JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2737
Date: 2004-04-15
SRI LANKA STANDARD
SINHALA CHARACTER CODE FOR INFORMATIONINTERCHNAGE

L2/04-131

FOREWORD
This standard was approved by the Sectoral Committee on Information Technology
and was authorised for adoption and publication as a Sri Lanka Standard by theCouncil of the Sri Lanka Standards Institution on 2004-xx-xx.
The International Organisation for Standardisation has accepted SLS 1134 Sinhala
Character Code for Information Interchange for inclusion in ISO/IEC 10646-1 withthe modifications effected in the first revision (SLS1134:2001).
This is the second revision of SLS 1134. This revision provides specifications for thecode sequences and keyboard sequences. It also provides a revised keyboard, based on
the layout in the original version of this standard, which in turn is based on the
Wijesekara typewriter keyboard. This revision retains compliancy with ISO/IEC
10646-1.
Symbols used in the Sinhala language are coded using 128 cells in the half page plane
reserved for Sinhala characters in ISO/IEC 10646. Each cell or position given in
Table 4 of the standard represents one character.
An effort has been made to preserve the alphabetical order of the Sinhala language toa great extent. However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.
In the preparation of this standard the valuable assistance obtained from the following
publications is gratefully acknowledged.
ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993 Information Technology – Universal Multiple Octet
Coded Character Set.
The Unicode Consortium: The Unicode Standard Version 4.0, 2004.
The assistance provided by the Council for Information Technology (CINTEC) andthe Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) in the
preparation of this standard is also gratefully acknowledged.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

11 SCOPE
This standard provides a coding of the set of Sinhala characters for use in computerand communication media. This standard character code set specifies a 7-bit codetable (out of 16 bits) which may be used in line with the requirements outlined by theInternational Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).
In addition to storage, retrieval and machine to machine communication in Sinhala, it
also includes provisions to co-exist with other languages as specified in ISO/IEC
10646.
This code set is able to represent contemporary and historical Sinhala writings.
This standard defines codes for the vowels, consonants, semi-consonants, vowel
signs, and punctuation in the language. Some formations of the language are notrepresented by individual codes, but are constructed as sequences of codes. For
example, many characters are formed by a consonant followed by a consonant
modifier.
In designing this code set efforts were taken to retain the ability to incorporate future
developments in the language.
It does not include editorial characters, abbreviations, subscribes, superscribes andpunctuations, but in the keyboard layout, keys are provided for Indo-Arabic numerals,
symbols and punctuation.
NOTE: Codes are not provided in the code set for distinct formations in the language
for the Repaya, Yansaya, and Rakaransaya. These shapes are generated using thesequences given in Section 5.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments22 DEFINITIONS
For the purpose of this standard the following definitions shall apply:
2.1 base character: A character which may stand alone, or optionally combine with
one or more combining characters.
2.2 base letter: A symbol from which letters are formed.
2.3 character: A unit of information used for the organisation, control, or representation of textual data.
2.4 code table: A table showing the characters allocated to the cells in the code.
2.5 combining character: A character which does not stand alone, but combineswith another character.
2.6 combining character sequence: A sequence of characters, starting with a basecharacter and zero or more combining characters, which represent a letter.
2.7 composite character: A character which is equivalent to a sequence of one ormore other characters.
2.8 conjunct letter: Two or more letters joined together. In addition to the
combination of a consonant with the yansaya, rakaransaya and repaya, pairs ofconsonants may form conjunct letters.
2.9 consonant: A letter representing a speech sound in which the breath is at least
partly obstructed and which may combine with a vowel to form a syllable.
2.10 letter: A symbol representing a simple or compound sound used in speech. It
may comprise a base letter, or a base letter together with one or more strokes.
2.11 non-vocalic stroke: A graphic symbol associated with a base letter to indicate aconsonant to be associated with that letter.
2.12 pure consonant: A consonant without an associated vowel, i.e., with an allakuna.
2.13 semi-consonant: A consonant that does not enjoy all the privileges of normal
consonants and to be combined with the preceding vowel.
2.14 sign: One or more strokes.
2.15 stroke: A graphic symbol which modifies a base letter.
2.16 vocalic stroke: A graphic symbol associated with a base letter to indicate thepresence or absence of a vowel associated with that letter.
2.17 vowel: A letter representing a speech sound made with the vibration of the vocal
cords, but without audible obstruction.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

33 DESCRIPTION OF THE SINHALA LANGUAGE
Sinhala is a member of the Indo-Aryan family of languages and the script bears close
structural resemblance to Thai and Malayalam scripts. The Sinhala writing system is asyllabury derived from the ancient North Indian script, Brahmi, and subsequently
influenced by the Pallawa Grantha script of South India. The modern script used inwriting Sinhala is unique to this language.
Sinhala differs from all other Indo-Aryan languages in that it contains a pair of vowel
sounds that are unique to it. These are the two vowel sounds that are similar to the twovowel sounds that occur at the beginning of the English words, at and ant. The vowel
sound in at is short, and the vowel sound in ant is long. The Sinhala alphabet also hasa pair of letters to represent these two sounds.
Short vowel:
Long vowel:

ඇ - aeඈ - aae

Another feature that distinguishes Sinhala from its sister Indo-Aryan languages is thepresence of a set of five nasal sounds known as “half nasal” or “prenasalized stops”.
These sounds as represented in modern Sinhala writing and their romanised notation
are as follows:ඟ (nng),ඦ (ndj),ඬ (nnd),ඳ (nd),
ඹ (mb).
The Sinhala alphabet (as defined below) consists of 61 letters: 18 vowels, 41
consonants and 2 semi-consonants.
<Sinhala alphabet>:: = <Vowels ><Consonants>< Semi-consonants>
These symbols represent 40 sounds: 14 vowel sounds and 26 consonant sounds.
The 61 letter symbols are given below together with their romanised representations.
3.1 Vowels
The 18 vowels, unlike consonants, are used only at the beginning of words.
They are as follows:
අ a
ආ aa
ඇ ae
ඈ aee
ඉ i
ඊ ii
උ u
ඌ uu
ඍ r
ඎ rr
ඏ l
ඐ ll
·
··
·
··
එ e
ඒ ee
ඓ ai
ඔ o
ඕ oo
ඖ au
NOTES:
1. The letters ඇ and ඈ which are based on the symbol අ are unique to the Sinhala
language and have been in use since the 7th century.
2. ඏ (ilu) and ඐ (iluu) do not occur in present usage but are included in the code set
for completeness of the code. They are not included in Tables 1 - 3.
3. ඎ also does not occur in present usage, but its corresponding vocalic stroke, ෲ
is used; for example, කරත .
SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments43.2 Consonants
The Sinhala alphabet possesses 41 consonants as shown below with their romanised
notations.
ක ka
ච ca
ට tta
ත ta
ප pa
ය ya
ශ sha

