25-669: The Hamilton Canal ( Sinhala : හැමිල්ටන් ඇල Hæmiltan Æla ) (also commonly known as the Dutch Canal ) is a 14.5 km (9.0 mi) canal connecting Puttalam to Colombo , passing through Negombo in Sri Lanka . The canal was constructed by the British in 1802 and completed in 1804. It was designed to drain salt water out of the Muthurajawela wetlands . The canal was named after Gavin Hamilton,
50-783: A supposed former abundance of lions on the island. According to the chronicle Mahāvaṃsa , written in Pali, Prince Vijaya of the Vanga Kingdom and his entourage merged in Sri Lanka with later settlers from the Pandya kingdom . In the following centuries, there was substantial immigration from Eastern India, including additional migration from the Vanga Kingdom (Bengal), as well as Kalinga and Magadha . This influx led to an admixture of features of Eastern Prakrits. The development of Sinhala
75-653: A Dravidian origin for this word. ), dola for pig in Vedda and offering in Sinhala. Other common words are rera for wild duck, and gala for stones (in toponyms used throughout the island, although others have also suggested a Dravidian origin). There are also high frequency words denoting body parts in Sinhala, such as olluva for head, kakula for leg, bella for neck and kalava for thighs, that are derived from pre-Sinhalese languages of Sri Lanka. The oldest Sinhala grammar, Sidatsan̆garavā , written in
100-450: A network of canals constructed connecting outlying villages with Colombo and Negombo Lagoon so that produce such as areca nuts , cloves , cardamom , pepper and cinnamon , could be more easily transported to the kingdom’s main seaport at Negombo. In 1613 a Portuguese missionary , Father Manoel Barradas, describes how "Near Columbo the Fathers embarked on a canal by which they entered into
125-722: A period of prior bilingualism: "The earliest type of contact in Sri Lanka, not considering the aboriginal Vedda languages, was that which occurred between South Dravidian and Sinhala. It seems plausible to assume prolonged contact between these two populations as well as a high degree of bilingualism. This explains why Sinhala looks deeply South Dravidian for an Indo-Aryan language. There is corroboration in genetic findings." In addition to many Tamil loanwords , several phonetic and grammatical features also present in neighbouring Dravidian languages set modern spoken Sinhala apart from its Northern Indo-Aryan relatives. These features are evidence of close interactions with Dravidian speakers. Some of
150-473: Is a conspicuous example of the linguistic phenomenon known as diglossia . Sinhala ( Siṁhala ) is a Sanskrit term; the corresponding Middle Indo-Aryan ( Eḷu ) word is Sīhala . The name is a derivative of [[[:wikt:सिंह|siṁha]]] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) , the Sanskrit word for 'lion'. The name is sometimes glossed as 'abode of lions', and attributed to
175-634: Is a large estuarine lagoon in Negombo , south-west Sri Lanka . The lagoon is fed by a number of small rivers and the Hamilton Canal (also known as the Dutch canal). It is linked to the sea by a narrow channel to the north, near Negombo city. It is surrounded by a densely populated region containing rice paddies , coconut plantations and grassland . The land is used for fishing and agriculture . The lagoon has extensive mangrove swamps and attracts
200-584: Is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka , who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million speakers as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script , which is a Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala
225-479: Is divided into four epochs: The most important phonetic developments of Sinhala include: According to Wilhelm Geiger , an example of a possible Western feature in Sinhala is the retention of initial /v/ which developed into /b/ in the Eastern languages (e.g. Sanskrit viṁśati "twenty", Sinhala visi- , Hindi bīs ). This is disputed by Muhammad Shahidullah who says that Sinhala Prakrit branched off from
250-412: Is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, alongside Tamil . Along with Pali , it played a major role in the development of Theravada Buddhist literature. Early forms of the Sinhala language are attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions, still retaining long vowels and aspirated consonants, is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi , a regional associate of
275-700: The Middle Indian Prakrits that had been used during the time of the Buddha . The most closely related languages are the Vedda language (an endangered, indigenous creole still spoken by a minority of Sri Lankans, mixing Sinhala with an isolate of unknown origin and from which Old Sinhala borrowed various aspects into its main Indo-Aryan substrate), and the Maldivian language . It has two main varieties, written and spoken, and
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#1732855859657300-572: The River Calane [Kelani Ganga] , and going down the river they proceeded into another canal as narrow as shady, so that the oars, although they were very short, could scarcely fulfil their office". "By this they went as far as Negumbo, which is six Chingala leagues." In the 17th century the Portuguese constructed a canal from Hendala to Pamunugama . The Dutch established the centre of their colony at Colombo. They then attempted to grow paddy rice in
