Vedda
   HOME
*



picture info

Vedda
The Vedda ( si, වැද්දා , ta, வேடர் (''Vēḍar'')), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become completely assimilated. Most speak Sinhala instead of their indigenous languages, which are nearing extinction. It has been hypothesized that the Vedda were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since before the arrival of other ethnic groups in India. The Ratnapura District, which is part of the Sabaragamuwa Province, is known to have been inhabited by the Veddas in the distant past. This has been shown by scholars like Nandadeva Wijesekera. The very name ''Sabaragamuwa'' is believed to have meant the village of the ''Sabaras'' or "forest barbarians". Place-names such as ''Vedda-gala'' (Vedda Rock), ''Vedda-ela'' (Vedda Canal ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vedda Man And Child, Sri Lanka
The Vedda ( si, වැද්දා , ta, வேடர் (''Vēḍar'')), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority Indigenous peoples, indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become completely assimilated. Most speak Sinhala language, Sinhala instead of their indigenous languages, which are nearing extinction. It has been hypothesized that the Vedda were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since before the arrival of other ethnic groups in India. The Ratnapura District, which is part of the Sabaragamuwa Province, is known to have been inhabited by the Veddas in the distant past. This has been shown by scholars like Nandadeva Wijesekera. The very name ''Sabaragamuwa'' is believed to have meant the village of the ''Sabaras'' or "forest barbarians". Place-names such as ''Vedda-gala'' (Ve ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vedda People
The Vedda ( si, වැද්දා , ta, வேடர் (''Vēḍar'')), or Wanniyalaeto, are a minority indigenous group of people in Sri Lanka who, among other sub-communities such as Coast Veddas, Anuradhapura Veddas and Bintenne Veddas, are accorded indigenous status. The Vedda minority in Sri Lanka may become completely assimilated. Most speak Sinhala instead of their indigenous languages, which are nearing extinction. It has been hypothesized that the Vedda were probably the earliest inhabitants of Sri Lanka and have lived on the island since before the arrival of other ethnic groups in India. The Ratnapura District, which is part of the Sabaragamuwa Province, is known to have been inhabited by the Veddas in the distant past. This has been shown by scholars like Nandadeva Wijesekera. The very name ''Sabaragamuwa'' is believed to have meant the village of the ''Sabaras'' or "forest barbarians". Place-names such as ''Vedda-gala'' (Vedda Rock), ''Vedda-ela'' (Vedda Cana ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vedda Language
Vedda is an endangered language that is used by the indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka. Additionally, communities such as Coast Veddas and Anuradhapura Veddas who do not strictly identify as Veddas also use words from the Vedda language in part for communication during hunting and/or for religious chants, throughout the island. When a systematic field study was conducted in 1959, the language was confined to the older generation of Veddas from Dambana. In 1990s self-identifying Veddas knew few words and phrases in Vedda, but there were individuals who knew the language comprehensively. Initially there was considerable debate amongst linguists as to whether Vedda is a dialect of Sinhalese or an independent language. Later studies indicate that the language spoken by today's Veddas is a creole which evolved from ancient times, when the Veddas came into contact with the early Sinhalese, from whom they increasingly borrowed words and synthetic features, yielding the cumulative effe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Coast Veddas
The Coast Veddas (, ), by self-designation, form a social group within the minority Sri Lankan Tamil ethnic group of the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. They are primarily found in small coastal villages from the eastern township of Trincomalee to Batticalao. Nevertheless, they also inhabit a few villages south of Batticalao as well. They make a living by fishing, slash and burn agriculture, paddy cultivation of rice, basket weaving for market and occasional wage labor. Anthropologists consider them to be partly descended from the indigenous Vedda people, as well as local Tamils. Residents of the Eastern province consider their Vedar (Tamil for "hunter") neighbors to have been part of the local social structure from earliest times, whereas some Vedar elders believe that their ancestors may have migrated from the interior at some time in the past. They speak a dialect of Sri Lankan Tamil that is used in the region. During religious festivals, people who enter a trance or spirit pos ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Anuradhapura Veddas
Anuradhapura Veddas (, ) are people of North Central Province of Sri Lanka who are descendants of indigenous Vedda people of Sri Lanka who have adopted the culture, religion and language of the dominant Sinhalese residents of the province. By far they are the largest segment amongst the various groups of people who claim Vedda ancestry. They are also ethnically related to Tamil speaking Coast Veddas who live in the minority Sri Lankan Tamil dominant Eastern Province of Sri Lanka who have adopted Tamil and Hindu cultural norms of their neighbors. Settlements of Anuradhapura Veddas also spread into the neighboring Polonnaruwa District and a few villages in the interior of the Trincomalee District Trincomalee District ( ta, திருக்கோணமலை மாவட்டம் ''Tirukōṇamalai Māvaṭṭam;'' si, ත්‍රිකුණාමළය දිස්ත්‍රික්කය ''Trikuṇāmalaya distrikkaya'') is one .... References {{Reflist Vedda ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sinhala Language
