SINHALESE LANGUAGE

also spelled Singhalese, or Cingalese, Indo-Aryan language spoken in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). It was brought there by colonists from northern India about the 5th century Bc . Because of its isolation from the other Indo-Aryan tongues of mainland India, Sinhalese developed along independent lines. It was influenced by Pali, the sacred language of the Ceylonese Buddhists, and to a lesser degree by Sanskrit. It has borrowed a considerable number of words from the Dravidian languages, mostly from Tamil, which is also spoken in Sri Lanka. Earliest inscriptions in Sinhalese, written on rock in Brahmi characters, date from about 200 BC. By around 1250 the literary language had attained a form from which it has varied little since, although the modern spoken language differs considerably from it. Much literature was produced, nearly all of Buddhist inspiration, from 1000 on; modern secular literature began in the 20th century. Modern Sinhalese has its own syllabic script. Dialects of Sinhalese are spoken in the Lakshadweep and Maldive islands.