SINGHALES, SINGHALESE lEz'), LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Singhalese is the speech of 70 per cent of the native inhabitants of Ceylon. It is an Aryan tongue and nearly allied to Pali, but it con tains many foreign words. For this reason there has been much dispute as to its classifica tion. There is a material difference between the vernacular and the written language. The latter has a copious vocabulary and a regular grammar, and is capable of elegant style. Its alphabet has 50 letters, but these represent only 30 sounds (7 vowels, 23 consonants), belonging to the Singhalese. Modern Singhalese has be come an analytical language very largely, though there are still in evidence traces of its highly inflected ancient condition. In fact the Singhalese verb seems to have been handed down little changed from the synthetic age of the tongue. The other sounds are heard only in Sanskrit words or are indistinguishable. In the Singhalese words occurring in the following illustrations of the grammar of the language the vowels have the values they have in Italian, the consonants, including ch, sh and j have the sounds given to them in English, except that g is always hard, and that the diphonics chh, jh, th, dh, ph and bh stand for sounds peculiar to Singhalese. In Singhalese grammar there are three genders; nouns masculine end mostly in a, plural o, an, arts; feminine in i, plural u, varu; neuter in a, u, plural adding val, or dropping the final syllable. Examples: nuvara, city, nuvaraval, cities; kaduva. sword, kadu, swords. The principal case endings, masculine and feminine, are genitive, ge, ne; dative, ta, da; accusative, va; ablative, gen, nen. The neuter
endings of the above four cases respectively are e, ata, ava, en. Example: manuspaya (Lat. homo), man; gani (Lat. mulier), woman; oluva (Lat. ca put), head; genitive manuspaype, hominis; gunige, mulieris; oluvai, caplets; dative, manuspaya, homini, etc.; accusative, gitniva, mitherem, etc.; ablative, oluven, capite, etc., as above detailed: plural, manuspayo, homines; alu, capita; manuspayina, hominum, etc. The adjectives are indeclinable. There are no less than 14 different pronouns of the second person, the use of them being regulated by the rank, both of the speaker and the person ad dressed. The Singhalese literature, which is not very extensive, comprises several original poems of some merit, and an extensive and in teresting series of native chronicles, together with a considerable body of devotional works and other religious writings. The oldest Sin ghalese document extant is a glossary to the commentary on the 'Dhammapada> (10th cen tury). The language also contains histories and grammars. The sacred books of the Singhalese, originally written in Pali, and which have been translated into the popular tongue form a con siderable body of literature which is widely read and distributed over most of the island. Con sult Alwiz, 'Singhalese Hand-Book in Roman Characters' (Colombo 1880) ; Carter, 'English Singhalese Dictionary> (Colombo 1891) ; Clough, 'Singhalese-English
(Co lombo 1890) ; Geiger,