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Sinhala language

Sinhala
සිංහල භාෂාව (Siṁhala Bhashava)
PronunciationIPA: [ˈsiŋɦələ]
Native toSri Lanka
EthnicitySinhalese
SpeakersL1: 16 million (2021)[1]
L2: 4 million (2021)[1]
Total: 20 million (2021)[1]
Early form
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Sri Lanka
Regulated byNational Institute of Education, 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
   Sinhalese is the majority language, with other languages being spoken largely or as a second language (such as Malay and Tamil)
   Sinhala is a minority language
Sinhala is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
[2]

Sinhala (/ˈsɪnhələ, ˈsɪŋələ/ SIN-hə-lə, SING-ə-lə;[3] Sinhala: සිංහල, siṁhala, [ˈsiŋɦələ]),[4] 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.[5][1] It is also the first language of about 2 million other Sri Lankans, as of 2001.[6] It is written in the Sinhalese script, a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India.[7] The language has two main varieties, written and spoken, and is a notable example of the linguistic phenomenon known as diglossia.[8]

Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka. Along with Pali, it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature.[1]

Early forms of the Sinhalese language are attested to as early as the 3rd century BCE.[9] 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 spoken during the lifetime of the Buddha.[10] The most closely related languages to Sinhalese are the Vedda language and the Maldivian languages; the former is an endangered indigenous creole still spoken by a minority of Sri Lankans, which mixes Sinhalese with an isolate of unknown origin. Old Sinhalese borrowed various aspects of Vedda into its main Indo-Aryan substrate.[11]

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.[12]
Letters of the Sinhalese script.

The UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger considers Sinhala to be Potentially Vulnerable.[13] Factors contributing to the vulnerability of the language includes[14]:

  1. The language being geographically limited only to Sri Lanka, unlike the island's other major language, Tamil.
  2. The language shift towards English, at home as a second language to main spoken language in urban homes of young parents, and in education with English-medium education becoming the norm.
  3. The lack of due patronage from the State to preserve and propagate the language.
  1. ^ a b c d e f Sinhala language at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Sinhala in Sri Lanka – UNESCO". 2021.
  3. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  4. ^ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student's Handbook
  5. ^ "Census of Population and Housing 2011". www.statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original on 28 April 2017. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  6. ^ "Census of Population and Housing 2001" (PDF). Statistics.gov.lk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 July 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  7. ^ Jayarajan, Paul M. (1 January 1976). History of the Evolution of the Sinhala Alphabet. Colombo Apothecaries' Company, Limited.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ Prof. Senarat Paranavithana (1970), Inscriptions of Ceylon Volume I – Early Brāhmī Inscriptions
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Gair, James W. (1968). "Sinhalese Diglossia". Anthropological Linguistics. 10 (8): 1–15. ISSN 0003-5483. JSTOR 30029181.
  12. ^ "Sigiri Graffiti: poetry on the mirror-wall". Lanka Library. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
  13. ^ "Sinhala in Sri Lanka – UNESCO". 2021.
  14. ^ "Opinion: vulnerability of the Sinhala language". 12 June 2019.

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