Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956
E727439
Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 is the Sri Lankan law that made Sinhala the sole official language of the country, marginalizing Tamil and other languages.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 canonical | 2 |
| Official Language Act | 1 |
| Official Language Act of 1956 | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8350479 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 Context triple: [Sinhala Only policy, legalInstrument, Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956]
-
A.
Official Languages Act, 1963
The Official Languages Act, 1963 is an Indian law that regulates the use of Hindi and English for official purposes of the Union and provides the framework for implementing the country’s official language policy.
-
B.
Official Languages (Use for Official Purposes of the Union) Rules, 1976
The Official Languages (Use for Official Purposes of the Union) Rules, 1976 are Indian government regulations that prescribe how Hindi and English are to be used in official work and communications of the Union.
-
C.
Official Languages Act 2003
The Official Languages Act 2003 is an Irish law that strengthens the status and use of the Irish language in public administration and services, particularly impacting Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions.
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D.
Language Act of Finland
The Language Act of Finland is a key Finnish law that defines and safeguards the status and rights of the country’s national languages, particularly regulating the linguistic rights of Swedish- and Finnish-speaking citizens in public administration and services.
-
E.
An Act Creating the Commission on the Filipino Language
An Act Creating the Commission on the Filipino Language is a Philippine law that established a government body tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting Filipino and other Philippine languages.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 Target entity description: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 is the Sri Lankan law that made Sinhala the sole official language of the country, marginalizing Tamil and other languages.
-
A.
Official Languages Act, 1963
The Official Languages Act, 1963 is an Indian law that regulates the use of Hindi and English for official purposes of the Union and provides the framework for implementing the country’s official language policy.
-
B.
Official Languages (Use for Official Purposes of the Union) Rules, 1976
The Official Languages (Use for Official Purposes of the Union) Rules, 1976 are Indian government regulations that prescribe how Hindi and English are to be used in official work and communications of the Union.
-
C.
Official Languages Act 2003
The Official Languages Act 2003 is an Irish law that strengthens the status and use of the Irish language in public administration and services, particularly impacting Irish-speaking Gaeltacht regions.
-
D.
Language Act of Finland
The Language Act of Finland is a key Finnish law that defines and safeguards the status and rights of the country’s national languages, particularly regulating the linguistic rights of Swedish- and Finnish-speaking citizens in public administration and services.
-
E.
An Act Creating the Commission on the Filipino Language
An Act Creating the Commission on the Filipino Language is a Philippine law that established a government body tasked with developing, preserving, and promoting Filipino and other Philippine languages.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (30)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Act of Parliament
ⓘ
language law ⓘ |
| actNumber | No. 33 of 1956 ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Sinhala Only Act
ⓘ
linked to:
Sinhala Only policy
|
| country | Sri Lanka ⓘ |
| criticizedBy | Tamil political parties ⓘ |
| criticizedFor |
discrimination against Tamil speakers
ⓘ
undermining linguistic pluralism ⓘ |
| effect |
made Sinhala the sole official language of Sri Lanka
ⓘ
marginalized Tamil language in official use ⓘ reduced use of English as an official language ⓘ |
| historicalSignificance |
key milestone in Sri Lanka’s post-independence language policy
ⓘ
often cited as a factor leading toward the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict ⓘ |
| impact |
affected public sector employment opportunities for Tamils
ⓘ
contributed to grievances of Sri Lankan Tamils ⓘ heightened ethnic tensions between Sinhalese and Tamils ⓘ required government administration to be conducted in Sinhala ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
Ceylon
ⓘ
linked to:
Sri Lanka
|
| languageExcludedFromOfficialStatus |
English
ⓘ
Tamil ⓘ |
| officialLanguageDeclared | Sinhala ⓘ |
| passedBy | Parliament of Ceylon ⓘ |
| politicalContext | Sinhala nationalist movement ⓘ |
| region |
Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka)
ⓘ
linked to:
Sri Lanka
|
| shortName |
Official Language Act
ⓘ
linked to:
Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956
|
| sponsor | S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike ⓘ |
| status | amended by later language legislation ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
language and education
ⓘ
linguistic rights ⓘ official language policy ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 Description of subject: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956 is the Sri Lankan law that made Sinhala the sole official language of the country, marginalizing Tamil and other languages.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956
linked to: Official Language Act No. 33 of 1956