Maldivian language

The origin of the word "Divehi" is div+vehi meaning "islanders" (from Sanskrit dvīpa). Bas means "language" (from Sanskrit bhāṣā), so Divehi-bas means "Islanders' language". Harry Charles Purvis Bell, one of the first Dhivehi linguists, called it Dives.[6] This was consistent with Maldives, the name of the country, for the -dives of Maldives and the word Divehi have the same root, Old Indo-Aryan 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— "Dhivehi"— in 1976, when the semi-official transliteration called Malé Latin was developed. Today the spelling with Dh is both common and official usage in the Maldives.

Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language closely related to the Sinhalese language of Sri Lanka. Maldivian represents the southernmost Indo-Aryan language. Maldivian and Sinhalese together constitute a subgroup within the modern Indo-Aryan languages, called Insular Indo-Aryan. However, they are not mutually intelligible.[7]

Maldivian and Sinhalese are descended from the Elu Prakrit of ancient and medieval Sri lanka. These Prakrits were originally derived from Old Indo-Aryan vernaculars related to Vedic Sanskrit.

Whereas formerly Maldivian was thought to be a descendant of Sinhalese, in 1969 Sinhalese philologist M. W. S. de Silva for the first time proposed that Maldivian and Sinhalese had branched off from a common mother language.[8]

12th-century lōmāfānu, copper plates on which early Maldivian sultans wrote orders and grants

The earliest writings were on the lōmāfānu (copper-plate grants) of the 12th and 13th centuries. Early inscriptions on coral stone have also been found. The oldest inscription found to date is an inscription on a coral stone, which is estimated to be from around the 7th or 8th century.

Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language of the Sinhalese-Maldivian subfamily.[9] It developed in relative isolation from other languages until the 12th century. Since the 16th century, Maldivian has been written in a unique script called Thaana which is written from right to left, like those of Aramaic and Arabic (with which it shares several common diacritics for vowel sounds).

The foundation of the historical linguistic analysis of both Maldivian and Sinhalese was laid by Wilhelm Geiger (1856–1943). In Geiger's comparative study of Maldivian and Sinhalese, he assumes that Maldivian is a dialectal offspring of Sinhalese and therefore is a "daughter language" of Sinhalese. However, the material he collected was not sufficient to judge the "degree of relationship" of Maldivian and Sinhalese.

Geiger concludes that Maldivian must have split from Sinhalese not earlier than the 10th century CE. However, there is nothing in the history of these islands or Sinhalese chronicles, even in legendary form, that alludes to a migration of Sinhalese people which would result in such a connection. Maldives is completely absent in the pre-12th century records of Sri Lanka.[5]

Vitharana suggests that Maldivian did not evolve as a separate language from Sinhalese until the 12th century CE.[10]

A rare Maliku Thaana primer written in Maldivian, published by Lakshadweep's administration during the time of Rajiv Gandhi's rule, was reprinted by Spanish researcher Xavier Romero-Frias in 2003.[11]

There is a holiday, the Dhivehi Language Day, which is celebrated in the Maldives on 14 April, the birthday of the writer Husain Salaahuddin.[12]

Maldivian is spoken in the Maldives and a variation of it in Minicoy.[5]

Maldivian presents another aspect with which English speakers are not too familiar: diglossia, the distinction between what is spoken and what is written. Every language that has a written form has this distinction to a greater or lesser degree, but many Asian languages, including Maldivian exhibit major differences between the two varieties of language. Malé dialect and Maliku dialect are the only dialects commonly used in writing.

Spoken Maldivian, for instance, has twenty-seven consonants. In contrast, written or literary Maldivian includes some Arabic sounds as well. Though these sounds are also used in speaking, their phonetics are not strictly observed. This results in pronunciation as close as possible to spoken Maldivian.

Regarding syntax, it may be said that every sentence in written Maldivian ends with the addition of ‘ve’, which is never used to end a sentence in spoken Maldivian. In using ‘ve’ a strict word-order also has to be maintained. But in spoken Maldivian word-order is not considered to be very rigid.

One of the very important things one has to take into account in written Maldivian which is not so important in spoken Maldivian is the ‘sukun’ on the letters ‘alif’ and ‘shaviyani’. ‘Sukun’ in general is a mark to indicate an abrupt stop on the sound of the letter on which it is placed. However, if it comes within the word, the letter is repeated; if it comes on a ‘shaviyani’ or ‘alif’ at the end of a word, it signifies the sound ‘h’; if it comes on a ‘thaa’, the sound is replaced by ‘iy’.

The Maldivian language has had its own script since very ancient times, most likely over two millennia, when Maldivian Buddhist monks translated and copied the Buddhist scriptures. It used to be written in the earlier form (Evēla) of the Dhives Akuru ("Dhivehi/Maldivian letters") which are written from left to right. Dhives Akuru were used in all of the islands between the conversion to Islam and until the 18th century. These ancient Maldivian letters were also used in official correspondence with Addu Atoll until the early 20th century. Perhaps they were used in some isolated islands and rural communities until the 1960s, but the last remaining native user died in the 1990s. Today Maldivians rarely learn the Dhives Akuru alphabet, for Arabic is being favoured as second script.[15]

Maldivian is now written using a different script, called Taana or Thaana, written from right to left. This script is relatively recent.

The literacy rate of the Maldives is very high (98%) compared to other South Asian countries. Since the 1960s English has become the medium of education in most schools although they still have Maldivian language classes, but Maldivian is still the language used for the overall administration.

Maldivian uses mainly the Thaana script for writing. It is an alphabet, with obligatory vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. It is a largely phonemic script: With a few minor exceptions, spelling can be predicted from pronunciation, and pronunciation from spelling.

