Sinhala

E10172

Sinhala is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka and used as one of the country’s official languages.


Statements (48)
Predicate Object
instanceOf Indo-Aryan language
language
coOfficialWith Tamil
developedFrom Middle Indo-Aryan
surface form: "Middle Indo-Aryan languages"
ethnicGroupAssociated Sinhala
surface form: "Sinhalese"
hasApproximateSpeakers 16 million native speakers
over 17 million total speakers
hasBasicWordOrder SOV
hasCaseSystem nominal case marking
hasHistoricalStage Sinhala
surface form: "Middle Sinhala"

Sinhala
surface form: "Old Sinhala"
hasLoanwordsFrom Dutch
English
Pali
Portuguese language
surface form: "Portuguese"

Sanskrit
hasMorphologicalType fusional
hasOfficialStatusIn Sri Lanka
surface form: "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka"
hasPhonologicalFeature contrastive aspiration in stops
prenasalized stops
hasRegisterDistinction formal vs colloquial registers
hasScriptType abugida
hasStandardForm Standard Sinhala
hasTenseSystem past–non-past distinction
hasVariety Colloquial Sinhala
Literary Sinhala
Spoken Sinhala
Written Sinhala
hasWritingDirection left-to-right
ISO639-1Code si
ISO639-2Code sin
ISO639-3Code sin
languageFamily Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-European languages
Indo-Iranian languages
majorityLanguageIn Sri Lanka
nativeName සිංහල
officialLanguageOf Sri Lanka
primaryLanguageOf Sinhalese people
spokenIn Sri Lanka
usedAs language of instruction in Sri Lankan schools
usedFor administration in Sri Lanka
broadcasting in Sri Lanka
literature in Sri Lanka
usedIn Sri Lankan education system
Sri Lanka
surface form: "Sri Lankan government"

Sri Lankan media
writingSystem Sinhala script

Referenced by (44)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

this entity surface form: "Sinhalese"
Sinhala hasHistoricalStage Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Old Sinhala"
Sinhala hasHistoricalStage Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Middle Sinhala"
SEATO hasLanguage Sinhala
Sanskrit influenced Sinhala
Colombo language Sinhala
Kandyan Convention language Sinhala
subject surface form: "Kingdom of Kandy"
Negombo language Sinhala
Sinhalese people language Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Sinhala language"
Sri Lankan Moors language Sinhala
Galle languageMajority Sinhala
Kandy languageMajority Sinhala
subject surface form: "Udarata"
Trincomalee languageUsed Sinhala
Pali lexicalInfluenceOn Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Sinhala language"
Batticaloa majorLanguage Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Sinhala language"
Jaffna officialLanguage Sinhala
Sri Lanka officialLanguage Sinhala
Sinhala script usedFor Sinhala
this entity surface form: "Sinhala language"

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