General
Dhivehi or Divehi（里贝喜语，迪贝喜语） is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 300,000 people in the Republic of Maldives where it is the official language of the country and in the island of Minicoy (Maliku) in neighbouring India where it is known as Mahl. Dhivehi is closely related to Sinhala. Many languages have influenced the development of Dhivehi through the ages, most importantly Arabic. Others include Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, French, Persian, Portuguese, and English.
H.C.P. Bell was one of the first transliterators of this tongue. Bell called the language Divehi, which was consistent with "Maldives", the name of the country, for the '-dives' of "Maldives" and the word 'Divehi' have the same root which is 'dvīp' ('island' in Sanskrit).
Wilhelm Geiger was a German linguist who undertook the first research on Divehi linguistics in the early 20th century. Geiger also called the Maldivian language Divehi, without an "h". In 1976, when a semi-official Latin Transliteration was developed for the Maldive language, an 'h' was added to the name of the language, but not to the name of the country. This inconsistency has yet to be resolved.
English words such as atoll (a ring of coral islands or reefs) and doni (a vessel for inter-atoll navigation) are anglicized forms of the Maldivian words "Atolhu" and "Dōni" (the latter derived from a Tamil word for boat).
External Links:
A Guide to Mahal Language
ALL information is from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhivehi_language
Other resources:
http://www.maldivesculture.com/thaana01.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~wjsn/dhivehi.htm
http://globalrecordings.net/language/4696
http://www.ats-group.net/dictionaries/dictionary-english-dhivehi.html
http://www.maldivesculture.com/gloss01.html
some songs in this language: http://globalrecordings.net/program/C25760
Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun Private Limited (Dhiraagu)
Maldives Post Limited (MPL)
