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Sinhala words of Tamil origin came about as part of the more than 2000 years of language interactions between Sinhala and Tamil in the island of Sri Lanka, as well as through Dravidian substratum effect on the Sinhala language. According to linguists, there are about 900 Tamil words in Sinhala usage.
[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.
Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are classified into three major subgroups: the Jaffna Tamil, the Batticaloa Tamil, and the Negombo Tamil dialects. These dialects are also used by ethnic groups other than Tamils such as the Sinhalese, Moors and Veddhas. Tamil loan words in Sinhala also follow the characteristics of Sri Lankan Tamil dialects. [154]
English, Sinhala and Tamil languages on a war grave memorial plate in Kandy. (click to see full view of memorial plate) English in Sri Lanka is fluently spoken by approximately 23.8% [4] of the population, and widely used for official and commercial purposes. It is the native language of approximately 74,000 people, mainly in urban areas.
Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are distinct from the Tamil dialects used in Tamil Nadu, India.They are used in Sri Lanka and in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.Linguistic borrowings from European colonizers such as the Portuguese, English and the Dutch have also contributed to a unique vocabulary that is distinct from the colloquial usage of Tamil in the Indian mainland.
There are many Tamil loanwords in other languages.The Tamil language, primarily spoken in southern India and Sri Lanka, has produced loanwords in many different languages, including Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, English, Malay, native languages of Indonesia, Mauritian Creole, Tagalog, Russian, and Sinhala and Dhivehi.
As Tamil is a diglossic language the differences between the standard written languages across the globe is minimal but the spoken varieties differ considerably. The spoken Tamil varieties in Sri Lanka although different from those of Tamil Nadu in India share some common features with the southern dialects of Tamil Nadu.
The Official Language Act (No. 33 of 1956), commonly referred to as the Sinhala Only Act, was an act passed in the Parliament of Ceylon in 1956. [1] The act replaced English with Sinhala as the sole official language of Ceylon, with the exclusion of Tamil from the act.