Elu

R. C. Childers, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, states: [Elu] is the name by which is known an ancient form of the Sinhala language from which the modern vernacular of Ceylon is immediately received, and to which the latter bears is of the same relation that the English of today bears to Anglo-Saxon...The name Elu is no other than Sinhala much succeeded, standing for an older form, Hĕla or Hĕlu, which occurs in some ancient works, and this again for a still older, Sĕla, which brings us back to the Pali Sîhala.

[3] The Hela Havula are a modern Sri Lankan literary organization that advocate the use of Eḷu terms over Sanskritisms.

A feature of Eḷu is its preference for short vowels, loss of aspiration and the reduction of compound consonants found frequently in other Prakrits such as Pali.

The connections were sufficiently well known that technical terms from Pali and Sanskrit were easily converted into Eḷu by a set of conventional phonological transformations.

Meva [taka] veḍhavataka geṇa vanaya va[na]ya atovasahi Nikamaniya-cada puṇamasa doḷasa-paka-divasa [a]riyavasa karana maha-bikusagah⸗aṭa niyata koṭu Yahisapava[ta-na]-va-vaherakahi dini.

[Lines 14–17] [The above] were granted to the new monastery at Yahisapavata so that the interest may be taken and appropriated for the use of the great community of monks who perform the holy vassa on the twelfth day of the bright half of the month of Nikamaniya in every succeeding rainy season.