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Shona
Shona

Sinhalese
Sinhalese



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Shona
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Sinhalese

Shona vs Sinhalese

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Countries

Countries

Zimbabwe
Sri Lanka

Total No. Of Countries

11
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe
Sri Lanka

Second Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Sri Lanka

Speaking Continents

Africa
Asia

Minority Language

Not spoken in any of the countries
Not spoken in any of the countries

Regulated By

-
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)

Interesting Facts

  • Shona language is tonal language.
  • The African people in Zimbabwe is made of 10 ethnic groups, each speaking a different languages, shona is spoken by 60 percent of population.
  • 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

Kalanga and Nambya Language
Maldivian Language

Derived From

-
Sanskrit Language

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

3754
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

518
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

4636
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Latin
Sinhala alphabet

Writing Direction

-
Left-To-Right, Horizontal

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

42
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

30 weeks44 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

Mhoro
හලෝ (halō)

Thank You

Waita zvako
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)

How Are You?

Wakadini zvako?
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)

Good Night

Urare zvakanaka
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)

Good Evening

Manheru
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)

Good Afternoon

Masikati
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)

Good Morning

Mangwanani
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)

Please

Ndinokumbirawo
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)

Sorry

Ndineurombo
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)

Bye

bye
බායි (bāyi)

I Love You

Ndinokuda
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)

Excuse Me

Pamusoro
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)

Dialects

Dialect 1

Hwesa
Vedda

Where They Speak

Zimbabwe
Sri Lanka

How Many People Speak

11,000,000.0019,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Karanga
Sri Lankan Sinhala

Where They Speak

southern Zimbabwe
-

How Many People Speak

1,100,000.0019,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Zezuru
Up-Country Sinhalese

Where They Speak

central Zimbabwe, Mashonaland
-

How Many People Speak

16.0016,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

41
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

25.00 million16.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

0.13 %0.25 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

8.30 million16.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

16.00 million2.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

chiShona
සිංහල (sĩhala)

Alternative Names

Chishona, “Swina” (pej.), Zezuru
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala

French Name

shona
singhalais

German Name

Schona-Sprache
Singhalesisch

Pronunciation

[ʃoːna]
[ˈsiŋhəliːz]

Ethnicity

Shona people
Sinhalese people

History

Origin

20th century
3

Language Family

Niger-Congo Family
Indo-European Family

Subgroup

Benue-Congo
Indo-Iranian

Branch

Bantu
Indic

Language Forms

Early Forms

Old Shona and Middle Shona
Sinhalese Prakrit

Standard Forms

Standard Shona
Modern Sinhalese

Language Position

10770
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Signed Shona
Signed Sinhalese

Scope

Individual
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1

sn
si

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

sna
sin

ISO 639 2/B

sna
sin

ISO 639 3

sna
sin

ISO 639 6

sna
sin

Glottocode

core1255
sinh1246

Linguasphere

99-AUT-a
No data available

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
Living

Language Linguistic Typology

-
Subject-Object-Verb

Language Morphological Typology

-
Fusional

Shona vs Sinhalese Speaking Countries

There are plenty of languages spoken around the world. Every country has its own official language. Compare Shona vs Sinhalese speaking countries, so that you will have total count of countries that speak Shona or Sinhalese language.

  • Shona is spoken as a national language in: Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe.
  • Sinhalese is spoken as a national language in: Sri Lanka.

You will also get to know the continents where Shona and Sinhalese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Shona language is 107 and position of Sinhalese language is 70. Find all the information about these languages on Shona and Sinhalese.

Shona and Sinhalese Language History

Comparison of Shona vs Sinhalese language history gives us differences between origin of Shona and Sinhalese language. History of Shona language states that this language originated in 20th century 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 Shona and Sinhalese Language History.

Shona 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 Shona and Sinhalese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Shona and Sinhalese language. Shona word for "Hello" is Mhoro or Sinhalese word for "Thank You" is ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi). Find more of such common Shona Greetings and Sinhalese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.

Shona vs Sinhalese Difficulty

The Shona vs Sinhalese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Shona 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 Shona and Sinhalese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Shona and Sinhalese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Shona is 30 weeks while to learn Sinhalese time required is 44 weeks.