Indo-European · ISO 639-3 sin · si
Sinhala Language සිංහල
Sinhala is an Indo-European language spoken by about 16 million people in 1 country. It is an official language of Sri Lanka. It is written in the Sinhala script.
Where Sinhala is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Sinhala
About the Sinhala language
Sinhala (සිංහල) is spoken by about 16 million people, which makes it the 84th most spoken language in the world — just behind Nepali (16 million) and ahead of Turkmen (16 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Sinhalaic group within the Indo-Iranian branch.
Where is Sinhala spoken?
Sinhala is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Sri Lanka (15 million). More than half of the population speaks it in Sri Lanka — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Sinhala is an official language in 1 country: Sri Lanka.
Writing system and status
Sinhala is written in the Sinhala script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Dhivehi, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Panjabi, Western Panjabi and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 si, ISO 639-3 sin.
Frequently asked questions about Sinhala
How many people speak Sinhala?
Where is Sinhala spoken?
In which countries is Sinhala an official language?
What language family does Sinhala belong to?
What is Sinhala called in Sinhala?
Is Sinhala an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.