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Burmese vs Sinhalese


Sinhalese vs Burmese


Countries

Countries
Myanmar  
Sri Lanka  

Total No. Of Countries
1  
14
1  
14

National Language
Myanmar  
Sri Lanka  

Second Language
Bangladesh, Burma  
Sri Lanka  

Speaking Continents
Asia  
Asia  

Minority Language
Mon  
Not spoken in any of the countries  

Regulated By
Myanmar Language Commission  
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)  

Interesting Facts
  • The naming of people in Burmese is strange. There is no last name, often name is rhymed such as Ming Ming, Mo Mo or Jo Jo.
  • It appears as odd language to many people because it has peculiar pitch register, tonal form as language.
  
  • In Sinhalese language, there are many loanwords from Dravidian languages mainly Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English.
  • Sinhalese language has it own script/ writing system.
  

Similar To
Thai Language  
Maldivian Language  

Derived From
Pali Language  
Sanskrit Language  

Alphabets

Alphabets in
Burmese-Alphabets.jpg#200  
Sinhalese-Alphabets.jpg#200  

Alphabets
33  
15
54  
33

Phonology
  
  

How Many Vowels
12  
9
18  
15

How Many Consonants
33  
23
36  
26

Scripts
Tangut  
Sinhala alphabet  

Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal  
Left-To-Right, Horizontal  

Hard to Learn
  
  

Language Levels
3  
2
2  
1

Time Taken to Learn
44 weeks  
17
44 weeks  
17

Greetings

Hello
မင်္ဂလာပါ (maingalarpar)  
හලෝ (halō)  

Thank You
ကျေးဇူးတင်ပါသည် (kyaayyjuutainparsai)  
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)  

How Are You?
နေကောင်းလား? (naykaungglarr?)  
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)  

Good Night
ကောင်းသောညပါ (kaunggsawnyapar)  
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)  

Good Evening
မင်္ဂလာညနေခင်းပါ (main g lar nyanayhkainn par)  
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)  

Good Afternoon
မင်္ဂလာနေ့လည်ခင်းပါ (main g lar naelaihkainn par)  
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)  

Good Morning
မင်္ဂလာနံနက်ခင်းပါ (main g lar nannaathkainnpar)  
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)  

Please
ကျေးဇူးပြု (kyaayyjuupyu)  
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)  

Sorry
တောင်းပန်ပါတယ် (taunggpaanpartaal)  
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)  

Bye
နုတ်ဆက်ပါတယ် (notesaatpartaal)  
බායි (bāyi)  

I Love You
မင်းကိုချစ်တယ် (mainnkohkyittaal)  
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)  

Excuse Me
ဆင်ခြေဆင်လက် ငါ့ကိုအ (Sainhkyaysainlaat ngarko a)  
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)  

Dialects

Dialect 1
Arakanese  
Vedda  

Where They Speak
Bangladesh, India, Myanmar  
Sri Lanka  

How Many People Speak
2,000,000.00  
99+
19,000,000.00  
30

Dialect 2
Tavoyan  
Sri Lankan Sinhala  

Where They Speak
Myanmar  
-  

How Many People Speak
440,000.00  
99+
19,000,000.00  
27

Dialect 3
Intha  
Up-Country Sinhalese  

Where They Speak
Burma  
-  

How Many People Speak
90,000.00  
99+
16,000,000.00  
27

Total No. Of Dialects
5  
5
1  
1

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?
43.00 million  
30
16.00 million  
99+

Speaking Population
0.50 %  
31
0.25 %  
99+

Native Speakers
33.00 million  
28
16.00 million  
39

Second Language Speakers
10.00 million  
99+
2.00 million  
99+

Native Name
ဗမာစကား (bama saka)  
සිංහල (sĩhala)  

Alternative Names
Bama, Bamachaka, Myanmar, Myen, myanma bhasa  
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala  

French Name
birman  
singhalais  

German Name
Birmanisch  
Singhalesisch  

Pronunciation
[bəmɛ̀]  
[ˈsiŋhəliːz]  

Ethnicity
Bamar people  
Sinhalese people  

History

Origin
1113 AD  
3  

Language Family
Sino-Tibetan Family  
Indo-European Family  

Subgroup
Tibeto-Burman  
Indo-Iranian  

Branch
-  
Indic  

Language Forms
  
  

Early Forms
Old Burmese, Middle Burmese, Burmese  
Sinhalese Prakrit  

Standard Forms
Modern Burmese  
Modern Sinhalese  

Language Position
43  
40
70  
99+

Signed Forms
Burmese sign language  
Signed Sinhalese  

Scope
Individual  
Individual  

Code

ISO 639 1
my  
si  

ISO 639 2
  
  

ISO 639 2/T
mya  
sin  

ISO 639 2/B
bur  
sin  

ISO 639 3
mya  
sin  

ISO 639 6
mya  
sin  

Glottocode
sout3159  
sinh1246  

Linguasphere
No data available  
No data available  

Types of Language
  
  

Language Type
Living  
Living  

Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Object-Verb  
Subject-Object-Verb  

Language Morphological Typology
Analytic, Isolating  
Fusional  

Countries >>
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Burmese and Sinhalese Language History

Comparison of Burmese vs Sinhalese language history gives us differences between origin of Burmese and Sinhalese language. History of Burmese language states that this language originated in 1113 AD whereas history of Sinhalese language states that this language originated in 3. Family of the language also forms a part of history of that language. More on language families of these languages can be found out on Burmese and Sinhalese Language History.

Compare Most Spoken Languages

Burmese and Sinhalese Greetings

People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Burmese and Sinhalese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Burmese and Sinhalese language. Burmese word for "Hello" is မင်္ဂလာပါ (maingalarpar) or Sinhalese word for "Thank You" is ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi). Find more of such common Burmese Greetings and Sinhalese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Burmese vs Sinhalese Difficulty

The Burmese vs Sinhalese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Burmese Alphabets and Sinhalese Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Burmese and Sinhalese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Burmese and Sinhalese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Burmese is 44 weeks while to learn Sinhalese time required is 44 weeks.

Most Spoken Languages

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