Lesser-Known Languages (LKL): Sinhalese - Part 2
A journey into a mesmerizing script and a puzzling structure
In the first part of the discovery of this “lesser-known language,” we’ve talked about the history and culture of Sri Lanka.
Learning about them was a great experience for me, but it was nothing compared to the amazement I had when discovering the language. I know, I’m a bit biased, but I’m sure you’ll soon understand where I’m coming from.
Let’s dive in this beautiful language!
ආයුබෝවන්. ඔබට කෙසේද?
Sinhala
Despite being spoken by 16 million people and being the official language of Sri Lanka, I’ve found most people in the west have never heard of it.
So let me present you Sinhalese.
Or Sinhala. Or Singhala apparently! Or in its own script: සිංහල
Sinhala is an Indo-Aryan Language, which means it’s related to languages from northern India, but Sri Lanka’s historical relationship with the south of India has also meant it’s been influenced by Dravidian languages like Tamil.
Singhala is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) language, like Japanese for example.
Sinhalese Alphabet සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව
The Sinhala script is a syllabic alphabet also known as an abugida, a writing system in which consonants have an inherent vowel and use a diacritic (called පිලි pili in Sinhala) to modify/remove it.
Let’s take my favorite one as an example: ණ
On its own: ණ is pronounced [ṇa]
When adding ි above, it becomes ණි and changes the vowel to i: [ṇi]
When adding ු under, it becomes ණු and changes the vowel to u: [ṇu]
When adding ැ after, it becomes ණැ and changes the vowel to æ: [ṇæ]
And so on.
To make reading easier, I’ll just reference it from here on as an “alphabet,” but don’t forget it’s not a “normal alphabet” like the roman letters or the cyrilic alphabet.
The Sinhalese script uses two alphabets: the pure alphabet and the mixed one.
The pure alphabet, also called the Śuddha set, is the one for everyday usage. Every sound in Sinhala can be written in this set.
The mixed alphabet, also known as Miśra set, adds a few extra letters to express sounds not used in today’s Sinhalese language but necessary to pronounce non-native words coming from Pali, English, or Sanskrit. These could also be written with a sequence of śuddha letters though.
The śuddha letters’ names add yanna after the sound they make. For example, ක is the syllable ka, and is therefore called kayanna. For the miśra letters, an extra name is added to avoid confusion (ඛ (kh) is called bayanu kayanna).
Some consonants are prenasalized. As the name suggests, it means a nasal sound needs to be made at the start of the syllable.
There are two types of vowels. Diacritic ones added around the consonant to change the inherent vowel (see the above example with ණ ) and independent ones used for words starting with a vowel (ie. not attached to a preceding consonant).
It is important to note there are (7) long and (7) short vowels in Sinhala. Contrary to English where the same letter can be read as long or short depending on the word1, the distinction is made in written form in Sinhala. This can be found in other languages like Thai or Hindi.
Finally, the Sinhala script is written from left to write.
Cases
Sinhala has a case system, like German, Latin, or Tamil. Cases are indicated as suffixes to the words’ stem.
They distinguish between five main cases:
Nominative: to indicate the subject of a verb
Accusative: to indicate the object of a verb (or following certain prepositions, like ලවා (lavā) which means “by”)
Dative: to indicate the recipient of something or the indirect object
Genitive: to indicate possession
Ablative: to indicate limitation or separation of one object from another or from the source it originates from (ie. water flowing from a spring)
There are, however, other cases that are important to learn to reach a higher level of understanding:
Instrumental: to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action
Locative: to indicate a place or time of an action
Vocative: to indicate a person or thing addressed, as in “Children, listen to me.”
The above eight cases can be better understood by looking at this Wikipedia table which gives great equivalent English examples.
I also found the auxiliary case mentioned in this textbook but it was absent from every. single. other resource I found so I’m not sure if it’s still in use. It is apparently supposed to indicate an auxiliary/assistance to the action of the subject. I reckon this is replaced by the dative case nowadays.
Each case’s form depends on whether the noun is an inanimate object (like a table) or an animate one (like a cat). Depending on whether the noun is animate or not, suffixes for the same case will change.
This being said, there are only 4 cases used for inanimate objects: nominative, accusative, genitive, and instrumental.
Mastering which to use in which situation can seem daunting at first but with a bit of study of the basics and enough exposure, they can easily become second nature2.
Gender and articles
Sinhala officially distinguishes between masculine and feminine genders but, in reality, only literary Sinhalese and a few spoken dialects actually make the distinction. The neutral gender is used for inanimate nouns such as chairs or houses.
The suffix -ek (එක්3) is added to masculine nouns to indicate an indefinite noun, while the suffix -ak () is used for feminine and inanimate nouns. The lack of such a suffix automatically marks definitiveness.
