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Sinhalese language
Sinhalese (), known natively as Sinhala (සිංහල; ''(unicode:singhala)'' (:ˈsiŋɦələ)),〔Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student's Handbook'', Edinburgh〕 is the native language of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 16 million. Sinhalese is also spoken as a second language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about three million.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Census of Population and Housing 2001 )〕 It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. Sinhalese 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. Sinhalese is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka. Sinhalese, along with Pali, played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature.
The oldest Sinhalese Prakrit inscriptions found are from the 3rd to 2nd century BCE following the arrival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE. The closest relative of Sinhalese is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island (India), Dhivehi and Bengali.
== Etymology ==
''Sinhala'' () is a Sanskrit term; the corresponding Middle Indic word is ''Sīhala''; the actual Sinhalese term is ''heḷa'' or ''(h)eḷu''. The Sanskrit and the Middle Indic words have as their first element (''siṃha'' and ''sīha'') the word "lion" in the respective languages.〔, pt. 2 p. 86.〕 According to legend, Sinhabahu or Sīhabāhu ("Lion-arms"), was the son of a princess of the Kalinga Kingdom and a lion. He killed his father and became king of Singhapur of Kalinga ( near Jajpur of Odisha). His son, Prince Vijaya, would emigrate from Kalinga to Lanka and become the progenitor of the Sinhala people. Taking into account linguistic and mythological evidence, we can assume that the first element of the name of the people means "lion".〔Geiger, Wilhelm: ''Culture of Ceylon in Mediaeval Times''. 2nd edition, Stuttgart 1986. ISBN 3-515-04447-7. §21.〕
As for the second element ''la'', local tradition connects it to the Sanskrit root ''lā-'' "to seize",〔Carter, Charles: ''A Sinhalese-English Dictionary''. Reprint, New Delhi 1996. ISBN 81-206-1174-8. p678.〕 as to translate it "lion-seizer" or "lion-killer", or to Sanskrit ''loha''/Sinhala ''lē'' "blood", to have it mean "lion blood". From a linguistic point of view, however, neither interpretation is convincing, so that presumably the word ''Sinhala'' is somehow connected to a term meaning "lion".
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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