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Veddah |
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The Vedda language is the language of the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. But communities, such as Coast Veddas and
Anuradhapura Veddas, that do not strictly identify themselves as Veddas also use the Vedda language in part for communication
during hunting and or for religious chants, throughout the island. When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, the
language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana. In 1990s self-identifying Veddas knew few words and
phrases in Vedda, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially there was considerable debate
amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect of Sinhalese or an independent language. Later studies indicate that Vedda
language is a creole which evolved from ancient time, when the Veddas came in contact with the early Sinhalese, from whom
they increasingly borrowed words and synthetic features, yielding the cumulative effect that Vedda looked like Sinhalese in
many particulars, but its grammatical core was still intact. The parent Vedda language(s) is of unknown genetic origins, while
Sinhalese is of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European languages. Phonologically it is distinguished from Sinhalese by the
higher frequency of palatal sounds C and J. The effect is also heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes. Morphologically,
the Vedda word classes are nouns, verbs and invariables, with unique gender distinctions in animate nouns. It has reduced
and simplified many forms of Sinhalese such as second person pronouns and denotations of negative meanings. Instead borrowing
new words from Sinhalese or other languages Vedda creates combinations of words from a limited lexical stock. Vedda also maintains
many archaic Sinhalese terms from the 10th to 12th centuries, as a relict of its close contact with Sinhalese. Vedda also
retains a number of unique words that cannot be derived from Sinhalese. Vedda has exerted a substratum influence in the formation
of Sinhalese. This is evident by the presence of both lexical and structural elements in Sinhalese which cannot be traced
to either Indo-Aryan or neighboring Dravidian languages. |
Names (more)[en] Vedda language[la] Lingua Vedda [ru] Ведда |
Language type : Living
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Veddah. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : vedLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/vedhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:ved More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: vedFreebase ISO 639-3 : ved GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |