Sinhala

Sin·ha·la/ˈsɪnhələ/noun

Sinhala is spelled S-I-N-H-A-L-A: 7 letters and 3 syllables (Sin·ha·la). It appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 55,433rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, Sinhala means “Synonym of Sinhalese (“language”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in Sinhala?

Letters	7: S-I-N-H-A-L-A
Syllables	3: Sin·ha·la
In writing	about once in every 3 million words; the 55,433rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is Sinhala?

Sinhala appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 55,433rd most frequent word form in the list.

Sinhala0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce Sinhala?

/ˈsɪnhələ/
/sɪnˈhɑːlə/

Sinhala has 3 syllables, split Sin·ha·la in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sumxr-Sinhala.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What does Sinhala mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

1
Synonym of Sinhalese (“language”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Where does Sinhala come from?

Borrowed from Sinhalese සිංහල (siṁhala), itself borrowed from Sanskrit सिंहल (siṃhala, literally “lionlike”), from सिंह (siṃhá, “lion”) + -ल (-la), recorded as the name of the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from about the 10th to 12th century, but presumably older, as it is also the source of the name Ceylon in western geographic tradition. The name is sometimes glossed as "abode of lions", referring to a supposed former abundance of lions on the island ( The Asiatic Journal 20 (1836), p. 30). Doublet of Ceylon and Elu.