User:Danielklein/Name of majority language spoken in Sri Lanka

What is the common English name of the majority language spoken in Sri Lanka? Before I answer that, I'd like to explore some pertinent issues.

How words are used in English

In English, a word such as "English" or "French" can be:

• a pronoun - the English live in England; the French live in France
• a proper noun (the name of a language) - the main language spoken in England is English; the main language spoken in France is French
• an adjective - I like English food; I like French food

Note that "the X_PRON" = "(the) X_ADJ people", and "X_PROP" = "(the) X_ADJ language", as in:

• the English_PRON have a Queen = (the) English_ADJ people have a Queen
• in England they speak English_PROP = in England they speak the English_ADJ language

Even the adjective form can sometimes be equivalent to an ellipsis of a longer phrase:

• in England they read English_ADJ newspapers = in England they read English_ADJ language newspapers OR in England they read English_ADJ owned newspapers

On the surface it would appear that the same word is used for the demonym (pronoun), the language name (proper noun), and the adjective. However, there are many exceptions to that:

• Swedes speak Swedish.
• Finns speak Finnish.
• Icelanders speak Icelandic.
• Spaniards speak Spanish, or more accurately Castilian.
• Scots speak Scottish English. Some Scots speak Scottish Gaelic (a Celtic language), and some speak Scots (descended from Middle English and largely mutually intelligible with Modern English). There's no language called just "Scottish".
• Israelis primarily speak Hebrew. There's no language called "Israeli".
• Many Jews speak Hebrew. There's no language called "Jewish".

The above list is incomplete.

Wikipedia policies: Reliability and Verifiability

WP:RELIABLE has some guidelines to follow. Click on the prior link to read the full text; I have repeated the most relevant information here:

The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. The policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, and sections of articles—without exception [...]

Overview

Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we publish the opinions only of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves. [...]

Definition of a source

The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings:

• The piece of work itself (the article, book)
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)

Any of the three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people.

Definition of published

The term "published" is most commonly associated with text materials, either in traditional printed format or online. [...]

Context matters

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. [...]

Age matters

Especially in scientific and academic fields, older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed. [...]

Deciding on an article title

Wikipedia:Article titles says:

Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject. There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains.

Shortcuts

• WP:CRITERIA
• WP:NAMINGCRITERIA

A good Wikipedia article title has the five following characteristics:

• Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
• Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
• Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)
• Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. (See § Conciseness, below)
• Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above.

Changing an article title

WP:TITLECHANGES says:

Changing one controversial title to another without a discussion that leads to consensus is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. Consensus among editors determines if there does exist a good reason to change the title. If it has never been stable, or it has been unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.^[1]

This essay's focus

This essay will be focussing on verifiable, demonstrable evidence from reliable sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The context of each piece of evidence will be examined, and carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable and is an appropriate source for that content. The age of the content matters. Older sources may be inaccurate because of changed vocabulary.

Potential sources and analysis of reliability

Google search

Google searches are somewhat verifiable, with the results changing over time. They are demonstrable, however, they are not reliable sources because they don't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Anyone can author a page on the internet that Google can include in its search results. You don't have to be an expert, so Google search results should be completely dismissed.

Google ngrams

Google ngrams are better than searches because they come from published books. The results are verifiable, however, they are not terribly demonstrable due to the limitation of finding only 5 pages with the search term per book. They are also ultimately unreliable because they don't come only from authors with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Almost anyone can author a book without being an expert. Although books come under more scrutiny than webpages, many books have been published with inaccurate information, or reflecting the biases of the author. People with strong (even extreme) views are more likely to write a book than those with no strong views.

Another difficulty with ngrams is differentiating different meanings of the same word. As demonstrated above, "English" can refer to the country, the culture, the language, or the people. An ngram search for English_NOUN, English_ADJ, English_PRON unfortunately shows that Google doesn't differentiate between "English" being used as a noun or a pronoun. Another limitation is that when the part of speech is included in the search, the results don't allow you to verify them in specific books.

A Google book search for "English" can be done, but verifying the results is a too labourious task. Google ngrams are unsuitable because a) the meaning of each instance can't easily be determined (i.e. the results aren't fully verifiable or demonstrable), and b) the reputation of each author is unknown.

Google trends

Google trends is an interesting tool. It allows you to look up what people were searching for from any period after 2004. It suffers from the same problem as ngrams, in that a single word's meaning can't be determined due to lack of context. The results are verifiable and demonstrable, but the meaning of the data is highly questionable. Nevertheless, is it interesting to look at, which I will do later.

Further reading: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable sources

Evidence

We need to look to reputable third-party second sources to find out the English name of the majority language spoken in Sri Lanka.

