Sinhala

[Meera]

I just heard this lanaguge today, and besides Tamil, this has to be one of the most beautiful Lanaguges I ever heard! Its amazing! I don't much about it, but I am considering Learning it. Does anyone know anything about it?

[Meera]

Some Info on Sinhala:
Sinhala is the language of the Sinhalese, the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages.

Sinhala is spoken by about 19 million people in Sri Lanka, about 16 million of whom are native speakers. It is one of the constitutionally-recognised official languages of Sri Lanka, along with Tamil. Sinhala has its own writing system which is an offspring of the Indian Brahmi script.

The oldest Sinhala inscriptions were written in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE; the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE.

The closest relative of Sinhala is the language of the Maldives, Dhivehi.

[Meera]

Sinhala Songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjG5K2b0wNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKeMNx9N434

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bzsXHH52hg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNgsoWxtFqA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nznn9aNeOB0

[Meera]

Some Sinhala Resources:
http://www.sinhala-online.com/

http://www.sinhalapage.com/

http://sinhalese.tripod.com/test/index.html

http://www.sihaderana.com/lessons_intro.php

[Meera]

Articles about Sinhala
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/weligam ... ak_si.html

http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=97&menu=004

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sinhala.htm

[Meera]

Sinhala Alphabet (source:omniglot)
Vowels:


Consonats:

[Meera]

Some Basic Phareses for Sinhala:
o yaa gee nama mo kak da ?
Whats your name?

ma gee nama Shirani
(My name is Shirani)

oo ee ka ko c ca ra ho nda da
(Oh that is great!)

ko hee da pa di nnn ci ya ?
Where do you Live?

ma ma danna vaa
I know.

api ya mu
lets go.

ma ma a da ya n nee nae hae
(i'm not going today)

[Meera]

Some More Words:
Mokadd-What?
nam-name
mage-my
your-ayage
his/her-eyage
nona:wife
gedr-house

[Meera]

Really Nice song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta5f4glK1Jc

[Meera]

http://sinhalaspot.blogspot.com/

Gonna be updatin this

[hashi]

I have a pdf somewhere of a really old book written about Sinhalese (I hope this is the same language and I'm not making a fool of myself xD), only, it's written in Danish.

[Meera]

I have a pdf somewhere of a really old book written about Sinhalese (I hope this is the same language and I'm not making a fool of myself xD), only, it's written in Danish.

Yeah its the same Lol aah theres no english version?

[hashi]

I have a pdf somewhere of a really old book written about Sinhalese (I hope this is the same language and I'm not making a fool of myself xD), only, it's written in Danish.

Yeah its the same Lol aah theres no english version?

Sadly no

[TeneReef]

Oh I love Sinhala


It must be the nicest-sounding Asian language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNRtNWMG ... re=related

The script is funny, but much better than Telugu or Kannada.


People of Sri Lanka should be really proud of their languages: Sri Lanka Tamil (which sounds like Malayalam ) and Sinhala. Now the war is over, let's hope the country will be prosperous and live in peace.

[Meera]

Oh me too I love Sinhala! it is sooo pretty! I would love to learn it.

[yangbowen]

The student text of the FSI Sinhala course is available here: http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content ... ge=Sinhala

It is rather old and there are no accompanying audio files available for free, but unfortunately there are very few resources available for learning Sinhala.

The FSI courses are now in the public domain, so there are other free language courses available there as well. Some have audio files.

[mafke]

It must be the nicest-sounding Asian language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNRtNWMG ... re=related
The script is funny, but much better than Telugu or Kannada.

OMG that newscaster's intonation is so weird! Kind of pretty but weird. She doesn't sound like other Sinhalese speakers I've heard, she almost sounds Iranian at times....

The script is very pretty but it seems so many of the letters are so complicated. I used to have a radio station with a Sinhala program once a week and I loved the music, very .... Malaysian almost.

As for you last comment, I still haven't warmed up to Telugu script (which I still find awkward and confusing) but I think Kannada script is vastly underrated. It's easily the most linear South Asian script I've found. No vowels are ever written in front of the consonants they follow (only above, after or above and after), the only real non-linear touch is the conjunct r written after (but pronounced before) another consonant. I find Kannada script to be easier to mentally process than even the simplified 'new' Malayalam orthography. Try it, you'll like it!

[Meera]

Hindi is the easiest script in any Indian scripts. Kannada is easy to read but to write you need to be an artist I agree Kannada is not that hard but I think that Kannada is the most unappealing Indian langauge, however I would love to see Bangalore, I heard its one of India's more Modern citys. However Kannada is not nice sounding at all, it sounds very harsh to me, unlike most Indian langauges that are very soft and sweet sounding. It also doesn't have that sing-songy thing that most Indian langauges have. Although I do admire Kannada, I think its impossible for me to hate an Indian langauge.

Here is a news cast in Kannada :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-X88rMvNgM

[Massimiliano B]

Hi!
I'm trying to learn Sinhalese. The reason is that I teach Italian as a foreign language, and in my classrooms there are many people from Sri-Lanka (I don't teach in a private school. I'm a government employee). I would like to speak with them in their language, in order to make their learning of the Italian language easier.

I've downloaded this book: Colloquial Sinhalese, written by Fairbanks, Gair, De Silva. There are no audio files, so it's not possible to hear the language. Nevertheless, I'm lucky because almost every day from my students I hear how the language sounds.
I'm not interested in the alphabet - at least for the moment - because my aim is to say only simple sentences of everyday use. The first half of the book luckily uses the latin script.


I would like to share what I'm learning

[księżycowy]

I've dowloaded this book: Colloquial Sinhalese, written by Fairbanks, Gair, De Silva

That is one of the best textbooks for Sinhalese. Of course it's one of the few in English anyway. I have it laying around here somewhere.

It's available through ERIC (and they're not know for piracy) so I think it's safe to post a link:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/de ... o=ED025759

There are no audio files, so it's not possible to hear the language.

Which is a shame for someone like me, with on Sinhalese speakers around.

Not that I'm going to start learning Sinhalese anytime soon, but I would like to learn an Indo-Aryan (and Dravidian) language or two.

I'd be interested to follow your notes Massimiliano.