ඛ
ඡ
ඨ
ථ
ඵ
ර
ෂ

kha
cha
ttha
tha
pha
ra
ssa

ග
ජ
ඩ
ද
බ
ල
ස

ga
ja
dda
da
ba
la
sa

ඝ gha
ඣ jha
ඪ ddha
ධ dha
භ bha
ව va
හ ha

ඞ nga
ඤ nya
ණ nna
න na
ම ma

ඟ nngaඥ jnyaඬ nnda
ඳ nda
ඹ mba

ළ lla

ෆ fa

ඦ ndjaNOTES:
1. The consonant ඦ (ndja) is included although it is not found in contemporary
writing.
2. The letters ඤ and ඥ are identical in sound only in the initial position of a word
for example ඤFණ and ඥFන. They are not identical in non-initial positions, whereඥ behaves as a combination of two consonant sounds, for example පඥF.
3.3 Semi-consonants“ෲH” and “ෲI” are the two semi-consonants available in the alphabet. Semi-consonants
may appear only following a vowel or a consonant with an implicit or explicit vowel.
NOTES:
1. The corresponding phonetic notations of semi-consonants are:
ෲH:
m
ෲI:
h
·
·
2. These two characters have been placed at the beginning of the code set to facilitate
collation.
3.4 Strokes
Strokes (also known as modifiers) are graphical symbols used in conjunction withconsonants. They are also used in writing some vowels (e.g. ආ, ඒ, ඓ). The strokes of
the Sinhala script occur in two different forms; i.e., vocalic strokes and non-vocalicstrokes.
<Stroke>:: =<Vocalic stroke>:: =<Non-Vocalic stroke> :: =<Vocalic stroke>, < Non-vocalic stroke>ෲ, ෲF, ෲJ, ෲK, ෲ,L ෲ,M ෲN, ෲO, ෲP, ෙෲ, ෲR
ෲS , ෲT, ර

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

5Unlike in English, a stroke may be positioned on any of the four sides of the baseletter. These can be classified as follows:<Stroke>:: = <Left stroke>, <Right stroke>, <Upper stroke>, <Lower stroke><Left stroke> :: = ෙෲ<Right stroke> :: = ෲF, ෲJ, ෲK, ෲP, ෲR, ෲS<Upper stroke> :: = ෲ , ෲ L , ෲM , ර<Lower stroke> :: = ෲN , ෲO , ෲT
The strokes, their names, and the vowels represented by them, are given in Table 1.
TABLE 1 – Strokes, their names and vowel representation
Sl. No.
StrokeName
Vowel repre(1)(2)(3)
sentation (4)Vocalic strokesෲ
Sinhala al-lakuna l1ට*1aSinhala al-lakuna 2
ෲFආ
2Sinhala aela-pilla
ෲJඇ
3
Sinhala ketti aeda-pilla
ෲKඈ
4Sinhala diga aeda-pillaෲLඉ
5
Sinhala ketti is-pillaඊෲM
Sinhala diga is-pilla
6
ෲNඋ
7
Sinhala ketti paa-pilla 1ක*උ
7aSinhala ketti paa-pilla 2ෲOඌ
8Sinhala diga paa-pilla 1ක*ඌ
8aSinhala diga paa-pilla 2ෲPඍ
9Sinhala gaetta-pillaෙෲඑ
10
Sinhala kombuva
ෲRඖ
11
Sinhala gayanukitta
Non Vocalic strokes
ෲS
12
Sinhala yansaya
refer note 3ෲT13Sinhala rakaransaya
refer note 3ර14Sinhala repaya
refer note 3*These strokes are shown with their associated character.
NOTES:
1. The al-lakana removes the implicit vowel associated with a consonant, forming apure consonant.
2. The shape of a stroke is dependant on the associated consonant, as shown in lines
1, 7 and 8 above.
3. The non-vocalic stroke Sinhala yansaya symbolizes ය when preceded by aconsonant, e.g.: ක + ය = කS. The non-vocalic stroke Sinhala rakaransaya
symbolises ර when by a consonant, e.g.: ක + ර = ක. The repaya symbolises a රpreceding a consonant, e.g.: ක + ර + ම = කර.
4. The vocalic stroke ෲ_ diga gayanukitta corresponding to the vowel ඐ is notpresently used in Sinhala and is not considered further.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments63.5 Letters
In Sinhala, a letter may be formed by a vowel alone, a consonant alone, or a consonantwith one or more associated strokes. It may optionally include a semi-consonant.
Seventeen combinations of vocalic strokes with a consonant are used in Sinhala.
These are listed in Table 2.
TABLE 2 - Combination of the consonant ක (k) with vocalic strokes
Sl No.
CharacterPhonetic(1)(2)
Notation
(3)
ක
1
k
2