325-576: The UNESCO National Commission of Ceylon According to Wilhelm Geiger , Sinhala has features that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages. Some of the differences can be explained by the substrate influence of the parent stock of the Vedda language . Sinhala has many words that are only found in Sinhala, or shared between Sinhala and Vedda and not etymologically derivable from Middle or Old Indo-Aryan. Possible examples include kola for leaf in Sinhala and Vedda (although others suggest
350-464: The 13th century CE, recognised a category of words that exclusively belonged to early Sinhala. The grammar lists naram̆ba (to see) and koḷom̆ba (fort or harbour) as belonging to an indigenous source. Koḷom̆ba is the source of the name of the commercial capital Colombo . The consistent left branching syntax and the loss of aspirated stops in Sinhala is attributed to a probable South Dravidian substratum effect. This has been explained by
375-700: The Eastern Prakrits prior to this change. He cites the edicts of Ashoka , no copy of which shows this sound change. An example of an Eastern feature is the ending -e for masculine nominative singular (instead of Western -o ) in Sinhalese Prakrit. There are several cases of vocabulary doublets , one example being the words mæssā ("fly") and mækkā ("flea"), which both correspond to Sanskrit makṣikā but stem from two regionally different Prakrit words macchiā (Western Prakrits) and makkhikā (as in Eastern Prakrits like Pali ). In 1815,
400-608: The Government Agent of Revenue and Commerce. The first mention of the canals along the western seaboard of Sri Lanka was in the 8th century, when the Persian geographer , Abu Zayd al-Balkhi reported a voyage lasting weeks along the 'Gobbs of Serendib', the Arabian term for the linked lagoons along the coast. Six centuries later the King of Kotte , Veera Parakramabahu VIII (1477–1496), had
425-538: The Government Agent of Revenue and Commerce. The Hamilton Canal, as it became known, ran parallel to and west of the old Dutch Canal, closer to the sea, from the mouth of the Kelani Ganga at Hekitta to the southern edge of the Negombo Lagoon at Pamunugama, a distance of 14.5 km (9.0 mi). Hamilton had accompanied Frederick North (first British Governor of Ceylon 1798–1805) to Ceylon in 1798, where he became
450-467: The features that may be traced to Dravidian influence are: ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නවා dannavā know ඒක අලුත් කියලා මම දන්නවා ēka aḷut kiyalā mama dannavā it new having-said I know "I know that it is new." ඒක ēka it අලුත් aḷut new ද da Q කියලා kiyalā having-said මම mama I දන්නේ Negombo Lagoon Negombo Lagoon
475-590: The island of Ceylon came under British rule . During the career of Christopher Reynolds as a Sinhalese lecturer at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London , he extensively researched the Sinhalese language and its pre-1815 literature. The Sri Lankan government awarded him the Sri Lanka Ranjana medal for his work. He wrote the 377-page An anthology of Sinhalese literature up to 1815 , selected by
500-599: The private secretary to Hugh Cleghorn , Colonial Secretary of Ceylon. He subsequently became the private secretary to Governor North. In April 1799 Hamilton was appointed Acting Civil Paymaster and in 1802 the Deputy Paymaster General . He succeeded Joseph Greenhill as Agent of Revenue and Commerce for the District of Colombo. Hamilton died in February 1803 prior to the completion of the canal in 1804. After his death he
525-577: The seaport at Negombo. This system, known as the 'Dutch Canal', formed a "continuous line of waterways between ports and the remote sections of territory under the Dutch". The Dutch canal, at its maximum, extended 172 km (107 mi) in length. In 1796 the British took control of the island and in 1802 a new Colombo-Negombo canal was built, conceived by George Atkinson , the Colonial Surveyor General and supported by Gavin Hamilton (1494–1803),
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#1732855859657550-423: The surrounding marshes in Muthurajawela , but found that—as the previous Sinhalese kings had before them—the coastal tides inundated the fields with sea water. Between 1658 and 1795, the Dutch undertook the construction of a series of structures, dams and canals using and enhancing the original system of waterways in an attempt to drain the salt water from the rice fields and to transport cinnamon in barges through to
575-610: The water route was abandoned. In 2012 the Sri Lanka Land Reclamation and Development Corporation commenced work rehabilitating and restoring the canal. The first stage was a 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) stretch between Maha Oya and Negombo. The second phase of the works between the Kelani Ganga and Negombo commenced on 20 February 2013. The first 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) section, between the Hekiththa junction and Pinwatta
600-538: Was completed on 2 August 2013 at a cost of Rs. 400 million with financial assistance from the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation. Sinhala language Sinhala ( / ˈ s ɪ n h ə l ə , ˈ s ɪ ŋ ə l ə / SIN -hə-lə, SING -ə-lə ; Sinhala: සිංහල , siṁhala , [ˈsiŋɦələ] ), sometimes called Sinhalese ( / ˌ s ɪ n ( h ) ə ˈ l iː z , ˌ s ɪ ŋ ( ɡ ) ə ˈ l iː z / SIN -(h)ə- LEEZ , SING -(g)ə- LEEZ ),
625-415: Was found to have embezzled £19,675. The canal was designed to connect the original Dutch canal by a series of parallel waterways in order to drain the already damaged Muthurajawela but created the opposite effect, as the coastal tides brought increasing salinity not only from Negombo Lagoon but also the Kelani Ganga . Following the construction of the railway line between Puttalam and Colombo in 1926,
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