Encyclopaedias

Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica's article is called Sinhalese language^[2], and says:

Alternative Titles: Cingalese language, Simhali language, Singhalese language, Sinhala Sinhalese language, also spelled Singhalese or Cingalese, also called Sinhala, Indo-Aryan language, one of the two official languages of Sri Lanka.

Notes:

• The alternative titles equate "Sinhalese language" (with the word "language") to "Sinhala" (without the word "language").
• The grammar is incorrect. It should be one of:
  • The Sinhalese language, also spelled Singhalese language or Cingalese language, also called Sinhala, is an Indo-Aryan language and one of the two official languages of Sri Lanka.
  • Sinhalese, also spelled Singhalese or Cingalese, also called Sinhala, is an Indo-Aryan language and one of the two official languages of Sri Lanka.

There are no mentions of "Sinhalese" referring to the people.

Related articles:

• Sinhalese (people)

  No language mentions; all mentions of "Sinhalese" refer to the people only

• Sri Lanka: Language and religion

  A single language mention: "Sinhala"; all mentions of "Sinhalese" refer to the people only

• Sri Lanka: History

  Two language mentions: "Sinhalese language" and "Sinhalese- and Prakrit-speaking"; all other mentions of "Sinhalese" refer to the people

• Sri Lanka: The Republic of Sri Lanka

  Four language mentions: all just "Sinhalese"; all other mentions of "Sinhalese" refer to the people

• Indo-Aryan languages: Phonology

  Seven language mentions: all just "Sinhalese"; no mentions of "Sinhalese" referring to the people

• Sri Lanka

  Three language mentions: all "Sinhala"; no mentions of "Sinhala" or "Sinhalese" referring to the people

• Sinhala Only Bill

  Two language mentions: "Sinhala" in the title and just "Sinhalese" once in the body; all other mentions of "Sinhalese" refer to the people

Note: The quality of Encyclopædia Britannica's articles is not always what you'd expect. From their article on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck:

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in full Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck, (born August 1, 1744, Bazentin-le-Petit, Picardy, France—died December 18, 1829, Paris), pioneer French biologist who is best known for his idea that acquired characters are inheritable, an idea known as Lamarckism, which is controverted by modern evolutionary theorygenetics and .

The above quote is taken directly from Encyclopædia Britannica, and really does end with the nonsensical "theorygenetics and .".

Also, as noted in the Encyclopædia Britannica article: "Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling." This may indicate a preference for conservative language and spelling, and may not reflect modern accepted practice.

When referring to the people, Britannica only uses "Sinhalese". When referring to the language, Britannica uses "Sinhalese" 62.5±26.9% of the time and "Sinhala" 37.5±26.9% of the time, using one standard deviation. Although the base rate of "Sinhalese" is greater than "Sinhala", the uncertainty is huge due to only having eight data points, and could possibly tip the balance in favour of "Sinhala" if more data could be collected. The data from Encyclopædia Britannica is weakly in favour of "Sinhalese".

Encyclopedia.com

Encyclopedia.com aggregates information from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference works. It calls the people "Sinhalese" or "Sinhala" and the language "Sinhala".^[3]

Standards organisations

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

From Library of Congress ISO 639-2 (the primary authority for Parts 1 and 2 of the ISO 639 standard):

Note that the first language in the "All English Names" column is the primary language as seen from nearly entries; the entries are not ordered alphabetically:

i.e. "Saxon, Low" should preferably be called "Low German", and "Sepedi" should preferably be called "Pedi".

ISO is in favour of "Sinhala" as the primary name.

Language organisations

SIL International

SIL International (originally known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc.) is the registration authority for ISO 639-3, so it's no surprise that it agrees with ISO 639-2. From SIL: Information on ISO 639-3:

Registration Authority SIL International has been designated as the ISO 639-3/RA for the purpose of processing requests for alpha-3 language codes comprising the International Standard, Codes for the representation of names of languages - Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages.

From ISO 639 Code Tables:

SIL International is in favour of "Sinhala" as the primary name.

Ethnologue

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It was first issued in 1951, and is now published annually by SIL International. As expected, it follows SIL's standard, although mentions additional alternate names.

Ethnologue is in favour of "Sinhala" as the main name, mentioning "Cingalese", "Singhala", "Singhalese", "Sinhalese" as alternate names.^[4]

WALS

The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008. It is maintained by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and by the Max Planck Digital Library.

WALS is in favour of "Sinhala"^[5] noting alternative names:

• Ruhlen: Sinhalese
• Routledge: Sinhalese
• Other: Sinhalese
• Ethnologue: Sinhala

"Routledge" above possibly refers to Routledge (publisher).