(ක + අ) = කka3(ක + ආ) = කFkaa4

(ක + ඇ) = කJkae5(ක + ඈ) = කK

kaee

6

(ක + ඉ) = කki7(ක + ඊ) = කkii8(ක + උ) = කku9(ක + ඌ) = ක10(ක + ඍ) = කP

11(ක + ඎ) = ක

kuu
kr
·
krr
··

12

(ක + එ) = ෙකke13(ක + ඒ) = ෙක

kee

14

(ක + ඓ) = කක

kai

15

(ක + ඔ) = ෙකdko16(ක + ඕ) = ෙකe

koo

17

(ක + ඖ) = ෙකfkau

The non-vocalic strokes ෲS and ෲT represent the letter ය and ර respectively, following
a pure consonant. They may appear alone, or together with vocalic strokes. If so, thevowel applies to the ය or ර and not the initial consonant. The valid combinations of
vocalic strokes with the yansaya and rakaransaya (7 and 12 combinations respectively)
are shown in Table 3.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

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TABLE 3 - Combination of the consonant ක (k) with vocalic and non-vocalicstrokes
Sl No. Character Romanied Sl No. Character Romanised(1)(2)
Notation(1)(2)
Notation
(3)
(3)
කS
ක
1
kya
9
kra
2

කSF

kyaa

10

කF

kraa

3

කg

kyu

11

කJ

krae

4

කh

kyuu

12

කK

kraee

5

ෙකS

kye

13

ක

kri

6

තකS

kyee

14

ක

krii

7

ෙකSd

kyo

15

ෙක

kre

8

ෙකSe

kyoo

16

ෙකk

kree

17

කක

krai

18

ෙකd

kro

19

ෙකe

kroo

20

ෙකf

krou

NOTE: The yansaya is not used following the letter ර. e.g.: the spelling කFරය isincorrect.
A semi-consonant, ෲH or ෲI, may appear after any of the letters in lines 2 to 17 in
Table 2 and any of the letters in Table 3 (i.e., after any letter except a pure consonant),
yielding a total of 109 possible letters based on a given consonant.
NOTE:
1. Not all combinations are valid with all consonants. E.g., the consonant ඞ is nevercombined with a vowel, but appears as ඞ. However, we do not list all such cases.
2. The repaya is not included in this table.
3.5 Repaya
The repaya is an abbreviation for the letter ර preceding a consonant. Use of the repaya
is optional. E.g.: කරම or කර are both valid.
3.6 Conjunct Letters (බJඳ අකර)A conjunct letter is formed by joining another letter to a pure consonant (e.g. ක + ෂ =ක). A conjunct letter may be modified by a vocalic stroke (e.g. ක). The strokes
yansaya (ෲS) and rakaransaya (ෲT) are shortened forms of the letters ය and ර
respectively, used when forming conjunct letters. These strokes may also be appended
to another conjunct letter, e.g. න.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments8

4 CHARACTER ENCODING
The encoding of the Sinhala character set into 128 cells of a 16-bit code space isshown in Table 4. This encoding uses hexadecimal codes in the range 0D80 to 0DFF.
The table comprises codes for the semi-consonants (0D82-0D83), vowels (0D850D96), consonants (0D9A-0DC6), the al-lakuna (0DCA), vowel signs (0DCF-0DF3)
and punctuation mark - kundaliya (0DF4). Some vowel signs are composite characterswhich represent two or more vocalic strokes. However, each vowel sign corresponds
to a vowel. The unused positions in the range shall not be used.
Vowels, consonants and the punctuation mark are base characters, and may standalone. The al-lakuna and vowel signs are combining characters, and follow a
consonant. The semi-consonants are combining characters, and follow a vowel,
consonant, or vowel sign.
Descriptions of the codes are given in Table 5.
NOTE: Specific collation algorithms (not specified herein) are needed for sorting
text stored using this character encoding.
4.1 Codes for numerals
As Sinhala numerals are not used at present, codes are not provided for Sinhala
numerals.
4.2 Code for Sinhala punctuation
The code 0DF4 represents the kundaliya.
NOTE: The kundaliya, which is a punctuation mark unique to Sinhala writing, issometimes used to conclude a paragraph.
4.3 Codes not specified hereinThis standard does not specify codes for the numerals, other punctuation marks, andsymbols. These are specified in other code pages in ISO/IEC 10646. The yansaya,
rakaransaya and repaya are represented by code sequences, and not by individual
codes.
The codes for zero-width joiner (ZWJ), which is used to form conjunct letters, andzero-width non-joiner (ZWNJ), are not in this code page, but have the values 200D
and 200C respectively. The non-breaking space character (NBSP) has the value 00A0.
4.4 Codes reserved for future developments
Three codes each after the sets of vowels (0D97-0D99) and consonants (0DC7-0DC9)
are left unassigned to accommodate future enhancements of the language.

