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Sinhalese vs Cantonese


Cantonese vs Sinhalese


Countries

Countries
Sri Lanka  
Hong Kong, Macau  

Total No. Of Countries
1  
14
2  
13

National Language
Sri Lanka  
China, Guangdong  

Second Language
Sri Lanka  
Not spoken in any of the countries  

Speaking Continents
Asia  
Asia  

Minority Language
Not spoken in any of the countries  
Hawaii  

Regulated By
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)  
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division  

Interesting Facts
  • In Sinhalese language, there are many loanwords from Dravidian languages mainly Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English.
  • Sinhalese language has it own script/ writing system.
  
  • Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
  • Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
  

Similar To
Maldivian Language  
Chinese Language  

Derived From
Sanskrit Language  
-  

Alphabets

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

Alphabets
54  
33
28  
10

Phonology
  
  

How Many Vowels
18  
15
8  
5

How Many Consonants
36  
26
20  
10

Scripts
Sinhala alphabet  
Chinese Characters and derivatives  

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

Hard to Learn
  
  

Language Levels
2  
1
10  
8

Time Taken to Learn
44 weeks  
17
88 weeks  
19

Greetings

Hello
හලෝ (halō)  
您好  

Thank You
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)  
谢谢  

How Are You?
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)  
你好吗?  

Good Night
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)  
晚安  

Good Evening
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)  
晚上好  

Good Afternoon
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)  
下午好  

Good Morning
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)  
早上好  

Please
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)  
请  

Sorry
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)  
遗憾  

Bye
බායි (bāyi)  
再见  

I Love You
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)  
我爱你  

Excuse Me
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)  
原谅我  

Dialects

Dialect 1
Vedda  
Guangzhou  

Where They Speak
Sri Lanka  
outside mainland China  

How Many People Speak
19,000,000.00  
30
71,000,000.00  
13

Dialect 2
Sri Lankan Sinhala  
Xiguan  

Where They Speak
-  
Hong Kong  

How Many People Speak
19,000,000.00  
27
71,000,000.00  
11

Dialect 3
Up-Country Sinhalese  
Hong Kong  

Where They Speak
-  
Hong Kong  

How Many People Speak
16,000,000.00  
27
70,000,000.00  
10

Total No. Of Dialects
1  
1
3  
3

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?
16.00 million  
99+
60.00 million  
27

Speaking Population
0.25 %  
99+
16.00 %  
2

Native Speakers
16.00 million  
39
52.00 million  
21

Second Language Speakers
2.00 million  
99+
71.00 million  
15

Native Name
සිංහල (sĩhala)  
Kwang Tung Wa  

Alternative Names
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala  
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese  

French Name
singhalais  
cantonais  

German Name
Singhalesisch  
Kantonesisch  

Pronunciation
[ˈsiŋhəliːz]  
[kʰɐn˧˥tʰœːn˧˥sɨ˧˥]  

Ethnicity
Sinhalese people  
Han Chinese  

History

Origin
3  
17th century  

Language Family
Indo-European Family  
Sino-Tibetan Family  

Subgroup
Indo-Iranian  
-  

Branch
Indic  
-  

Language Forms
  
  

Early Forms
Sinhalese Prakrit  
No early forms  

Standard Forms
Modern Sinhalese  
Standard Cantonese  

Language Position
70  
99+
1  
1

Signed Forms
Signed Sinhalese  
Signed Cantonese  

Scope
Individual  
-  

Code

ISO 639 1
si  
No data available  

ISO 639 2
  
  

ISO 639 2/T
sin  
yue  

ISO 639 2/B
sin  
yue  

ISO 639 3
sin  
No data available  

ISO 639 6
sin  
yue  

Glottocode
sinh1246  
cant1236  

Linguasphere
No data available  
No data available  

Types of Language
  
  

Language Type
Living  
-  

Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Object-Verb  
-  

Language Morphological Typology
Fusional  
-  

Countries >>
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Sinhalese and Cantonese Language History

Comparison of Sinhalese vs Cantonese language history gives us differences between origin of Sinhalese and Cantonese language. History of Sinhalese language states that this language originated in 3 whereas history of Cantonese language states that this language originated in 17th century. 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 Sinhalese and Cantonese Language History.

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

Sinhalese vs Cantonese Difficulty

The Sinhalese vs Cantonese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Sinhalese Alphabets and Cantonese 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 Sinhalese and Cantonese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Sinhalese and Cantonese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Sinhalese is 44 weeks while to learn Cantonese time required is 88 weeks.

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