Observations of current religious beliefs and practices demonstrate that Sinhalese as a religious community have complex worldview as Buddhists.

There is a significant Sinhalese Christian community, in the maritime provinces of Sri Lanka.

For the Sinhala readers, the newspaper Lanka Viththi ( Information on Lanka ) was created in 1997 to provide Sinhala reading materials for the Sinhalese UK community.

Some of the Sinhalese community have been against the public display of support for the LTTE in the 2009 Tamil Diaspora protests in Westminster, London.

Some of the Sinhalese community in the UK have faced violence from some British Sri Lankan tamils over the ethnic conflict in the Sri Lankan Civil War.

The UNP was founded on 6 September 1946 by amalgamating three right-leaning pro-dominion parties from the majority Sinhalese community and minority Tamil and Muslim communities.

It has been apparent however that Ranil Wickramasinghe, although winning the support of the minority communities ( Tamils and Muslims ); he was unable to gain the trust of the bulk of the majority Sinhalese community.

Macanese or Macau Creole ( known as Patuá to its speakers ) is a creole language derived mainly from Malay, Sinhalese, Cantonese, and Portuguese, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community of the Portuguese colony of Macau.

In 1952, Venerable K. Sri Pannasara Nayaka Thera, head of the Vidyalanakara Pirivena, received an invitation from the Sasana Abhiwurdhi Wardhana Society of Malaya requesting for a resident monk to administer to the religious needs of the Sinhalese Buddhist community in the country.

* VoS ( Voice of Sinhalese ), An online community

The Sinhala Maha Sabha ( Sinhala: ස ිං හල මහ ා සභ ා) was a political party in Sri Lanka ( Ceylon at the time ) founded by Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike in 1934-35, in order to promote Sinhalese culture and community interests.

* Sinhalese New Year is celebrated with the harvest festival ( in the month of Bak ) when the sun moves from the Meena Rashiya ( House of Pisces ) to the Mesha Rashiya ( House of Aries ).

Dravidians and Sinhalese are in olive green and their classification is described as uncertain.

The Sinhalese identity is based on language, historical heritage and religion.

The genesis myth and early recorded history of the Sinhalese is chronicled in two documents, the Mahavamsa, written in Pāli around the 4th century CE, and the much later Chulavamsa ( probably penned in the 13 century CE by the Buddhist monk Dhammakitti ).

Buddhism is then said to have been introduced to the Sinhalese from India by Mahinda, son of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka the Great, during the 3rd century BC.

Sinhalese culture is a unique one featuring back to as back as 2600 years and has been nourished by Theravada Buddhism.

Ancient Sinhalese stone sculpture and inscriptions are known worldwide and is a main foreign attraction in modern tourism.

The Kandyan style is considered as the national dress of Sinhalese women.

Religion is considered very important among the Sinhalese.

The census is counted by Sri Lankans who speak the Sinhalese language at home.

It is estimated that there are 30, 000-33, 000 Sinhalese in Italy.

The major organisation representing the Sinhalese in Italy is the Sri Lanka Association Italy.

The name is derived from the Sanskrit / Sinhalese " padma raga " ( padma

Initially there was considerable debate amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect of Sinhalese or an independent language.

The parent Vedda language ( s ) is of unknown genetic origins, while Sinhalese is of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European languages.

Phonologically it is distinguished from Sinhalese by the higher frequency of palatal sounds C and J.

Today, however, Veddha attire is more covering, men wear a short sarong extending from the waist to the knees, while the womenfolk clad themselves in a garment similar to the Sinhalese diya-redda which extends from the breastline to the knees.

Intermarriage between Veddas and Sinhalese is very frequent.

The Sinhalese alphabet is an abugida used in Sri Lanka to write the official language Sinhala and also the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit.

Sinhalese is often considered two alphabets, or an alphabet within an alphabet, due to the presence of two sets of letters.

In order to render Sanskrit and Pali words, an extended set, the ( mixed Sinhalese, ම ි ශ ්‍ ර ස ිං හල ), is available.