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TABLE 4 – The Sinhala Character Encoding
0D8x 0D9x 0DAx 0DBx 0DCx 0DDx 0DEx 0DFx

ඐ

ච

ධ

ව

ෲJ

0D90

0DA0

0DB0

0DC0

0DD0

එ

ඡ

න

ශ

ෲK

0D91

0DA1

0DB1

0DC1

0DD1

ෲH

ඒ

ජ

ෂ

ෲL

ෲ

0D82

0D92

0DA2

0DC2

0DD2

0DF2

ෲI

ඓ ඣ

ඳ

ස

ෲM

ෲ_

0D83

0D93

0DA3

0DB3

0DC3

0DD3

0DF3

ඔ

ඤ

ප

හ

ෲN

෴

0D94

0DA4

0DB4

0DC4

0DD4

0DF4

අ

ඕ

ඥ

ඵ

ළ

0D85

0D95

0DA5

0DB5

0DC5

ආ

ඖ

ඦ

බ

ෆ

ෲO

0D86

0D96

0DA6

0DB6

0DC6

0DD6

ඇ

ට

භ

0D87

0DA7

0DB7

ඈ

ඨ

ම

ෲP

0D88

0DA8

0DB8

0DD8

ඉ

ඩ

ඹ

ෙෲ

0D89

0DA9

0DB9

0DD9

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
F

ඊ

ක

ඪ

ය

ෲ

ෙෲk

0D8A

0D9A

0DAA

0DBA

0DCA

0DDA

උ

ඛ

ණ

ර

කෲ

0D8B

0D9B

0DAB

0DBB

0DDB

ඌ

ග

ඬ

ෙෲd

0D8C

0D9C

0DAC

0DDC

ඍ

ඝ

ත

ල

ෙෲe

0D8D

0D9D

0DAD

0DBD

0DDD

ඎ

ඞ

ථ

ෙෲf

0D8E

0D9E

0DAE

0DDE

ඏ

ඟ

ද

ෲF

ෲR

0D8F

0D9F

0DAF

0DCF

0DDF

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10

TABLE 5 – Names of the Characters
Various signs
0D82
ෲH
Sinhala sign anusvaraya
0D83
ෲI
Sinhala sign visargaya
Independent vowels
0D85අ
Sinhala letter ayanna
0D86ආSinhala letter aayanna
0D87ඇ
Sinhala letter aeyanna
0D88ඈ
Sinhala letter aeeyanna
0D89ඉ
Sinhala letter iyanna
0D8A ඊ
Sinhala letter iiyanna
0D8B උ
Sinhala letter uyanna
0D8C ඌ Sinhala letter uuyanna
0D8D ඍ
Sinhala letter iruyanna
0D8E
ඎ Sinhala letter iruuyanna
0D8F
ඏ
Sinhala letter iluyanna
0D90
ඐ Sinhala letter iluuyanna
0D91
එ
Sinhala letter eyanna
0D92ඒ
Sinhala letter eeyanna
0D93ඓ Sinhala letter aiyanna
0D94ඔ
Sinhala letter oyanna
0D95ඕ
Sinhala letter ooyanna
0D96ඖ Sinhala letter auyanna
Consonants
0D9A ක
Sinhala letter alpapraana kayanna
0D9B ඛ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana kayanna
0D9C ග
Sinhala letter alpapapraana gayanna
0D9D ඝ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana gayanna
0D9E
ඞ
Sinhala letter kantaja naasikyaya
0D9F
ඟ
Sinhala letter sanyaka gayanna
0DA0 ච
Sinhala letter alpapraana cayanna
0DA1 ඡ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana cayanna
0DA2 ජ
Sinhala letter alpapraana jayanna
0DA3 ඣ Sinhala letter mahaapraana jayanna
0DA4 ඤ
Sinhala letter taaluja naasikyaya
0DA5 ඥ
Sinhala letter taaluja sanyooga naaksikyaya
0DA6 ඦ
Sinhala letter sanyaka jayanna
0DA7 ට
Sinhala letter alpapraana ttayanna
0DA8 ඨ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana ttayanna
0D9A ඩ
Sinhala letter alpapraana ddayanna
0DAA ඪ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana ddayanna
0DAB ණ
Sinhala letter muurdhaja nayanna
0DAC ඬ
Sinhala letter sanyaka ddyanna
0DAD ත
Sinhala letter alpapraana tayanna
0DAE ථ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana tayanna
0DAF ද
Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna
0DB0 ධ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana dayanna
0DB1 න
Sinhala letter dantaja nayanna
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11

