Countries
African Union, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East African Community, Kenya
Sri Lanka
Total No. Of Countries
41
0
46
👆🏻
National Language
Burundi, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania
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
Chama cha Kiswahili cha Taifa (Kenya)
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)
Interesting Facts
- Swahili language has borrowed many words from Arabic language.
- The oldest written scripts in swahili language were found in 18th century.
- 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
Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi Languages
Maldivian Language
Derived From
Arabic Language
Sanskrit Language
Alphabets in
Alphabets
2454
18
247
👆🏻
Phonology
How Many Vowels
518
0
32
👆🏻
How Many Consonants
2136
9
60
👆🏻
Scripts
Latin
Sinhala alphabet
Writing Direction
-
Left-To-Right, Horizontal
Hard to Learn
Language Levels
32
2
12
👆🏻
Time Taken to Learn
36 weeks44 weeks
3
88
👆🏻
Hello
Habari
හලෝ (halō)
Thank You
Asante
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)
How Are You?
Habari gani?
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)
Good Night
Usiku mwema
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)
Good Evening
Habari za jioni
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)
Good Afternoon
nzuri Alasiri
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)
Good Morning
Habari za asubuhi
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)
Please
tafadhali
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)
Sorry
pole
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)
Bye
bye
බායි (bāyi)
I Love You
nakupenda
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)
Excuse Me
Samahani
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)
Dialect 1
Kiunguja
Vedda
Where They Speak
Zanzibar island
Sri Lanka
How Many People Speak
75,000,000.0019,000,000.00
1.5
960000000
👆🏻
Dialect 2
Kimrima
Sri Lankan Sinhala
Where They Speak
Dar es Salaam
-
How Many People Speak
75,000,000.0019,000,000.00
700
274000000
👆🏻
Dialect 3
Kimgao
Up-Country Sinhalese
Where They Speak
Kilwa
-
How Many People Speak
75,000,000.0016,000,000.00
2
230000000
👆🏻
Total No. Of Dialects
121
0
188
👆🏻
How Many People Speak?
150.00 million16.00 million
0
1200
👆🏻
Speaking Population
0.42 %0.25 %
0
89
👆🏻
Native Speakers
15.00 million16.00 million
0
873
👆🏻
Second Language Speakers
75.00 million2.00 million
0.01
400
👆🏻
Native Name
Kiswahili
සිංහල (sĩhala)
Alternative Names
Kisuaheli, Kiswahili
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala
French Name
swahili
singhalais
German Name
Swahili
Singhalesisch
Pronunciation
[swaˈhili]
[ˈsiŋhəliːz]
Ethnicity
Swahili people or Waswahili
Sinhalese people
Origin
6th century
3
Language Family
Niger-Congo Family
Indo-European Family
Subgroup
Benue-Congo
Indo-Iranian
Branch
Bantu
Indic
Language Forms
Early Forms
No early forms
Sinhalese Prakrit
Standard Forms
Swahili
Modern Sinhalese
Language Position
2170
1
120
👆🏻
Signed Forms
Swahili Sign Language
Signed Sinhalese
Scope
Individual, Macrolanguage
Individual
ISO 639 1
sw
si
ISO 639 2
ISO 639 2/T
swa
sin
ISO 639 2/B
swa
sin
ISO 639 3
swa
sin
ISO 639 6
swa
sin
Glottocode
swah1254
sinh1246
Linguasphere
99-AUS-m
No data available
Types of Language
Language Type
Living
Living
Language Linguistic Typology
-
Subject-Object-Verb
Language Morphological Typology
-
Fusional