The languages of Sri Lanka

Sinhala and Tamil are both official languages of Sri Lanka, and English is recognised as a link language, meaning it functions as a bridge between the two communities and in government, higher education and business. Official signage, currency and government documents appear in all three.

This matters practically for a visitor because it tells you what you are looking at. A road sign in three scripts is not a tourist convenience; it is constitutional. Understanding which language predominates where also helps you greet people correctly, which is a small thing that lands well.

Sinhala is spoken by the Sinhalese majority and is an Indo-Aryan language, distantly related to Hindi, Bengali and, further back, to European languages. It has been on the island for well over two thousand years and has absorbed vocabulary from Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English along the way.

Its script is one of the most beautiful writing systems in the world, an abugida of rounded characters that developed as it did partly because it was written on palm leaves, where straight lines would have split the leaf. It is spoken most widely in the south, west, centre and the Cultural Triangle.

Tamil is a Dravidian language, entirely unrelated to Sinhala in origin, and one of the oldest continuously used literary languages in the world, with a written tradition stretching back more than two thousand years. It is spoken in Sri Lanka by Sri Lankan Tamils, concentrated in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and by the Indian Tamil community in the hill country plantation districts.

Sri Lankan Tamil differs somewhat from the Tamil of Tamil Nadu in accent and vocabulary, and speakers are generally pleased when visitors notice the distinction. Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and the tea estates around Nuwara Eliya and Hatton are where you will hear it most.

Enough that most visitors never have a serious communication problem. English is taught in schools, used in higher education and business, and widely spoken in Colombo, in tourist areas, in hotels and by younger Sri Lankans. Signage in visitor areas is trilingual, menus are usually in English, and drivers, guides and hotel staff generally speak it well.

It thins out quickly in rural areas, in the far north and east, on local buses and in small towns away from the tourist routes. A translation app that works offline is worth having for those situations, along with the handful of phrases below, which will get you further than the app will.

You do not need to learn a language. You need about six words, and the reaction to using them is out of all proportion to the effort. Greeting someone in their own language and thanking them properly changes the temperature of an interaction immediately.

In Sinhala: ayubowan for hello, sthuthi or bohoma sthuthi for thank you and thank you very much, and karunakara for please. In Tamil: vanakkam for hello, nandri or romba nandri for thank you, and thayavu seydhu for please. Ayubowan is offered with palms pressed together, which is worth copying.

Use Sinhala greetings in Colombo, the south and west coasts, the Cultural Triangle, Kandy and most of the hill country towns. Use Tamil greetings in Jaffna and the northern peninsula, in Trincomalee and Batticaloa, and in the plantation communities around Nuwara Eliya, Hatton and Haputale.

In mixed areas, or if you are unsure, English is entirely fine and nobody will take offence. What does land badly is assuming that everyone in Sri Lanka speaks Sinhala, which is not true and which carries a history. If in doubt, ask which they prefer; the question itself is appreciated.

Many Sri Lankan places have both a Sinhala and a Tamil name, and sometimes an anglicised third. Trincomalee is Thirukonamalai in Tamil and Thirikunamalaya in Sinhala. Kandy is Maha Nuwara. Colombo is Kolamba. Signposts often carry all versions, which explains why a single junction can appear to point to three different towns.

This is worth knowing when reading bus destination boards, which are frequently in Sinhala or Tamil script only, and when asking directions, where the local name may be the only one recognised.

Learn the greeting and the thank you in both languages. Use them. It takes ten minutes and it is the highest-return preparation you can do for a trip to Sri Lanka, more useful than any amount of reading about temples.

Lankan Stays & Trails works with driver-guides who speak both official languages, which matters practically on any itinerary that crosses between the south and the north or east.