0DB3 ඳSinhala letter sanyaka dayanna
0DB4 ප
Sinhala letter alpapraana payanna
0DB5 ඵ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana payanna
0DB6 බ
Sinhala letter alpapraana bayanna
0DB7 භ
Sinhala letter mahaapraana bayanna
0DB8 ම
Sinhala letter mayanna
0DB9 ඹ
Sinhala letter amba bayanna
0DBA ය
Sinhala letter yayanna
0DBB ර
Sinhaya letter rayanna
0DBD ල
Sinhala letter dantaja layanna
0DC0 ව
Sinhala letter vayanna
0DC1 ශ
Sinhala letter taaluja sayanna
0DC2 ෂ
Sinhala letter muurdhaja sayanna
0DC3 ස
Sinhala letter dantaja sayanna
0DC4 හ
Sinhala letter hayanna
0DC5 ළ
Sinhala letter muurdhaja layanna
0DC6 ෆ
Sinhala letter fayanna
Sign
0DCA ෲ
Sinhala sign al-lakuna
Dependent vowel signs
0DCF ෲF
Sinhala vowel sign aela-pilla
0DD0 ෲJ
Sinhala vowel sign ketti aeda-pilla
0DD1 ෲK
Sinhala vowel sign diga aeda-pilla
0DD2 ෲ L
Sinhala vowel sign ketti is-pilla
0DD3 ෲ M
Sinhala vowel sign diga is-pilla
0DD4 ෲN
Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pilla
0DD6 ෲO
Sinhala vowel sign diga paa-pilla
0DD8 ෲP
Sinhala vowel sign gaetta-pilla
0DD9
ෙෲ Sinhala vowel sign kombuva
0DDA ෙෲk Sinhala vowel sign diga kombuva
0DDB කෲ Sinhala vowel sign kombu deka
Two-part dependent vowel signs
0DDC ෙෲd Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa aela-pilla
0DDD ෙෲe Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa diga aela-pilla
0DDE ෙෲf Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa gayanukitta
Dependent vowel sign
0DDF ෲR
Sinhala vowel sign gayanukitta
Additional dependent vowel signs
0DF2ෲ
Sinhala vowel sign diga gaetta-pilla
0DF3
ෲ_Sinhala vowel sign diga gayanukitta
Punctuations
0DF4
෴ Sinhala punctuation kunddaliya

