Sinhala is a major language of which country?

Sinhala (also called Sinhalese) is the language of the Sinhalese people, who form about three-quarters of the population of Sri Lanka. It is one of the two official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Tamil, while English is used as a link language.

Facts about Sinhala:

It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. This is notable because it is spoken far from the other Indo-Aryan languages of North India. According to tradition, it was brought to Sri Lanka by Prince Vijaya and his followers, who came from northern India (possibly from Bengal or Gujarat) around the 6th-5th century BCE.

Its closest relative is Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives.

It is written in its own Sinhala script, which developed from the ancient Brahmi script. The script has rounded letters, said to be suited to writing on palm leaves.

Sinhala has been strongly influenced by Pali (the language of Theravada Buddhist texts), Sanskrit, Tamil, and later Portuguese, Dutch and English.

The "Mahavamsa", a Pali chronicle of Sri Lanka's history, describes the arrival of Prince Vijaya and of Buddhism in the island. Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BCE by Mahinda, the son of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka.

In 1956, the "Sinhala Only Act" made Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka. This angered the Tamil minority and was one of the causes of the long ethnic conflict. Tamil was made an official language in 1987 by the 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka's constitution.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Maldives: the language is Dhivehi.
• ✗Myanmar: the language is Burmese.
• ✗Bhutan: the language is Dzongkha.