The Dravidian Element in Sinhalese

Abstract

As early as 1821 Rasmus Rask identified Sinhalese as a speech belonging to the same class as Sanskrit, and added that Tamil belonged to quite a different class. Since then the subject has been studied and discussed by various scholars, and it is established beyond doubt that Sinhalese is an Indo-Aryan language. Dravidian languages have, however, had their influence on Sinhalese, chiefly through contact, and Tamil, being the language spoken by a large population in the neighbouring part of India, asserted a wide influence on the vocabulary, grammar, and literature of Sinhalese. Before examining the Dravidian loan-words in Sinhalese and the influence of Dravidian languages on its structure, the amount of the indebtedness of Sinhalese writers to Tamil authors for their subject matter will be examined here.