Dutch Loanwords in Sinhala - The Borrowing Process

The Borrowing Process

Dutch loanwords in Sinhala rarely appear in the same form as the original word. Usually, a word has undergone some kind of modification to fit into the Sinhala phonological or morphological system (e.g. balk becomes bālkaya because Sinhala inanimate nouns (see grammatical gender) need to end with /a/, in order to be declineable).

These are the main ways Dutch words are incorporated into the Sinhala lexicon with different endings:

• With an /aya/ or /uva/ added to Dutch words ending in consonants (e.g. raam > rāmuva).
• With a /ya/ added to words ending in /a/ or /e/ or /i/ (e.g. bakje > bakkiya).
• With the animate ending /yā/ added to Dutch words signifying living beings or (e.g. tolk > tōlkayā).
• Initiak /s/ preceeding a consonant usually forms an additional syllable (e.g school > iskōlaya).