In India and Pakistan, ginger is called adrak in Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, aad in Maithili, aadi in Bhojpuri, aada in Bengali, Adu in Gujarati, hashi shunti ( ಹಸ ಿ ಶ ುಂ ಟ ಿ) in the Kannada, allam ( అల ్ ల ం) in Telugu, inji ( இஞ ் ச ி) in Tamil and Malayalam, inguru ( ඉඟ ු ර ු) in Sinhalese, alay in Marathi, and aduwa ( अद ु व ा ) in Nepali.

There was initially little tension amongst Sri Lanka's two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils, when Ponnambalam Arunachalam, a Tamil, was appointed representative of the Sinhalese as well the Tamils in the national legislative council.

The abbot then was Venerable K. Gunaratana Maha Nayaka Thera ( 1891 – 1964 ), a Sinhalese monk well known for his lucid and simple explanations of the Buddha's teachings.

Even though the Donoughmore Constitution had granted universal franchise to Ceylonese, this was not applied to the Indian Estate Tamils, due to opposition from caste-conscious Colombo Tamils, vote conscious Kandyan Sinhalese, as well as due to the general opposition to any from of universal franchise.

Pandyas had a very close political as well as marital relationship with the Sinhalese.

* 1983 – Black July: 37 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by the fellow Sinhalese prisoners.

* 1983 – Black July: 18 Tamil political prisoners at the Welikada high security prison in Colombo are massacred by Sinhalese prisoners, the second such massacre in two days.

The resuscitation of the Sinhalese Sangha after the destructive effects of the Chola conquest owned a great deal to Bhikkus from upper Burma sent over for this purpose by the Burmese King at the request of Vijayabahu I.

After the Matale Rebellion led by Puran Appu in 1848, in which a number of Sinhalese recruits defected to the side of the rebels, the recruitment of Sinhalese to the British forces was temporarily halted and the Ceylon Regiments disbanded.

Eventually, with the support of bhikku Weliwita Sarankara, the crown passed to the brother of one of Narendrasinha's princess, overlooking the right of " Unambuwe Bandara ", Narendrasinha's own son by a Sinhalese concubine.

But due to its failure to appeal to the masses and the governor's encouragement for " communal representation " by creating a " Colombo seat " that dangled between Sinhalese and Tamils, the Congress lost its momentum towards the mid 1920s.

Prolonged minority grievances and the use of communal emotionalism as an election campaign weapon by both Sinhalese and Tamil leaders abetted a fledgling Tamil militancy in the north, during the 1970s.

The invasion by Magha in the 13th century led to migrations by the Sinhalese to areas not under his control.

This migration was followed by a period of conflict among the Sinhalese chiefs who tried to exert political supremacy.

Christianity was brought to the Sinhalese by Portuguese, Dutch, and British missionary groups during their respective periods of rule.

Sinhalese Christians mainly follow Roman Catholicism, followed by Protestantism.

Census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004 reported that Sinhalese Australians are by religion 29. 7 percent Catholic ; 8. 0 percent Anglican, 9. 9 percent other Christian ; 46. 9 percent " Other Religions " ( mainly Buddhist ), and 5. 5 percent no religion.

This was followed by a wave of Sinhalese migrants who worked for Italian entrepreneurs in the early 1980s.

In 1983 the Sri Lankan Civil War began with Sinhalese political dominance being challenged by the militant Tamil Tigers, who sought a separate Tamil state within Sri Lanka.

Studies looking at the origin of the Sinhalese have been contradictory. Older studies suggest a predominantly Sri Lankan Tamil contribution followed by a significant Bengali contribution with no North Western Indian contribution, while more modern studies point towards a predominantly Bengali contribution and a minor Tamil and North Western Indian ( Gujarati & Punjabi ) contribution.

Later studies indicate that it diverged from its parent stock in the 10th century and became a Creole and a stable independent language by the 13th century, under the influence of Sinhalese.