Languages of Sri Lanka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The languages of Sri Lanka belong to the family of Dravidian languages and Indo-Aryan languages. Sri Lanka accords official status to Sinhalese and Tamil. The languages spoken on the island nation are deeply influenced by the languages of neighbouring India, the Maldives and Malaysia. Arab settlers and the colonial powers of Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain have also influenced the development of modern languages in Sri Lanka.
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[edit] Native languages
The now-extinct Pali language is the ancestor of most languages spoken in modern Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese language is spoken by the Sinhalese people, who constitute approximately 70% of the national population and total about 13 million. It utilizes the Sinhala abugida script, which is derived from the ancient Brahmi script. The Rodiya language, a dialect of Sinhalese, is spoken by the low-caste community of Rodiyas. The Veddah peoples, totaling barely 300, speak a distinct language of ancient roots. The Tamil language is spoken by Sri Lankan Tamils, as well as by Tamil migrants from the neighbouring Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tamil speakers number more than 3 million. There are more than 50,000 speakers of the Sri Lankan Creole Malay language, which is strongly influenced by the Malay language.
[edit] Languages of foreign influence
English is the mother tongue of approximately 74,000 people, mainly in urban areas, and widely used for official and commercial purposes. Sri Lankan peoples of Portuguese descent, numbering approximately 3,400, speak the Sri Lankan Indo-Portuguese language. The Muslim community in Sri Lanka widely uses Arabic for religious purposes. Until recently the Arwi language, a fusion of Arabic and Tamil, was widely used by the Sri Lankan Moors, who are of mixed Arab and local Sri Lankan descent.
