Word for the Travel Wise (05/09/06)

Over the last few days I’ve been a bit off on my word postings, but I’ve got a grand excuse for why that is or was shall I say. For starters I’m walking across the country at the moment and secondly I’ve been thinking about the languages I’ve been covering and thinking which langs aren’t getting covered enough. Sure French and Spanish are all swell and dandy, but it’s really time to step up our game and tune into other lesser known languages. Wouldn’t you agree? Are you up for the challenge? Then let’s proceed…

Today’s word is a Sinhala word used in Sri Lanka:

a da – today

English is spoken by ten percent of the population and Sinhala is the official and national language of the country. I’ve actually never tried to learn this one much, but judging from the alphabet it looks like a challenge. Omniglot has a great starter page on learning all the characters and use of this English to Sinhala dictionary could slowly help in distinguishing common travel words. Let’s Speak Sinhala offers lessons at a very small and reasonable fee. They appear to be one of the better Sinhala language learning websites.

Past Sinhala words: hari shook