The origins of Thaana are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See Hindu-Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (t–z) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y (ޔ), which is derived from combining an alifu (އ) and a vaavu (ވ). This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet – unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numerals). The Thaana alphabet (hā, shaviyani, nūnu, rā, bā, ...) does not follow the ancient order of the other Indic scripts (like or Tamil) or the order of the Arabic alphabet.

Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a sukun, which indicates "no vowel". The only exception to this rule is noonu which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalisation of a following stop.

The vowels are written with diacritical signs called fili. There are five fili for short vowels (a, i, u, e, o), where the first three look identical to the Arabic vowel signs (fatha, kasra and damma). Long vowels (aa, ee, oo, ey, oa) are denoted by doubled fili, except oa, which is a modification of the short obofili.

The letter alifu has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes: It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong; when it carries a sukun, it indicates gemination (lengthening) of the following consonant; and if alifu+sukun occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by noonu+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.

Maldivian is also written in Roman script and Devanāgarī script.

Towards the mid-1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, the Maldivian government introduced telex machines in the local administration. This was viewed as great progress, but the local Thaana script was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines could only be written in the Latin script.

Following this, in 1976 the government approved a new official Latin transliteration, Dhivehi Latin, which was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the effective demise of the Thaana script. Clarence Maloney, an American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the inconsistencies of the "Dhivehi Latin" which ignored all previous linguistic research on the Maldivian language done by H.C.P. Bell and Wilhelm Geiger. He wondered why the modern Standard Indic transliteration had not been considered. Standard Indic is a consistent script system that is well adapted to writing practically all languages of South Asia.[16]

The government reinstated the Thaana script shortly after President Maumoon took power in 1978. There was widespread relief in certain places, especially rural areas, where the introduction of Latin had been regarded with suspicion. However, the Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.

The 412-page hard-back English-Maldivian dictionary, A Maldivian Dictionary, written by Christopher Hanby Baillie Reynolds, was published on 22 July 2003 by Routledge and contains about 5000 individual entries.

The sound system of Maldivian is similar to that of Dravidian languages. Like other modern Indo-Aryan languages the Maldivian phonemic inventory shows an opposition of long and short vowels, of dental and retroflex consonants, and of single and geminate consonants.

1 ‘Abafili’ is the vowel sign denoting “a”.

2. ‘Ibifili’ is the vowel sign denoting “i”.

3. ‘Ubufili’ is the vowel sign denoting “u”.

4. ‘Sukun’ is the signdenoting absence of a vowel.

The short open back vowel is phonetically central [ä].

Inherent in the Maldivian language is a form of elaborate class distinction expressed through three levels: The highest level, the maaiy bas, formerly used to address members of the royal family, is now commonly used to show respect. People use the second reethi bas and third level aadhaige bas in everyday life.

Maldivian contains many loan words from other languages.

The following is a sample text in Maldivian, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):

Transliteration (SAMT):

māddā 1 – hurihā insānun ves ufanvanī, daraja āi ḥaqqu takugai minivankamāi hamahamakan libigenvā ba-egge gotuga-eve. Emīhun-naṣ heyo visnumāi heyo buddīge bāru libigen ve-eve. Adi emīhun ekaku anekakā medu mu’āmalāÿ kuranvānī uxuvvaÿteri kamuge rūḥek ga-eve.

Gloss (word-for-word):

Article 1 – All human-beings also born, ranking and rights' in freedom and equality acquired people like is. Them to reason and conscience's endowment acquired is. And they one another to behaviour to do brotherhood's spirit with.

Translation (grammatical):

Article 1 – All human beings are born free and equal in ranking and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

• De Silva, M W S (1970). "Some Observations on the History of Dhivehi". Transactions of the Philological Society, London..
• Fritz, Sonja (2002), The Divehi Language: A Descriptive and Historical Grammar of the Maldivian and its Dialects, Heidelberg.
• Vitharana, V (1987), Sri Lanka – Maldivian Cultural Affinities, Academy of Sri Lankan Culture.

• Cain, Bruce D (2000), Divehi (Maldivian): A Synchronic and Diachronic study, PhD thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at Cornell University.
• Crystal, David (2000), Language Death, Cambridge University Press.
• Geiger, Wilhem (2001). "Maldivian Linguistic Studies". Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Colombo..
• Manik, Hassan Ahmed (2000), A Concise Etymological Vocabulary of Dhivehi Language, The Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, p. xxiv, 261.
• Muhammad, Naseema (1999), Dhivehi Writing Systems, National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research, Malé.
• Reynolds, Christopher Hanby Baillie (1974). "Buddhism and the Maldivian Language". Buddhist Studies in Honour of I. B. Horner, Dordrecht..
• Reynolds, Christopher Hanby Baillie (2003), A Maldivian Dictionary, Routledge, London, p. 412, ISBN 9780415298087.
• Romero-Frias, Xavier (1999), The Maldive Islanders: A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom, Nova Ethnographia Indica, ISBN 84-7254-801-5.
• Romero-Frias, Xavier (2012), Folk Tales of the Maldives, NIAS Press, ISBN 978-87-7694-105-5.
• Wijesundera; et al. (1988), Historical and Linguistic Survey of the Dhivehi Language, Final Report. University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

For a list of words relating to Maldivian language, see the Maldivian language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Divehi edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Maldivian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Divehi language.

• Dhivehi phrasebook travel guide from Wikivoyage
• English–Dhivehi Dictionary
• Dhivehi Academy
• Mahal Unit Press Minicoy
• Unicode standard for Middle Eastern scripts