Learn Spoken Sinhala

Book excerpt: This is the second edition of "Learn Spoken Sinhala". This new edition has completely revamped the first edition. The second edition is easier to carry and read, and has been meticulously proofread to remove some typos and inconsistencies. Sinhala language is used and spoken by Sri Lankans, and it is the native language of the Sinhalese, the majority race (more 70% of the population) in Sri Lanka. It is more or less the lingua franca in the country. Linguistically Sinhala is considered as a language belonging to the Indo-European Language family to which English, French, Latin, Spanish, Italian, etc belong. It enjoys a proud history of thousands of years. Sri Lanka being a miraculous and pristine island situated just below the Indian peninsula in a strateically important position along the ancient Silk Road linking the west and east parts of the world. It had been a colony of Portugese, Dutch, and last the English since 1505 up to 1948 AD. Therefore, the Sinhala language has been enriched by those European languages too. Just coming out of an unfortunate terrorist battle in the nothern part of the country, it is again becoming a hub of business, global logistics, knowledge, and tourism. Already many thousands of foreigners are employed in various projects in the country. This book is the only one in the world, which teaches the Spoken Sinhala language based on a sound grammatical underpinning. If you have a working knowledge of the English language, then using this book you can easily understand Sinhala sentence structures and patterns because the book teaches Sinhala in comparison with the English. There are hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans now living abroad, and this book can be useful for them to teach their kids about the beautiful language Sinhala. Sinhala diaspora all over the world will find this useful. Furthermore linguists who research about various languages throughout the world can use this book for their studies. Now there are a lot of people coming to Sri Lanka as businesspersons and workers on various projects and missions. This book can be very useful for them too. The AUTHOR who is already a chamption in proliferation of (free) knowledge in Sinhala medium is willing to personally help and guide you in case you need further assistance and clarifications.