Languages of Sri Lanka
Several languages are spoken in Sri Lanka within the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Austronesian families. Sri Lanka accords de facto official status to Sinhala and Tamil, and English as a link language. The languages spoken on the island nation are deeply influenced by the various languages in India, Europe and Southeast Asia. Arab settlers and the colonial powers of Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain have also influenced the development of modern languages in Sri Lanka. See below for the most-spoken languages of Sri Lanka. Native and indigenous languages. As per 2016, the Sinhala language is  mostly spoken by the Sinhalese people, who constitute approximately 74.9% of the national population and total about 16.6 million. It uses the Sinhala abugida script, which is derived from the ancient Brahmi script. About 300 of the Veddah people, totaling barely 2,500 in 2002, speak the Veddah language, of which the origin is debated. The Sri Lankan Tamil language (Eelavam) is spoken by Sri Lankan Tamils people is native to the island, where as Indian Tamil spoken by Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka|Tamil migrants] and by most Sri Lankan Moors is from the neighboring India n state of Tamil Nadu . Tamil speakers number around 5 million. There are more than 40,000 speakers of the Sri Lanka Malay|Sri Lankan Malay language. Languages of foreign origin. File:Kandy War Grave stripe.JPG|left|thumbnail|English, Sinhala and Tamil languages on a war grave memorial plate in Kandy.("click to see full view of memorial plate")|600px English in Sri Lanka is fluently spoken by approximately 23.8% of the population, and widely used for official and commercial purposes. It is the native language of approximately 74,000 people, mainly in urban areas. A handful of the 3,400 Burgher people|people of Portuguese descent speak Sri Lankan Portuguese creole . External links . Category:Languages of Sri Lanka|