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Swahili
Swahili

Sinhalese
Sinhalese



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Swahili
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Sinhalese

Swahili vs Sinhalese

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Countries

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

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
👆🏻

Greetings

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)

Dialects

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

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

History

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

Code

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

Swahili vs Sinhalese Speaking Countries

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

  • Swahili is spoken as a national language in: Burundi, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Tanzania.
  • Sinhalese is spoken as a national language in: Sri Lanka.

You will also get to know the continents where Swahili and Sinhalese speaking countries lie. Based on the number of people that speak these languages, the position of Swahili language is 21 and position of Sinhalese language is 70. Find all the information about these languages on Swahili and Sinhalese.

Swahili and Sinhalese Language History

Comparison of Swahili vs Sinhalese language history gives us differences between origin of Swahili and Sinhalese language. History of Swahili language states that this language originated in 6th 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 Swahili and Sinhalese Language History.

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

Swahili vs Sinhalese Difficulty

The Swahili vs Sinhalese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Swahili 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 Swahili and Sinhalese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Swahili and Sinhalese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Swahili is 36 weeks while to learn Sinhalese time required is 44 weeks.