Sinhala ( ; , ''siṁhala'', ), sometimes called Sinhalese (), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka, who make up the largest ethnic group on the island, numbering about 16 million. Sinhala is also spoken as the first language by other ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, totalling about 2 million people as of 2001. It is written using the Sinhala script, which is a Brahmic scripts, Brahmic script closely related to the Grantha script of South India. Sinhala is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka. Along with Pali, it played a major role in the development of Theravada, Theravada Buddhist literature. The early form of the Sinhala language, is attested as early as the 3rd century BCE. The language of these inscriptions with long vowels and aspirated consonants is a Prakrit similar to Magadhi, a regional associate of the Middle Indian Prakrits that has been used during the time of the Buddha. The closest ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Australo-Melanesians
Australo-Melanesians (also known as Australasians or the Australomelanesoid, Australoid or Australioid race) is an outdated historical grouping of various people indigenous to Melanesia and Australia. Controversially, groups from Southeast Asia and South Asia were also sometimes included. While most authors included Papuans, Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians (mainly from Fiji, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu), there was controversy about the inclusion of the various Southeast Asian populations grouped as "Negrito", or a number of dark-skinned tribal populations of the Indian subcontinent. The concept of dividing humankind into three, four or five races (often called Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, and Australoid) was introduced in the 18th century and further developed by Western scholars in the context of " racist ideologies" during the age of colonialism. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsole ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ethnic Groups In India
South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistics, ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to be part of both Central Asia and South Asia, Afghans are generally not included among South Asians. The majority of the population fall within three large language family, linguistic groups: Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian people, Dravidian, and Iranic peoples, Iranic. The Indian, Nepalese, and Sri Lankan societies are traditionally divided into castes or clans, which are based primarily on labour divisions; these categories have had no official status in India since independence in 1947, except for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, scheduled castes and tribes, which remain registered for the purpose of affirmative action. In today's India, the population is categorised in terms of the 1,652 Languages o ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sri Lankan Tamil Dialects
The Sri Lankan Tamil dialects or Ceylon Tamil or commonly in Tamil language Eelam Tamil () are a group of Tamil dialects used in Sri Lanka by its native Tamil people and Eastern Moors, and Coast Veddas that is distinct from the dialects of Tamil spoken in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. It is broadly categorized into three sub groups: Jaffna Tamil, Batticaloa Tamil, and Negombo Tamil dialects. But there are number of sub dialects within these broad regional dialects as well. These dialects are also used by ethnic groups other than Tamils and Moors such as Sinhalese people, Portuguese Burghers and the indigenous Coastal Vedda people. Characteristics As Tamil is a diglossic language the differences between the standard written languages across the globe is minimal but the spoken varieties differ considerably. The spoken Tamil varieties in Sri Lanka although different from those of Tamil Nadu in India share some common features with the southern dialects of Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Tamil di ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Badulla District
Badulla District ( si, බදුල්ල දිස්ත්‍රික්කය ''badūlla distrikkaya''; ta, பதுளை மாவட்டம் ''Patuḷai māvaṭṭam'') is a district in Uva Province, Sri Lanka. The entire land area of the Badulla district is and has a total population of 837,000. The district is bounded by the districts of Monaragala and Rathnapura on the east and south, by Ampara and Kandy districts to the north and by Nuwara Eliya and Matale to the west. Mainly the economy of the district is based on agricultural farming and livestock. Badulla District is an agricultural district where tea and various vegetables are cultivated. The district is divided into an upper region and a lower region which differ in climatic and geographic characteristics. The upper region of the district is known for tea plantations and vegetable cultivation while the lower region focuses more on paddy farming. Education *Saraswathy Central College *S.Thomas' College B ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Haplogroup U (mtDNA)
Haplogroup U is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup (mtDNA). The clade arose from haplogroup R, likely during the early Upper Paleolithic. Its various subclades (labelled U1–U9, diverging over the course of the Upper Paleolithic) are found widely distributed across Northern and Eastern Europe, Central, Western and South Asia, as well as North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Canary Islands. Origins Haplogroup U descends from the haplogroup R mtDNA branch of the phylogenetic tree. The defining mutations (A11467G, A12308G, G12372A) are estimated to have arisen between 43,000 and 50,000 years ago, in the early Upper Paleolithic (around 46,530 ± 3,290 years before present, with a 95% confidence interval per Behar et al., 2012). Ancient DNA classified as belonging to the U* mitochondrial haplogroup has been recovered from human skeletal remains found in Western Siberia, which have been dated to c. 45,000 years ago. The mitogenome (33-fold coverage) of the Peştera Mui ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]