Countries
Sri Lanka
  
Hong Kong, Macau
  
National Language
Sri Lanka
  
China, Guangdong
  
Second Language
Sri Lanka
  
Not spoken in any of the countries
  
Speaking Continents
Asia
  
Asia
  
Minority Language
Not spoken in any of the countries
  
Hawaii
  
Regulated By
Hela Havula (හෙළ හවුල)
  
Civil Service Bureau, Government of Hong Kong, Official Language Division
  
Interesting Facts
- In Sinhalese language, there are many loanwords from Dravidian languages mainly Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch and English.
- Sinhalese language has it own script/ writing system.
  
- Cantonese have lot of slangs, many of them include words that do not make sense at all and some also have English in them.
- Even though Cantonese and Mandarin are dialects of Chinese, Cantonese has 8 tones instead of Mandarin's 4.
  
Similar To
Maldivian Language
  
Chinese Language
  
Derived From
Sanskrit Language
  
Not Available
  
Alphabets in
Sinhalese-Alphabets.jpg#200
  
Cantonese-Alphabets.jpg#200
  
Phonology
  
  
Scripts
Sinhala alphabet
  
Chinese Characters and derivatives
  
Writing Direction
Left-To-Right, Horizontal
  
Left-To-Right, Horizontal, Top-To-Bottom
  
Hard to Learn
  
  
Hello
හලෝ (halō)
  
您好
  
Thank You
ඔබට ස්තුතියි (obaṭa stutiyi)
  
谢谢
  
How Are You?
ඔබ කොහොමද (oba kohomada)
  
你好吗?
  
Good Night
සුභ රාත්රියක් (subha rātriyak)
  
晚安
  
Good Evening
සුබ සැන්දෑවක් (suba sændǣvak)
  
晚上好
  
Good Afternoon
සුභ සන්ධ්යාවක් (subha sandhyāvak)
  
下午好
  
Good Morning
සුභ උදෑසනක් (subha udǣsanak)
  
早上好
  
Please
කරුණාකර (karuṇākara)
  
请
  
Sorry
සමාවන්න (samāvanna)
  
遗憾
  
Bye
බායි (bāyi)
  
再见
  
I Love You
මම ඔයාට ආදරෙයි (mama oyāṭa ādareyi)
  
我爱你
  
Excuse Me
මට සමාවෙන්න (maṭa samāvenna)
  
原谅我
  
Dialect 1
Vedda
  
Guangzhou
  
Where They Speak
Sri Lanka
  
outside mainland China
  
Dialect 2
Not Available
  
Xiguan
  
Where They Speak
Not Available
  
Hong Kong
  
Dialect 3
Not Available
  
Hong Kong
  
Where They Speak
Not Available
  
Hong Kong
  
How Many People Speak?
16.00 million
  
99+
60.00 million
  
27
Native Speakers
16.00 million
  
39
52.00 million
  
21
Second Language Speakers
2.00 million
  
34
Not Available
  
Native Name
සිංහල (sĩhala)
  
Kwang Tung Wa
  
Alternative Names
Cingalese, Singhala, Singhalese, Sinhala
  
Guangfu, Metropolitan Cantonese
  
French Name
singhalais
  
Not Available
  
German Name
Singhalesisch
  
Not Available
  
Pronunciation
Not Available
  
Not Available
  
Ethnicity
Sinhalese people
  
Not Available
  
Origin
3
  
17th century
  
Language Family
Indo-European Family
  
Sino-Tibetan Family
  
Subgroup
Indo-Iranian
  
Not Available
  
Branch
Indic
  
Not Available
  
Language Forms
  
  
Early Forms
Sinhalese Prakrit
  
No early forms
  
Standard Forms
Modern Sinhalese
  
Standard Cantonese
  
Language Position
Not Available
  
Signed Forms
Not Available
  
Not Available
  
Scope
Individual
  
Not Available
  
ISO 639 1
si
  
No data available
  
ISO 639 2
  
  
ISO 639 2/T
sin
  
Not Available
  
ISO 639 2/B
sin
  
Not Available
  
ISO 639 3
sin
  
No data available
  
ISO 639 6
Not Available
  
Not Available
  
Glottocode
sinh1246
  
cant1236
  
Linguasphere
No data available
  
No data available
  
Types of Language
  
  
Language Type
Living
  
Not Available
  
Language Linguistic Typology
Subject-Object-Verb
  
Not Available
  
Language Morphological Typology
Fusional
  
Not Available
  
Sinhalese and Cantonese Greetings
People around the world use different languages to interact with each other. Even if we cannot communicate fluently in any language, it will always be beneficial to know about some of the common greetings or phrases from that language. This is where Sinhalese and Cantonese greetings helps you to understand basic phrases in Sinhalese and Cantonese language. Sinhalese word for "Hello" is හලෝ (halō) or Cantonese word for "Thank You" is 谢谢. Find more of such common Sinhalese Greetings and Cantonese Greetings. These greetings will help you to be more confident when conversing with natives that speak these languages.
Sinhalese vs Cantonese Difficulty
The Sinhalese vs Cantonese difficulty level basically depends on the number of Sinhalese Alphabets and Cantonese Alphabets. Also the number of vowels and consonants in the language plays an important role in deciding the difficulty level of that language. The important points to be considered when we compare Sinhalese and Cantonese are the origin, speaking countries, language family, different greetings, speaking population of these languages. Want to know in Sinhalese and Cantonese, which language is harder to learn? Time required to learn Sinhalese is 44 weeks while to learn Cantonese time required is 88 weeks.