Sinhala is the Indo-Aryan language speaking the very extreme south of the globe.

Not only that the Sinhala is the Indo-Aryan language which is extended in the
extreme down of the southern area of the world, it is the only Indo-European
language which came down to the far southern before the European colonization.
Sinhala is connected with the Indo-European language family through Indo-Iranian
group. Indo-Iranian group is divided into two sub groups as Iranian and Indic or Indo-
Aryan. Inscriptions in the earliest attested form of the language, Sinhala Prakrit, date
from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC. By that time, the language had already taken on a
special character, suggesting a sufficient interval for the relevant changes to occur.
References in literary sources point to an apparently extensive early Buddhist
literature, which was lost, and the earliest available literary works date from about
the 10th century on to the present day. The epigraphical records continued up to and
past that time, yielding a continuous record of examples of the language from 3rd to
2nd centuries BC to the present. The main opinion in this paper is to prove that the
Sinhala is not a daughter either Pali or Sanskrit and establishing the hypothesis that
all three are sister or cousin languages. Other indo-Aryan dialects had to surpass an
Apabhramsa period during 8-10th centuries and the Sinhala has shown some
Apabhramsa characteristics in 4-7th C. AD. Hence it is taken that the later
development feature had occurred in Sinhala before the other Indo-Aryan dialects.
All the basic features found in present day Sinhala have been begun in the 7/8th C.
A.D. and literary works are beginning to transmission in written form in Sinhala. One
of the main feature of the Sinhala language is the diaglossia. According to these facts
we can conclude that the Sinhala is a language which is older than other NIA
languages. It is not a daughter language of either Pali or Sanskrit but a sister of Pali
and a cousin of Sanskrit. Divehi Bas - the language of Maldives- is the daughter
language of Sinhala and it has separated from the island during 8-10th C. A.D. as
soon as Sinhala become independent with the establishment of some main features
of its identity such as the vowel sound ä, long vowels and semi nasal consonants.
Divehi Bas can be considered as a sister language of other NIA languages.

In this paper it is discussed the facts related with the origin and
development of Sinhalese language and the basic argument is the
Sinhalese language reached the New/Modern Indo-Aryan stage before
the other Modern Indo-Aryan languages reached that stage.

Sinhala - Its Place among the languages in South Asian Linguistic Area