form as the original word (e.g. akkā), but this is quite rare.Usually, a word has undergone some kind of modification to fit into the Sinhala phonological (e.g. paḻi becomes paḷi(ya) because the sound of /ḻ/, [], does not exist in the Sinhala phoneme inventory) or morphological system (e.g. ilakkam becomes ilakkama because Sinhala ...
The Sinhala script (Sinhala: සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව, romanized: Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva), also known as Sinhalese script, is a writing system used by the Sinhalese people and most Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhala language as well as the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit. [3]
While typical Sri Lankan placenames of Sinhalese origin vastly dominate, toponyms which stem from Tamil, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Arabic also exist. In the past, the many composite or hybrid place names and the juxtaposition of Sinhala and Tamil placenames reflected the coexistence of people of both language groups.