original_language_of_work hanthane kathawa
Sri Lanka ( or ; Sinhalese :         ', ___MASK78___ :     " Ilakai "), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka ( formerly known as Ceylon ), is an island country in South Asia near south - east India . Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest . Sinhalese , known natively as ___MASK65___ (" singhala " ), is the native language of the Sinhalese people , who make up the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka , numbering about 16 million . Sinhalese is also spoken as a second language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka , totalling about four million . It belongs to the Indo - Aryan branch of the Indo - European languages . Sinhalese has its own writing system , the Sinhalese alphabet , which is one of the Brahmic scripts , a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script closely related to the Kadamba alphabet . The Sinhalese alphabet ( Sinhalese :            ) ( Sihala Akara Mlva ) is an abugida used by the Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhalese language and also the liturgical languages ___MASK57___ and Sanskrit . The Sinhalese alphabet , which is one of the Brahmic scripts , a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script closely related to the South Indian Kadamba alphabet . The Kadamba script ( known as " Pre Old ___MASK97___ script ") marks the birth of a dedicated script for writing ___MASK97___ . It is a descendant of the Brahmi script , an abugida visually close to the Kalinga alphabet . The Kadamba script was developed during the reign of the Kadamba dynasty in the 4th - 6th centuries . The Kadamba script is also known as Pre - Old - ___MASK97___ script . This script later became popular in what is today the state of Goa and was used to write Sanskrit , ___MASK97___ , Konkani and ___MASK55___ . The Sinhalese ( ___MASK65___ :         ___MASK65___ Jathiya , also known as Hela or Sinhale ) are an Indo - Aryan ethnic group native to the island of Sri Lanka . They constitute 75 % of the Sri Lankan population and a number greater than 15 million . The Sinhalese identity is based on language , historical heritage and religion . The Sinhalese people speak the Sinhalese language , an Indo - Aryan language , and are predominantly Theravada Buddhists , although a small percentage of Sinhalese follow branches of Christianity . The Sinhalese are mostly found in North central , Central , South , and West Sri Lanka . According to Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa , written by Buddhist monks of the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya in Sri Lanka , around the 3 - 5th century , an ancient treatise written in Pali , the Sinhalese are descendants of the settlers who came to the island in 543 BCE from Sinhapura in India , led by Prince Vijaya . The Indo - European languages are a language family of several hundred related languages and dialects . There are about 445 living Indo - European languages , according to the estimate by " Ethnologue ", with over two - thirds ( 313 ) of them belonging to the Indo - Iranian branch . The most widely spoken Indo - European languages by native speakers are ___MASK59___ , English , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Portuguese , Bengali , Russian , Persian and Punjabi , each with over 100 million speakers . Today , 46 % of the human population speaks an Indo - European language natively , by far the highest of any language family . India , officially the Republic of India (" Bhrat Gaarjya "), is a country in South Asia . It is the seventh - largest country by area , the second - most populous country ( with over 1 . 2 billion people ), and the most populous democracy in the world . It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south , the Arabian Sea on the southwest , and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast . It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west ; China , Nepal , and Bhutan to the northeast ; and Myanmar ( Burma ) and Bangladesh to the east . In the Indian Ocean , India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives . India ' s Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and ___MASK25___ . Its capital is New Delhi ; other metropolises include Mumbai , Kolkata , Chennai , Bangalore , Hyderabad and Ahmedabad . The Brahmic scripts are a family of abugida or alphabet writing systems . They are used throughout the Indian Subcontinent , Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia , and were once used in Japan , and are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India . They are used by languages of several language families : Indo - European , Dravidian , Tibeto - Burman , Mongolic , Austroasiatic , Austronesian , Turkic , Tai . They were also the source of the dictionary order of ___MASK72___ " kana ". Hanthane Kathawa ( Sinhalese language word means `` Story of Hanthana '' ) is a 1969 film based on a love story of university students of Sri Lanka . It was directed by famous Sri Lankan film director Sugathapala Senerath Yapa and screened on August 1 , 1968 . This film also remarks the cinema debut of famous actor Vijaya Kumaratunga .