Etymology
The origin of the word "Dhivehi" is Dhiv+vehi meaning "Islanders'". Bas means "language", so Dhivehi-bas means "Islanders' language". H. C. P. Bell, one of the first transliterators of this tongue, called the language Divehi (with initial Di-, not Dhi-). This was consistent with Maldives, the name of the country, for the -dives of Maldives and the word Divehi have the same root, Sanskrit dvīpa "island". Wilhelm Geiger, a German linguist who undertook the first research on Maldivian linguistics in the early 20th century, also called the language Divehi. An "h" was added to the name of the language in 1976, when a semi-official Latin transliteration was developed for the Maldivian language. Today the spelling with the h is the common usage as well as the official spelling in the Maldives.
Read more about this topic: Mahl Language
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