Sinhala Language Guide

Where it's spoken

Sinhala is the official language of Sri Lanka; the constitution also makes Tamil an official language and English the link language. Sinhala is also described as the majority language of Sri Lanka.

Sources

• Constitute Project — "Sri Lanka 1978 (rev. 2015) Constitution," Articles 18–19 — Article 18 (Official Language): Sinhala official, Tamil also official, English the link language
• The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0.0 — Core Specification, Chapter 13: South and Central Asia-II (Sinhala) — §13.2 Sinhala: description of Sinhala as the majority language of Sri Lanka

Script & pronunciation

Sinhala is written in its own script. This script is a descendant of Brahmi and resembles the scripts of South India in form and structure; it is also used to write Pali and Sanskrit, and it is an official script of Sri Lanka. Some consonant clusters are formed by combining the joining mark that cancels a consonant's inherent vowel (called AL-LAKUNA) with an invisible character called ZERO WIDTH JOINER — without that combination, an al-lakuna stays visible and does not join consonants into a cluster. This app's card for "Good night," සුබ රාත්‍රියක් (Su-ba rāth-ri-yak), writes the cluster ත්‍ර this way, inside රාත්‍රියක් ("night").

Sources

• The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0.0 — Core Specification, Chapter 13: South and Central Asia-II (Sinhala) — §13.2 Sinhala (Brahmi descent, official script of Sri Lanka); SINHALA SIGN AL-LAKUNA (U+0DCA) with ZERO WIDTH JOINER

Grammar essentials

Sinhala forms the dative case by adding -ta and the genitive case by adding -gē to a pronoun stem, as in dative ma-ta and genitive ma-gē; this app's cards show the same genitive suffix in මගේ (magē, "my," in "My name is …") and the same dative suffix in ඔබට (obata, "to you," in "Can you speak English?"). The verb generally comes at the end of the sentence. Questions can be formed with the particle ද (da), which attaches to an interrogative word — usually the last word in the sentence that the interrogative word introduces — as in this app's ඔබේ නම කුමක්ද? ("What is your name?") and කෙසේද? ("How are you?").

Grammars that describe Literary Sinhala — an older form of the language that is still taught in schools and used in writing — are said to differ from the spoken language that Sinhala speakers actually use, which grammarians have generally ignored; one description gives "You (sg.) go" as oba yannehi in this literary form against oba yanawa in speech, and "I go" as mama yami against mama yanawa.

Sources

• Geiger, Wilhelm (1938). A Grammar of the Sinhalese Language. The Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, Colombo — §128.2 (dative -ta / genitive -gē on pronoun stems, applying §§112–113, p.124), §132 (interrogative particle -da, p.128), §144.1 (verb-final word order, p.142)
• Parawahera, Nimal Pannakitti (1990). Phonology and Morphology of Modern Sinhala. PhD dissertation, University of Victoria — §1.2 (Literary vs. spoken Sinhala, p.2, with the oba/mama paradigm example)

Politeness & etiquette

This app's polite word for "you," ඔබ (oba), is described in one grammar of Sinhala as sharing its origin with නුඹ (numba), "an original substantive 'your worship or honour'" that could also be used for the second or third person; oba is said to come from the same source, differing only in that its declension is limited to the singular. This app's cards use oba to ask ඔබේ නම කුමක්ද? ("What is your name?") and ඔබට ඉංග්‍රීසි කතා කළ හැකිද? ("Can you speak English?").

Sources

• Geiger, Wilhelm (1938). A Grammar of the Sinhalese Language. The Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, Colombo — §128.4–5 (pronouns oba / numba / umba, p.124)