With Science of comparative linguistics language of Sinhala shares common parent language with Latin, Greek, English, German, Hindi, Russian and French Persian, in its evolving phases these languages have been derived from the each other and became distinct ultimately.
Tamil belongs to Dravidian family and is most spoken in the South India states. This language play a key role in the business and trades along Indian coasts and Sri Lankan coasts, it was the main language and used in communication in that time. Arab traders of Middle East even adopted this language in their speech when having contact with the Tamil regions. Sihala has 400 loan words from this language that indicating influence of the both these languages.
The Austronesian and Dravidian families also speak other languages in Sri Lanka with the indo-Aryan. Country accord official status to Tamil and Sinhala all the languages spoken in that island are influence deeply by neighboring countries such as Maldives, India and Malaysia. Some of Arab settlers as well as colonial power of the Portugal, Britain and Netherlands are also influenced development of the modern Sri Lankan languages. In Sri Lanka English is spoken by some of the peoples, and it is only at the time of need, especially when Sri Lankan have to interact with foreigners or tourist, or it is used in written official standard form as well.
|