
sin int ඔවු - ovū
tam int ஆமாம் - aamam
Sinhala:
Sinhala (සිංහල), also known as Sinhalese (older spelling: Singhalese) is the mother tongue of the Sinhalese people, who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken, as a second language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 3 million.
It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Tamil.
Sinhala, along with Pali, played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature.
Sinhala has its own writing system, the Sinhala alphabet, which is a member of the Brahmic family of scripts, and a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script.
The oldest Sinhala inscriptions found are from the 6th century BCE, on pottery; the oldest existing literary works date from the 9th century CE.
The closest relative of Sinhala is the language of the Maldives and Minicoy Island (India), Dhivehi.