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Routledge
Maldivian (also known as Divehi) is spoken on the Maldive Islands located off the southwest tip of India in the Indian Ocean. It is an Indo-Aryan language, formerly written in a script resembling Sinhalese script. After the islands became exclusively Islamic, it was found convenient to design a script reading from right to left, so that Arabic words could be accommodated in Maldivian sentences. An... Read more
Introduction, Transliteration, Script, Verbs, Nouns, Sources, Abbreviations, A-Z Listings.
Biography
Christopher Reynolds received his BA degree in 1948 from Oxford University. He was Lecturer in Sinhalese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, between 1953-87. After spending four months in the capital city of Malé, he made a special study of the Maldivian language (Dihevi) in 1967, before the country was generally open to foreigners.
'This long-awaited dictionary does not merely fill one of the last lacunae among Indo-Aryan lexicons; it also represents an impressive scholarly achievement, being the outcome of many years of work on Maldivian ... The book is highly recommended both for linguists and Indologists; it will also be helpful for non-professional readers who may need some basic knowledge of the Maldivian language.' - Journal of School of Oriental and African Studies, June 2004
