Sinhala Radio Sinhala Radios

Sinhala Radios app. Sinhala is the mother tongue of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 15 million. Sinhala is also spoken by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 3 million. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Tamil. Along with Pali, Sinhala plays a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhism.

Sinhala has its own writing system, the Sinhala alphabet, which is a member of the Brahmic family of scripts, and a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script.

The oldest Sinhala inscriptions found are from the 6th century BCE, on pottery; the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE.

The closest relative of Sinhala is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island (India), Dhivehi.

සිංහල, ISO 15919: siṁhala, pronounced [ˈsiŋɦələ]), also known as Sinhalese (older spelling: Singhalese) in English, or locally as Helabasa