Location of the Sinhala in Regional Linguistic Historicity and the Identity of Sinhala Language

The purpose of this study is to locate the Sinhala language in the South Asian linguistic area and the Indo-Aryan subgroup and to examine the concepts and ideas related to the origin and evolution of the Sinhala language. The data were collected using document analysis and analysed using content analysis. Building the relevant rationale by analysing and synthesising the results of previous studies is the study path followed here. According to the findings, it is evident that the identity of the Sinhala language is the result of a different evolutionary path than other languages belonging to the Indo-Aryan sub-group of the Indo-European language family. Since Sinhala began to exhibit its independent aspect before the beginning of the 'Modern Indo-Aryan languages', it is justified to consider the Sinhala language as a modern language that emerged from the contact of a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect with the Old Indo-Aryan languages and the languages belong to other language families such as Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan. Although Sanskrit and the language known as 'Pali' are recognised as the 'mother languages' of Sinhala, there is no evidence that Sinhala was initiated as a dialect of either Sanskrit or 'Pali'. According to the historical analysis, several Prakrit vernaculars led to the source of the Vedic language, which was developed and modified as Sanskrit during 5c. B.C. was isolated from the original mainland and developed independently on this island. The mixing of Prakrit dialects on this island and the contact with the languages of the early inhabitants of the island was the first step in the independent aspect of the Sinhala and the contact with the colloquial languages of other nations arrived here due to various socio-economic, political, and cultural relationships led to the preparation of the new face of Sinhala. The origin and evolution of the Sinhala language took place through admixture with other non-Dravidian languages - mainly Tamil, the primary language of the Dravidian language family. The reasons for finding a vocabulary similar to Sanskrit and Pali languages - which are considered to have evolved from them - are that the Prakrit verículars based on those languages are rooted in the source of Sinhala and the development of Sinhala language due to socio-cultural (educational and religious etc.) reasons similar to Sanskrit and Pali languages. It is clear that the use of loan words and a derived vocabulary and the influence of the grammatical features of those languages.