Abstract:
The Sinhala language has two main varieties: literary and spoken, both differ from each other in
important ways. Literary Sinhala is the language of virtually all written materials, not just literature in
the specific sense. Spoken Sinhala, setting aside some formal sub-varieties heard primarily in lectures
and seminars, is basically the language used by everyone at all social and educational levels, for all
face to face discourse and it is this colloquial variety of Sinhala that is mostly represented in the
present study.
Some of the recent studies on Sri Lanka have pointed out that Tamil dialects vary in lexicon.Both
languages have certainly developed in Sri Lanka in socio economic, political,educational and
industrial fields. Dissimilar changes have continued to develop in the vocabulary of both languages.
The vocabulary is the most vulnerable part of language, subject to various kinds of linguistic
influences.
In the Sri Lankan context, both these languages have been taught and learnt as second language by
Tamil and Sinhala students at the university level.The objective of this study is to compare the
linguistic features of Tamil and Sinhala languages based on lexicology to fasciliate the learners of
these languages as a second language.
The main difficulties in learning a new language are caused by the interference from the first language
and these difficulties can be predicted by contrastive analysis.This paper expains how both languages
have some kind of freedom in their lexicon; and this factor might help to contribute in theorizing
about common items of the two languages.Using linguistic analysis in a descriptive way this paper
describes the unique lexicology of each language which contributes to the linguistic richness and
ethnic identity of the speakers of this language.
