Could somebody help me better understand the relationship between Pali
and the Sinhala language?
My impression (perhaps mistaken) is that it's the closest living
language there is to Pali. I am basing this off of some things I
thought I heard from Bhante Gunaratana.
Recently I was at the Bhavana society and was going to ask him, but I
didn't get a chance. It just seems that the Pali flows from his lips
so fluidly you'd think it was his first language. Of course this
could also be attributed to the fact that he seems to have an Ananda-
like capacity for remembering things.
Would learning Sinhala help one learn Pali? Not that it's something I
plan on doing any time soon, but I am interested in understanding the
richness of the language rather than just becoming a kind of
dictionary with feet.