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English, Sinhala and Tamil languages on a war grave memorial plate in Kandy. (click to see full view of memorial plate) English in Sri Lanka is fluently spoken by approximately 23.8% [4] of the population, and widely used for official and commercial purposes. It is the native language of approximately 74,000 people, mainly in urban areas.
As Tamil is a diglossic language the differences between the standard written languages across the globe is minimal but the spoken varieties differ considerably. The spoken Tamil varieties in Sri Lanka although different from those of Tamil Nadu in India share some common features with the southern dialects of Tamil Nadu.
Sri Lankan Tamil dialects are distinct from the Tamil dialects used in Tamil Nadu, India.They are used in Sri Lanka and in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.Linguistic borrowings from European colonizers such as the Portuguese, English and the Dutch have also contributed to a unique vocabulary that is distinct from the colloquial usage of Tamil in the Indian mainland.
The Andamanese (Sentinel, Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese) live in some of the Andaman Islands and speak a language isolate, as do the Kusunda in central Nepal, [15] the Vedda in Sri Lanka, and the Nihali of Central India, who number about 5,000 people.
The word Simhmam (or Singam / Singham / Singhai / Singai) is the Sri Lankan Tamil derivative. In northeast India, Sinhas held high positions as advisors during the times of the Mughal Empire. In northern and middle part of India as well as southern India Sinhraj/Sinharaj/Sinharaja or Rajasinha is also used, having the meaning Lion/Leo king. [8]
The Jaffna district is very close to South India, being separated by a narrow stretch of sea called the Palk Strait.In spite of the continual contact with India by sea, Sri Lankan Tamils have over the centuries become a distinct people developing dialects that differ in several aspects from the Indian Tamil dialects. [5]
Before 2001, they were known as the Sri Lankan Tamil ( ශ්රී ලංකා දෙමළ) caste, but then after 2001, they were classified as a separate ethnic group in the 2001 census. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] They are now collectively referred to as the Colombo Chetties.
Tamil loanwords in Sinhala can appear in the same form as the original word (e.g. akkā), but this is quite rare.Usually, a word has undergone some kind of modification to fit into the Sinhala phonological (e.g. paḻi becomes paḷi(ya) because the sound of /ḻ/, [], does not exist in the Sinhala phoneme inventory) or morphological system (e.g. ilakkam becomes ilakkama because Sinhala ...