For example:
රටක් raṭak = a country | රට raṭa = the country
මිනිහෙක් minihek = a man | මිනිහා minihā = the man
Here are the demonstrative articles (this, that, etc.) that include an interesting 4th option I hadn’t seen before:
මේ me = this (close from speaker), these
අර ara = that over there (far from both), those
ඔය oya = that near you (but far from speaker), those
ඒ ē = that which we have previously referred to, those
These are added right before the noun they refer to, unless an adjective is added (in which case the adjective goes in-between).
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are as follows:
මම mama = I
ඔබ oba = you (formal) | ඔයා oyā = you (informal)
ඔහු ohū = he
ඇය æya = she
අපි api = we
ඔබල obala = you (pl. formal) | ඔයාල oyala = you (pl. informal)
ඔවුහු ovūhū = they
එයා eyā also exists to say “he” or “she.” You can then add ලා la to make it plural (ie. “they”).
However, like in many other languages, kinship terms are usually used to express “You” to be polite. Here are a few examples:
මහත්තයා mahattayā = sir, Mr.
නෝනා nōnā = madam, Ms.
Tenses
Before we get into tenses, let’s talk about the verb “to be” in Sinhalese. The verb “to be” doesn’t exist in this language. Well, it exists, but neither the animate nor inanimate forms are used.
As a result, a sentence like “I am a man” is translated as “I a man” (මම මිනිහෙක් mama minihek).
Alright, let’s get into other verbs.
Verbs in Sinhalese got me really puzzled. They officially fall under three categories:
Verbs with an අ (a) stem
Verbs with an එ (e) stem
Verbs with an ඉ (i) stem
But conjugation is both complicated and simple.
In literary Sinhalese, the verb needs to be conjugated according to the subject in each tense, like many European languages do.
However, in spoken Simhala, no such modification is needed. Instead, one ending suffix is used for each tense.
The one used for the present tense is නවා nawa.
එයාලා කරනවා eyāla karanawa = They do
The past tense seems to be mostly exceptions that vary drastically so this website explained it’s better to learn them as different words entirely. As this video shows, it is true that many past forms are very different from their stem.
මම හදනවා mama hadanavā = I make || මම හැදුවා mama hæduvā = I made
ඔයා දෙනව oyā denava = You give || ඔයා දුන්න oyā dunna = You gave
The FSI (Foreign Service Institute) course seems to explain there’s a verb stem change rule happening in the past tense but I couldn’t get it with my little understanding of Sinhalese4.
The future tense has two possible forms:
Verb stem + ai → when speaker is included in said future.
Verb stem + annaṁ → When speaker is not included in said future.
For example, the present tense form of the verb “to go” is යනවා yanavā and has two forms:
යයි yai
යන්නං yannaṁ
The ending annaṁ can also have a connotation of confirmation, for something already sure in the future, while ai can imply a lack of certainty.
Negation in the present tense is expressed by replacing නවා navā after the verb stem with න්නේ නැ nnē næ after the verb. For the negative form of the verb to be, the word නැ næ is used on its own at the end of the sentence.5
මම වැඩ කරනවා mama væḍa karanavā = I work (lit. I-work-to do)
But
මම වැඩ කරන්නේ නැ mama væḍa karannē næ = I don’t work. (lit. I-work-to do-neg.)
For other tenses (present continuous, past habitual, etc.), this website gives a short explanation of how the verb changes, although more examples would have been welcomed.
Questions
Questions in Sinhalese usually put the question particle at the end of the sentence, but this can change when need be.
කොහොමද kohomada = How
මොකක්ද mokakda (but pronouned mokadda = What
කවදා/ කොයි වෙලේද kavadā/ koyi velēda = When
කොහෙද koheda = Where
කවුද kavuda = Who
මොකද mokada = Why6
It is also possible to turn an affirmative sentence into a question by adding ද? da? at the end of the sentence. For example:
ඕයාට තිබහයි ōyāṭa7 tibahayi = You are thirsty (lit. to you- thirst)
ඕයාට තිබහයි ද? ōyāṭa tibahayi da? = Are you thirsty?
Fun Facts
Sinhalese is full of interesting aspects and listing them all would be impossible in one article. That’s why I chose to instead give you a few bonus facts to close this section.
Simhala has what’s called a four-way deictic. What’s that? There’s an extra differentiation made in only a few other languages. As you’ll note, these are similar to the demonstrative articles too.
“Here,” close to the speaker: මේ /meː/
“There,” close to the listener: ඕ /oː/
“There,” close to a third person who’s visible: අර /arə/
“There,” close to a third person who’s not visible: ඒ /eː/
The sign ෴, also called Kundaliya, is a funny-to-look-at full stop that was commonly used in the past but has fallen in decay nowadays. It can now be found on some social media sites and blogs though.
