A reference work in Sinhala, compiled by Dr Somapala Jayawardhana and published by Godage International Publishers of Colombo. The title translates as a dictionary of Sinhala synonyms, and the book is written and printed entirely in Sinhala script. There is no English text and no transliteration, so it will be of use to readers who already read Sinhala — students, writers, translators and teachers working in the language — rather than to learners approaching it through English.
Jayawardhana, whose name is also transliterated Jayawardena, has written across a wide range of subjects in Sinhala: Buddhist history and archaeology, Sinhala grammar, psychology, short stories, children's books and dictionaries. He has also served as chief editor on several translation projects, and his English-language publications include a handbook of Pali literature.
Lexicography has been a steady part of that output. At the request of the publisher Sirisumana Godage, he compiled an English–Sinhala dictionary and a Sinhala–English dictionary, the latter intended to reflect contemporary Sinhala usage rather than older literary forms alone. This synonym dictionary belongs to the same strand of his work and comes from the same publishing house, an established Colombo publisher issuing titles in both Sinhala and English.
For anyone outside Sri Lanka building a working Sinhala reference shelf, or for Sinhala speakers abroad who want a synonym dictionary to hand while writing, this is a straightforward purchase — provided you are comfortable reading Sinhala without English support.
- Author: Prof Somapala Jayawardana
- Publisher: Godage International Publishers
- Language: Sinhala
- Pages: 156
- ISBN: 9789552012389
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