Omniglot

Omniglot is an online encyclopedia focused on languages and writing systems. It calls the language "Sinhala", noting it is also known as "Sinhalese" or "Singhala".^[6]

Linguasphere

The Linguasphere Observatory is a transnational linguistic research network. It has called the language "Sinhala" since at least 2000, with alternate names of "sumangala", "singhala", "sinhalese", "singalese", "ceylonese".^[7]

Glottolog

Glottolog is a bibliographic database of the world's lesser-known languages, developed and maintained first at the former Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and since 2015 at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. They call the language "Sinhala". They have a huge list of other names in many languages including "Sinhalese" in English.^[8]

What's very useful about Glottolog is that they have a huge list of books they've cited, over 150 just for Sinhala. The table is too large to reproduce here in its entirety, so I have summarised it:

Glottolog has done the hard work of filtering the reputable books from the nonreputable books. Between 1960 and 1975, 1 in 3 cited books with the language in the title called it "Sinhala", the other 2 in 3 calling it "Sinhalese". The turning point for most reputable authors dropping "Sinhalese" in favour of "Sinhala" seems to be 1976. From 1976 to 2011 just over 90% of the books that named the language called it "Sinhala", not "Sinhalese".

News organisations

BBC News

At the bottom of the BBC homepage is a link: Sinhala සිංහල. The address contains "sinhala" too.

Only "Sinhala".

The New York Times

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage does not mention either "Sinhala" or "Sinhalese" at all. I've used up my quota of free article views, however, The New York Times seems to prefer "Sinhalese" when referring to the people, and "Sinhala" when referring to the language. A search for "Sinhalese" brings up about 479 articles mostly about violence in Sri Lanka. A search for "Sinhala" brings up about 35 articles, approximately half of them about language, although it also shows that "Sinhala" can be used for the people too.

Mostly "Sinhala".

Additional (secondary evidence)

A Duck Duck Go search for "Sinhalese news" returns "Sinhala" in 9 of the first 10 results. Only SBS (an Australian foreign language television and radio service) calls the language "Sinhalese". SBS already internally calls its program "SBS Sinhala", and will make that its official name soon (no date given as of March 2019). Some articles already call the program by its future name.^[9]

Google's search results are similar, but because they are personalised, everyone gets slightly different results.

Technology organisations

Technology organisations that offer services in multiple languages prefer to refer to a language by a single name for reasons of space and simplicity.

Apple

• iOS Language & Region offered in සිංහල translated to "Sinhala".

Only "Sinhala".

Google

• Android: offers interface in සිංහල with no English translation
• Google Translate: English to Sinhala The English name given is "Sinhala"

Only "Sinhala".

Microsoft

• Windows: Region & language offers සිංහල translated to "Sinhala". When installed, displays as "Sinhala, Sinhala keyboard"

Only "Sinhala".

Mozilla

• Offers Firefox downloads in other languages. "Sinhala සිංහල" is the only spelling.

Only "Sinhala".

Media Wiki

• Links to the Sinhala version of Wikipedia have pop-up titles such as "ශ්‍රී ලංකාව – Sinhala" (ශ්‍රී ලංකාව "srī langkāwa" is Sri Lanka)

Only "Sinhala".

Secondary evidence

We need to discount Google web searches because we have no way to measure the quality of any single result, nor the quality of the aggregated results.

Google trends

Google trends is interesting. Sinhalese language, Sinhala language, Sinhalese shows the following trends for the full years from 2006 to 2018:

† The data for "Sinhalese" reached its maximum in May 2009, when the Sri Lankan Civil War ended. In that same month, searches for both "Sinhalese language" and "Sinhala language" dropped, achieving only half of the average for the 2004-2018 period. This indicates that "Sinhalese" is more closely connected to the people than the language in most people's minds.

However, when "Sinhala" is added to the search, it completely dominates the results, steadily increasing from about 71.4% in January 2004 to about 98.8% in January 2019, or from 5 in 7 searches to 85 in 86 searches. The number of times "Sinhala" has appeared in search queries has increased by a factor of 17, more than an order of magnitude.

As noted above, there is no way to determine which meaning of "Sinhala" was intended from this data. We also don't know who performed these searches. Were they Sri Lankan expatriates or non-Sri Lankans? However, it does show a very strong tendency of searches for both "Sinhala" and "Sinhala language" to increase during the years 2004 to 2018, while "Sinhalese" and "Sinhalese language" have each fallen by about 33%. While it's not impossible that an increase in the number of people using "Sinhala" instead of "Sinhalese" has not contributed to this result, it is very unlikely.