Sinhala is a pro-drop language where words can be dropped if we can infer them from the context—like the Japanese do.
Here’s the example I found on Wikipedia: කොහෙද ගියේ [koɦedə ɡie], literally "where went", can mean "where did I/you/he/she/we... go".
Example Sentences
ආයුබෝවන් āyubōvan → Hello
බොහොම ස්තූතියි bohoma stūtiyi → Thank you very much.
ඔබට ස්තුතියි obaṭa stutiyi → Thank you.
මම තේරෙන්නේ නැහැ mama tērennē næhæ → I don’t understand. (lit. I-understand-not)
එයාල ගෙදර යනවා eyaala gedara yanavā → They are going home. (lit. They-home-go [present tense])
මම ලිපියක් ලියනවා mama lipiyak liyanavā → I write a letter/an article (lit. I-an article-write [present form])
Note the -k (ක්) turning ලිපිය lipiya (the letter) into an indefinite.
සහන් පොත ලිව්වා sahan pota livvā → Sahan wrote the book. (lit. Sahan-the book-write [past tense])
ළමයා දුවනවා ḷamayā duvanavā → The boy is running (lit. Boy-run [present tense])
මම එයා එක්ක කතා කරනවා mama eyā ekka katā karanavā → I am talking with him/her. (lit. I-him/her-with-to talk)
මම ඔයාට පොතක් කියවන්නම් mama oyāṭa potak kiyavannam → I will read (to) you a book. (lit. I-to you-a book-will read)
එයාලා ලංකාවට ගියා. eyālā laṁkāvaṭa giyā → They went to Sri Lanka. (lit. They-Sri Lanka-to-went)
ගියා is the past form of යනවා yanavā meaning “to go”
මම ආසයි බත් කන්න mama āsayi bat kanna → I like to eat rice (lit. I-like-rice-to eat)
Can also be said මම බත් කන්න ආසයි mama bat kanna āsayi
Where to Learn Sinhala
Finding free resources for Sinhala is tough. There are a few websites but they often contradict each other, therefore making figuring out which is the correct version, well, a pain.
Still, I’ll list them as there are so few:
Learn Sinhala With Me - By far the best website teaching Sinhala grammar, with 61 lessons and still in progress.8
MyLanguage.org - lots of lessons but lacking good explanations and inconsistent information with textbooks on tenses
ilovelanguages - also lots of lessons but lacks any explanation whatsoever
Lazy But Smart Sinhala - A few good lessons (with audio examples!) but doesn’t use the Sinhala script
Maligawa Wordpress - Lessons on a few grammatical aspects
I only found two YouTube channels for Sinhalese but I reckon there could be a few more if you dig deeper:
Dilshan Jayasinha - YouTube channel of the Lazy But Smart Sinhala (also teaches Gujarati and Marathi)
Lingo Crown - Channel with many videos on different grammatical patterns
You can also refer to the below textbooks which will provide you with more verified (and consistent) information on the language.
Here are a few ones I’ve found that might be useful:
Livelingua - probably the best, with links to the FSI course
An Introduction to Spoken Sinhala - Romanized form only unfortunately
Madura Online seems to be the best free online dictionary for Sinhalese, although it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t give the pronunciation for beginner learners.
For beginners, the Lexilogos keyboard is the best way to start typing in Sinhala. This was what I used for this entire piece.
Finally, looking through Amazon, I also found a few bilingual children's picture books which may be great for new learners. “Am I Small? (මම පොඩි ද?)” in particular seems like a cute read.
Conclusion
My journey into discovering Sinhala’s structure and basics was an exciting one most of the time. The strangely-used case system and the conjugation got me puzzled but trying to figure out their components and look for a way to explain them in a few simple words was a fun challenge.
I started researching this piece thinking I might get bored with it before the end or, worse, could even lose the love I had found for its beautiful script. I’m happy to report neither happened!
The language stayed an intriguing puzzle until the end. I’m convinced I’ll get back to it one day. When? We’ll see!
In the meantime, I hope you learned a few things from my research!
For example, “cat” is a short a sound while “grass” is a long a sound.
While my use of German cases is still unstable, I can now figure out which case to use most times when given the time to do so.
The එ (e) and අ (a) vowels often disappear in words as a diacritic can be added to the last syllable to change the vowel (if needed)
After all, I only started learning more about this language about a month and a half ago! My research helped me understand a lot, but that’s still short.
The full negative form is නැහැ næhæ but it is often shortened to නැ næ alone.
Sometimes used for “What” too.
Adding ට as a suffix indicates “to [word].” For example, අපිට apiṭa = to us. The exception is මම which changes to මට maṭa (to me). I have is also said මට maṭa.
I wrote everything before I found this website, which saddens me deeply as it’d have helped tremendously!