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Xhosa
Xhosa

Sinhalese
Sinhalese



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Xhosa
X
Sinhalese

Xhosa vs Sinhalese

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Countries

Countries

South Africa
Sri Lanka

Total No. Of Countries

11
0 46
👆🏻

National Language

South Africa
Sri Lanka

Second Language

Lesotho, South Africa
Sri Lanka

Speaking Continents

Africa
Asia

Minority Language

Botswana, Lesotho
Not spoken in any of the countries

Regulated By

-
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)

Interesting Facts

  • Xhosa has 15 click sounds, borrowed from the khoi-khoi and san languages of the South Africa.
  • The same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meaning when said with different tones, so Xhosa is tonal.
  • 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

Zulu, Swazi, and Ndebele
Maldivian Language

Derived From

Khoi-Khoi and San Languages
Sanskrit Language

Alphabets

Alphabets in

Alphabets

5354
18 247
👆🏻

Phonology

How Many Vowels

1018
0 32
👆🏻

How Many Consonants

4336
9 60
👆🏻

Scripts

Latin
Sinhala alphabet

Writing Direction

-
Left-To-Right, Horizontal

Hard to Learn

Language Levels

32
2 12
👆🏻

Time Taken to Learn

44 weeks44 weeks
3 88
👆🏻

Greetings

Hello

Molo
හලෝ (halō)

Thank You

Ndiyabulela
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)

How Are You?

Unjani
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)

Good Night

Ulale kakuhle
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)

Good Evening

Ubusuku obuhle
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)

Good Afternoon

Uben' emva kwemini entle
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)

Good Morning

Molo
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)

Please

Ndicela
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)

Sorry

Ndicela uxolo
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)

Bye

Uhambe/Usale kakuhle
බායි (bāyi)

I Love You

Ndiyakuthanda
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)

Excuse Me

Uxolo
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)

Dialects

Dialect 1

Gcaleka
Vedda

Where They Speak

South Africa
Sri Lanka

How Many People Speak

19,000,000.0019,000,000.00
1.5 960000000
👆🏻

Dialect 2

Thembu
Sri Lankan Sinhala

Where They Speak

South Africa
-

How Many People Speak

19,000,000.0019,000,000.00
700 274000000
👆🏻

Dialect 3

Hlubi
Up-Country Sinhalese

Where They Speak

South Africa
-

How Many People Speak

19.0016,000,000.00
2 230000000
👆🏻

Total No. Of Dialects

91
0 188
👆🏻

How Many People Speak

How Many People Speak?

20.00 million16.00 million
0 1200
👆🏻

Speaking Population

0.11 %0.25 %
0 89
👆🏻

Native Speakers

8.20 million16.00 million
0 873
👆🏻

Second Language Speakers

11.00 million2.00 million
0.01 400
👆🏻

Native Name

isiXhosa
සිංහල (sĩhala)

Alternative Names

“Cauzuh” (pej.), Isixhosa, Koosa, Xosa
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala

French Name

xhosa
singhalais

German Name

Xhosa-Sprache
Singhalesisch

Pronunciation

[ˈkǁʰɔ̀ːsa]
[ˈsiŋhəliːz]

Ethnicity

amaXhosa, amaBhaca
Sinhalese people

History

Origin

16th 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

isiXhosa
Modern Sinhalese

Language Position

2170
1 120
👆🏻

Signed Forms

Signed Xhosa
Signed Sinhalese

Scope

Individual
Individual

Code

ISO 639 1

xh
si

ISO 639 2

ISO 639 2/T

xho
sin

ISO 639 2/B

xho
sin

ISO 639 3

xho
sin

ISO 639 6

xho
sin

Glottocode

xhos1239
sinh1246

Linguasphere

99-AUT-fa
No data available

Types of Language

Language Type

Living
Living

Language Linguistic Typology

Subject-Verb-Object
Subject-Object-Verb

Language Morphological Typology

-
Fusional

Xhosa vs Sinhalese Speaking Countries

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

  • Xhosa is spoken as a national language in: South Africa.
  • Sinhalese is spoken as a national language in: Sri Lanka.

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

Xhosa and Sinhalese Language History

Comparison of Xhosa vs Sinhalese language history gives us differences between origin of Xhosa and Sinhalese language. History of Xhosa language states that this language originated in 16th 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 Xhosa and Sinhalese Language History.

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

Xhosa vs Sinhalese Difficulty

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