Google ngrams

While we can't use Google ngrams as an absolute measurement, we can use it as a relative measurement.

Important dates in Sri Lanka's history:

• 1948 - Ceylon becomes an independent country
• 1956 - Sinhala Only Act passed
• 1972 - Ceylon renamed to Sri Lanka
• 1983 - Start of the Sri Lankan Civil War
• 2009 - End of the Sri Lankan Civil War

It's a shame that Google's ngrams data ends in 2008, because the effect of the end of the civil war can't be measured.

Sinhala, Sinhalese

• 1944: "Sinhala" virtually unheard of. "Sinhalese" used in most books.
• From 1944 to 1952 "Sinhala" starts to appear in print in noticeable, though small, numbers.
• From 1952 to 1958 a slight increase in the number of books making reference to "Sinhala".
• From 1944 to 1958 a strong increase in the number of books making reference to "Sinhalese", with a slight dip in 1952.
• From 1958 to 1964 both "Sinhalese" and "Sinhala" decrease.
• From 1964 to 1983 "Sinhala" increases while "Sinhalese" slightly decreases.
• From 1983 to 1990 both "Sinhalese" and "Sinhala" increase.
• From 1990 to 2008 "Sinhala" slightly decreases while "Sinhalese" strongly decreases.
• 2008: "Sinhala" has almost closed the gap with "Sinhalese", although "Sinhalese" is still used about 46.9% more, across all uses

Sinhala language, Sinhalese language

• 1944: "Sinhala language" not used at all. "Sinhalese language" used in all books.
• From 1944 to 1952 "Sinhala language" still not used. "Sinhalese language" increases, peaking in 1948, then decreases slightly.
• From 1952 to 1958 books making reference to "Sinhala language" start to appear, growing strongly. "Sinhalese language" rises sharply.
• From 1958 to 1964 both "Sinhalese language" and "Sinhala language" decrease. "Sinhalese language" loses most of its gained ground.
• From 1964 to 1983 "Sinhala language" increases strongly while "Sinhalese language" is steady until 1975, then strongly decreases. Parity reached in 1982.
• From 1983 to 1990 both "Sinhalese language" and "Sinhala language" increase, although "Sinhala language" maintains a narrow majority.
• From 1990 to 2008 "Sinhala language" and "Sinhalese language" both slightly decrease with "Sinhala language" increasing its gap.
• 2008: "Sinhala language" is now used about 37.0% more than "Sinhalese language"

Comparison

The small amount of overlap between the two data sets (Google ngrams and Google trends) from 2004-2008 shows that the data is not directly comparable. However, both show strong trends of "Sinhala" increasing its share, while "Sinhalese" decreases its share. The secondary evidence supports the primary evidence.

Wikipedia article views

Sinhala * vs Sinhalese * on Wikimedia Toolforge (select "Logarithmic scale" for the best view) shows "Sinhalese" as a single word has consistently got the fewest views of all topics.

• Sinhala vs Sinhalese Sinhala (a disambiguation page) consistently gets 10 times as many views as Sinhalese (a redirect page)
• Sinhala people vs Sinhalese people Sinhalese people had about 15 times the views of Sinhala people from July 2015 to November 2016, and that increased to about 25 times the views from March 2017 to February 2019
• Sinhala language vs Sinhalese language Sinhalese language had about twice the views of Sinhala language from July 2015 to November 2016, however, that was after the last move to "Sinhalese language". This increased to about five times the views from January 2017 to February 2019
• Sinhala script vs Sinhalese script vs Sinhala alphabet vs Sinhalese alphabet (again, "Logarithmic scale" shows the best view) from July 2015 to May 2016 Sinhala alphabet had about 10 times the views of Sinhala script, with both Sinhalese alphabet and Sinhala alphabet getting virtually no views. Sinhala script was viewed about 14 times as much as both Sinhalese alphabet and Sinhala alphabet combined. The article was renamed in June 2016 to "Sinhalese alphabet". This had the effect of doubling "Sinhalese script" from 20 to 40 views per month, still virtually nothing. "Sinhala script" was barely affected, but "Sinhala alphabet" experienced a strong drop, with most views going to "Sinhalese alphabet" now. From June 2016 to October 2018 Sinhalese alphabet had about four times the views of Sinhala alphabet which had about four times the views of Sinhala script which had about 10 times the views of Sinhalese script. In November 2018, the article was renamed again, this time to "Sinhalese script". Between December 2018 and February 2019 Sinhalese script had about seven times the views of Sinhala script which had about three times the views of Sinhala alphabet which had about three times the views of Sinhalese alphabet (almost nothing).

