Similarities Between Hindi, Sinhala, and Dhivehi

How similar are Hindi, Sinhala (Sinhalese), and Maldivian (Divehi)? All three languages belong to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, in the larger Indo-European language family.

In this video Devina (Hindi speaker from India), Sanuda (Sinhalese speaker from Sri Lanka), and Yanish (Divehi speaker from the Maldives) challenge each other with with several short sentences in their respective languages.

Hindi (हिन्दी) is a standardized register of the Hindustani language. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the official languages of India, Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world, after Mandarin, Spanish and English.

Sinhala / Sinhalese (සිංහල) is one of the official languages of Sri Lanka. The Sinhala script is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala has had a significant role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature.

Maldivian / Dhivehi or Divehi (ދިވެހި) is primarily spoke in the Maldives where it has official status, and also by a significant number of people on the Minicoy Island, Lakshadweep, India. The language is written in the Thaana script and has had a lot of influence from different languages such as Arabic, Tamil, Persian, Portuguese, Hindi, French, and English. The Thaana script is relatively new and fairly unique with its Arabic and Indic originating letters combined together.

[BahadorAlast]

And if not, I just appreciate and thank you for your patience as my activities on YouTube are reduced during this period! I hope you enjoy the video!

[khadyjaahmed]

Me a Maldivian who is also fluent in hindi trying to figure out the similarity of our language with Sinhala. This is amazing❤

[thirimamunidineka]

Brother I'm from Sri Lanka, this is very interesting. I request to you do Sinhala with Bengali and Sanskrit please. ❤

[Itdesidiaries]

im Srilanka i completed my higher studies in hindi and higher diploma in hindi language. While learning Hindi, I saw many Hindi words that are very similar to Sinhala. Ex: ආදරනීය (आदरणीय) Sinhala and Hindi are brothers and sisters if Sanskrit is mother

[MissSassy]

Sinhala is more close to Indian language "Marathi" ... As a Marathi speaker I can easily understood Sinhala

[faizullah]

This was very good 👏🏼All 3 participants were superb!! I would kindly request Sinhala with Bengali

[collectivelove]

This was a very good video and a great way to bring together India, the Maldives and Sri Lanka

[දුඃඛදුඃඛින්]

The Sinhala guy in this video is a normal Sinhala guy. So, he does not have a proper knowledge about Sinhala language deeply.
He should use more Sanskrit words in the sentences than Prakrit words. Then, Hindi speaker will understand more.

[nadeeshaweerasinghe]

I've waited for months...Finally got it... (Sinhalese and Hindi or Sinhalese and Sanskrit.. ) I saw in your videos that even Lithuanian language also have similar words with Sinhalese because of Sanskrit. That's good to know. Love this kind of videos and good luck you and other participants!

[zhyrupg]

I didn't know about Dhivehi language much. Thank you for the knowledge.

[mahikantha]

As a native sinhala speaker i can understand more hindi than devehi

[levaltshuler]

What's amazing is I learn so much through these videos about people and places that I knew nothing about. This was very enlightening and eye opening!

[Syiepherze]

10:42 There is a Sri Lankan colloquialism that sounds very much like "shauq", ෂෝක් (shōk), which has a generally positive connotation. I can't help but think the two are cognates, with ෂෝක් possibly being introduced by the Sri Lankan Malay community (in Malay and Indonesian there exists the word syok/shiok, meaning "pleasurable")

Just my theory though, I've probably been gaslit lmao

[gilbertque]

It's nice to finally hear Dhivehi!! Thank you for these videos as usual Bahador!! I also understand what you've been doing, and I believe many of your fans do too!! :) :) :) :)

[wickramavee]

This is really interesting, entertaining and amazing. Particularly, as a native Sinhala speaker, I find the Divehi language of Maldives fascinating. Mutual intelligibility between Divehi and Sinhala is interesting because a native Sinhala speaker can learn to speak Divehi very quickly.

[malithaw]

Never thought I would see Sinhala let alone Dhivehi featured in this channel so this was a nice surprise. I liked the maldivian guys energy and also it's pretty nice that you got Devina as someone who's an academic expert in linguistics. Anyway, if you ever going to do Sinhala again, I think you should compare it with Tamil (& other dravidian languages), bengali and even with Portuguese as Sinhala has a lot of Portuguese loan words. Great work as always Bahadur!

[santosh-unbj]

Remarkable work sir! You have once again provided us with an enjoyable experience and great information 👍🏾🙏🏽

[VVVedic]

The name of Singapore is also a Sanskrit name - (Singh = Lion, Pore/Pur = City - City of lion).

[දුඃඛදුඃඛින්]

Yes, "Yadi" means "if" in Sinhala.

[missakakamalasiri]

The Sri Lankan person does not have enough knowledge of classical Sinhala. If he had, he would have easily understood the Hindi sentences here. For example, he did not understand that the word "sok" is "soka" in Sinhala.