Phonology
Although in phonemic inventory Vedda is very similar to Sinhalese, in phonotactics it is very dissimilar to Sinhalese. The usage of palatal affricates ("C" sounds similar to "ch" in church, and "J" sounds similar to "j" in judge) is very high in Vedda. Some comparisons:
| English | Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|---|
| earlier | issara | iccara |
This effect is heightened by the addition of inanimate suffixes such as pojja, gejja or raacca. These suffixes are used in tandem with borrowings from Sinhalese.
| English | Sinhalese | Vedda |
|---|---|---|
| weight | bara | barapojja |
| eye | asa | ajjejja |
| head | isa | ijjejja |
| water | watura/diya | diyaracca |
These transformations are very similar to what we see in other Creole languages like Melanesian Pidgin English and Jamaican English Creole. The preponderance of the palatal affricates is explained as a remainder from days when the original Vedda language had a high frequency of such phonemes.
Read more about this topic: Vedda Language