This shows that when "Sinhalese" is the main name of the language article, "Sinhala" still gets strong numbers of page views, while when "Sinhala" is the main name, "Sinhalese" gets virtually no page views. Unfortunately, this data only starts in July 2015, so does not show the behaviour caused by previous article moves.

History of affected articles

Sinhalese people was created as Sinhalese in December 2001. It was moved to its current title in October 2005. It had an improper move attempt in February 2008 to Sinhala people which was reverted. No other moves have occurred or been attempted.

Sinhalese language was created as Sinhala in November 2003. It was moved to Sinhalese language and quickly reverted back to Sinhala in October 2005. It was moved to Sinhalese language in November 2006. A short cut-and-paste move war happened in February 2008, trying to rename the article to Sinhala language. Four "moves" occurred, settling back on Sinhalese language. In June 2009 a move request to Sinhala language was approved by consensus. In March 2015 a user unilaterally moved the article back to Sinhalese language.

Sinhalese script was created as Sinhala alphabet in March 2002. It was moved to Sinhala script in August 2005 based on user consensus. It was moved back to Sinhala alphabet in May 2006, Sinhala script in January 2009, Sinhala alphabet in July 2011. Another consensus was reached in August 2011 to move it back to Sinhala script. In September 2011 it was moved back to Sinhala alphabet. In June 2016 it was moved to Sinhalese alphabet, then by move request to Sinhalese script in November 2018, addressing only the "alphabet" vs "script" aspect, and calling the language "Sinhala" in the move message.

Leaving Sinhalese people where it is seems uncontroversial. There have been previous move wars about whether the language should be called "Sinhala" or "Sinhalese". Consensus has been reached many times that "Sinhalese" should be changed to "Sinhala". No consensus has ever been reached for "Sinhala" being changed to "Sinhalese", those changes happening unilaterally and without discussion.

As per WP:TITLECHANGES, the past unilateral changes from "Sinhala" to "Sinhalese" were inadvisable. In the case of Sinhala language there was previous consensus for "Sinhala", and in the case of Sinhala script the "Sinhala" part of the name had been stable for a long time.

Summary

Out of the reputable sources identified so far, 16 have "Sinhala" as the main or only name, 2 use "Sinhalese" as much as or more than "Sinhala", and none use "Sinhalese" as the only name. SBS will officially move from primarily "Sinhalese" to only "Sinhala" soon (no date given as of March 2019). When they do, no reputable sources that I've found so far will use "Sinhalese" more than "Sinhala".

• The ratio of "Sinhalese language":"Sinhalese" (about 1:11) from Google trends is greater than the ratio of "Sinhala language":"Sinhala" (less than 1:42), i.e. the word "language" is more likely to follow "Sinhalese" than "Sinhala", indicating that "Sinhala" is more recognisable as the name of a language than "Sinhalese"
• The following statements appear to be true:
  • The Sinhalese language is usually called "Sinhala" in English, being a phonetic respelling (rather than a translation) of the native word සිංහල
  • The language was called "Sinhalese" in English in the past (amongst similar variants), and this name is still recognisable and usable
• Encyclopædia Britannica weakly prefers "Sinhalese" to "Sinhala" as the name of the language
• Standards organisations have decided that "Sinhala" is the common name in English
• Language organisations use "Sinhala" as the primary name in English
• News organisations appear not to have an official recommendation for either name, but their journalists seem to favour "Sinhala" over "Sinhalese", sometimes using both interchangeably
• Technology organisations only use "Sinhala"
• The available secondary evidence fully supports the primary evidence

Addressing the guidelines for article titles:

• Recognizability – People are likely to be familiar with both "Sinhala" and "Sinhalese" or neither
• Naturalness – Based on the evidence from Google trends, most people will search for "Sinhala"
• Precision – both "Sinhala language" and "Sinhalese language" unambiguously identify the article's subject matter
• Conciseness – "Sinhala language" and "Sinhalese language" are equally concise
• Consistency – Currently, articles on Sinhala are inconsistently titled, some as "Sinhala", some as "Sinhalese", in roughly equal numbers. Language articles tend to be created under "Sinhala", then later changed to "Sinhalese"

Conclusion

The majority of the English speaking world uses "Sinhala" in preference to "Sinhalese". Reasons for this are not speculated on in this essay. "Sinhalese" remains an acceptable alternative, however, "Sinhala" should be used wherever appropriate. The word used in direct quotations should not be changed. If there is an historical reason for using "Sinhalese" instead of "Sinhala", it may be used, e.g. in an article about Ceylon in the 1800s. The name used across Wikipedia should match the name used in the majority of primary article sources.