Sinhala
Round letters, palm-leaf reasons
An Indo-Aryan island in a Dravidian sea, written in a script whose curves come from the material it was written on.
- Its letters are round because straight lines would split a palm leaf when carved with a stylus. The writing surface shaped the alphabet.
- It is Indo-Aryan, related to Hindi and Bengali, sitting a long way south of all of them and surrounded by Dravidian Tamil.
- Written and spoken Sinhala are so different that learners effectively take on two systems, and the written one is not used in conversation.
- It has prenasalised consonants, a sound type its mainland relatives do not have.
- Its vocabulary carries loans from Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English, in that historical order.
An Indo-European island in a Dravidian sea, with round letters shaped by palm-leaf writing: straight lines tore the leaf, so the script learned to curve. Sri Lanka's beaches and tea country are the draw; a language with its own round alphabet and eight ways to say rice is the keepsake.
Where Sinhala parts company with the languages closest to it, and what each one would cost you from here.
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Sinhala with.
The Sinhala Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.