Sinhala, an Inda-Aryan Isolate

Abstract

Abstract Sinhala (Sinhalese), the majority language of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) has a number of features that make it especially interesting to the scholar of South Asian languages and the South Asian linguistic area. It is the southernmost Indo-Aryan language (along with the closely related Divehi of the Maldive islands). For over two millennia it has been isolated from its sister languages of the north by both its island location and the intervening Dravidian languages of South India, with which it has been in contact, often close, throughout that time. Most important in that con nection has been Tamil, although it might be more accurate to say Tamil-Malayalam or “southern south Dravidian languages,” since much of the contact predates the split of the latter two languages. Sinhala tradition has it that the group that brought the languages with them ar rived on the date of the parinibbiina (final passing away) of the Buddha, tradition ally 544-543 B.c. As a matter of fact, somewhere around that time does appear to be a reasonable date, since we have inscriptions in old Sinhala dating from the early second or late third centuries B.c., and by that time the language had already under gone important changes that made it distinct from any of the lndo-Aryan languages of North India.