Sinhala
Indo-European family · Indic branch · Eurasia
Sinhala is an SOV language, like 564 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.
The closest grammar profile to Sinhala in the atlas belongs to Khalkha, an Altaic language: the two agree on 30 of the 41 features both have coded.
On Number of Cases, WALS codes Sinhala as “5 case categories”, a value held by 12 of the 261 languages coded, Latvian and Armenian (Eastern) among them.
Contrast Sinhala with Khalkha or with any other language
Uncommon values
Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Sinhala, rarest first.
- Order of Numeral and NounBoth orders of numeral and noun with neither order dominant65 of 1,154
- Politeness Distinctions in PronounsSecond person pronouns encode multiple politeness distinctions15 of 207
Inside the Indo-European family
Sinhala matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 26 of the 41 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (63%). Among the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, that rate ranks 31st from the top.
Closest profiles
Languages that share the most coded values with Sinhala; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.
The rest of the profile
WALS codes Sinhala for 41 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 37 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Sinhala shares with the fewest languages comes first.
Sounds 12
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Vowel Quality Inventories | Large vowel inventory (7-14) | 184 of 564 |
| Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | Voicing contrast in plosives alone | 189 of 567 |
| Consonant Inventories | Average | 201 of 563 |
| Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | 234 of 564 |
| Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | /p t k b d g/ | 255 of 567 |
| Tone | No tones | 307 of 527 |
| Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | 388 of 567 |
| Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | 409 of 567 |
| Presence of Uncommon Consonants | None | 449 of 567 |
| Uvular Consonants | No uvulars | 470 of 567 |
| Absence of Common Consonants | All present | 503 of 567 |
| Front Rounded Vowels | None | 525 of 562 |
Nouns and pronouns 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Related for all demonstratives | 52 of 225 |
| Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical case-marking | 79 of 261 |
| Ordinal Numerals | First, two-th, three-th | 110 of 321 |
| Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | 452 of 1,031 |
| The Associative Plural | Associative plural marker also used for additive plurals | 104 of 236 |
| Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical | 94 of 168 |
| Numeral Classifiers | Numeral classifiers are absent | 260 of 400 |
Noun phrases 1
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase Conjunction | AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical | 131 of 234 |
Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 2
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Imperative-Hortative Systems | The language has neither a maximal nor a minimal system | 201 of 375 |
| Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | 667 of 1,131 |
Word order 7
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | More than one type of adverbial subordinators with none dominant | 93 of 659 |
| Order of Adjective and Noun | Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN) | 373 of 1,367 |
| Order of Object and Verb | Object precedes verb (OV) | 712 of 1,518 |
| Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj) | 227 of 481 |
| Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | 577 of 1,184 |
| Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause follows noun (NRel) | 579 of 824 |
| Order of Subject and Verb | Subject precedes verb (SV) | 1,192 of 1,496 |
Simple clauses 5
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Predicative Possession | Locational Possessive | 48 of 240 |
| Predicative Adjectives | Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding | 132 of 386 |
| Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Zero copula is possible | 175 of 386 |
| Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | 269 of 386 |
| Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Morphological type but no compound type | 254 of 310 |
Vocabulary 3
| Feature | Value | Languages sharing it |
|---|---|---|
| Tea | Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te | 84 of 230 |
| Hand and Arm | Identity: a single word denotes both 'hand' and 'arm' | 228 of 617 |
| Finger and Hand | Different | 521 of 593 |