Elu

Elu, the ancient language of Ceylon, still spoken in modified form by the Sinhalese natives of the southern half of the island. It has long been cultivated, and is written with a peculiarly elegant alphabet somewhat resembling the Telugu of Madras, and, like it, derived from the Devanagari [Devanagari] of the Asoka inscriptions. Elu holds a somewhat intermediate position between the two great Sanscritic and Dravidian linguistic families. It abounds in grammatic forms, and is certainly much older than any of the Prakrits though grouped by Childers and Beames with the Neo-Sanscritic tongues, owing to its numerous Sanscrit and Pali elements; but in its structure it shows more affinity for the Dravidian, though in many respects differing essentially from that family (Caldwell, Grammar of the Dravidian Languages; Petchel, Races of Man, English ed., p. 454).