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

125 CODE SEQUENCES
Each Sinhala letter (e.g., ෙක) is represented by sequence of characters in Table 4. A
letter may be a vowel (e.g. ඒ), a consonant (e.g. ක), a consonant followed by an allakuna (i.e., a pure consonant) (e.g. ක), a consonant with a vowel sign (e.g. කF), oneof the above (except a pure consonant) followed by a semi-consonant (e.g. අH), or a
conjunct letter (e.g. ක).
5.1 Vowels
Each vowel is represented by one character in the range 0D85-0D96.
e.g. අ = 0D85, ඍ = 0D8D
NOTE: A vowel such as ආ should not be represented as a character sequence such
as 0D85 0DCF.
5.2 Consonants
Each consonant is represented by one character in the range 0D9A – 0DC9.
e.g. ක = 0D9A, ඤ = 0DA4
5.3 Pure Consonants
A pure consonant (i.e., without an implicit vowel) is represented by a two character
sequence cons 0DCA (cons + ෲ) where cons represents a consonant.
e.g. ක = 0D9A 0DCA
5.4 Consonants with vowel signs
A consonant with a vowel sign is represented by a two character sequence cons + vs
where vs represents a vowel sign.
e.g. කF = 0D9A 0DCF, ෙකf = 0D9A 0DDE, කක = 0D9A 0DDB
Although the al-lakuna and the paa-pillas take two forms, depending on the associatedconsonant, both forms are represented by the same code character.
e.g. ක = 0D9A 0DCA, ට = 0DA7 0DCA
න = 0DB1 0DD4, ක = 0D9A 0DD4, න = 0DB1 0DD6, ක = 0D9A 0DD6
Non-standard letters
The following letters are represented as shown:ර = 0DBB 0DD0, ර = 0DBB 0DD1
ර = 0DBB 0DD4, ර = 0DDB 0DD6
ළ = 0DC5 0DD4, ළ = 0DC5 0DD6
A vowel sign without an associated consonant may be displayed by preceding it with azero-width non-joiner (zwnj) character. e.g. F = 200C 0DCF (zwnj + ෲF).

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NOTES:
1. These are only the internal representations and not the keyboard sequences.
2. The representation of a letter such as ෙකe by a consonant character (ක) followed
by several vowel sign characters (ෙෲ ෲ F ෲ ) is permitted in Unicode, but isdiscouraged in this standard. This standard recommends the use of a single
composite vowel sign character following a consonant in such cases (e.g. ක + ෙෲd).
3. This standard does not specify a method of displaying the vocalic strokes ofcertain letters such as ක, ම and ර without their associated consonant symbols.
5.5 Semi-consonant signs
A anusvaraya (ෲH) or visargaya (ෲI) sign may follow a vowel, a consonant or a vowel
sign.
e.g. අH = 0D85 0D82 (අ + ෲH), අI = 0D85 0D83 (අ + ෲI)
කH = 0D9A 0D82 (ක + ෲH), ෙකeH = 0D9A 0DDD 0D82 (ක + ෙෲe + ෲH),කI = 0D9A 0DD4 0D83 (ක + ෲO + ෲI)
NOTE: A semi-consonant, if present, is always the last character in a combining
character sequence.
5.6 Rakaransaya and Yansaya
The rakaransaya and yansaya are forms of conjunct letters.
The rakaransaya ෲT represents a ර which follows a pure consonant. It can, in turn, befollowed by a vowel sign. It is joined to the preceding letter by a zero-width joiner(zwj).
A rakaransaya is represented by the character sequence cons 0DCA 200D 0DBB
(cons + ෲ + zwj + ර) where cons represents some consonant.
e.g.: ක = 0D9A 0DCA 200D 0DBB (ක + ෲ + zwj + ර),ෙක = 0D9A 0DCA 200D 0DBB 0DD9 (ක + ෲ + zwj + ර + ෙෲ)
Similarly the yansaya ෲS represents a ය which follows a pure consonant.
e.g. කS = 0D9A 0DCA 200D 0DBA (ක + ෲ + zwj + ය)ෙකSe = 0D9A 0DCA 200D 0DBA 0DDD ( ක + ෲ + zwj + ය + ෙෲe)
A stand-alone yansaya is represented by the sequence 200C 0DCA 200D 0DBA
(zwnj + ෲ + zwj + ය). A stand-alone rakaransaya is represented similarly.
NOTES:
1. As the ෲT and ෲS are present on the keyboard, users will not need to key in theabove sequences (see section 6).

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2. The yansaya and rakaransaya are required in normal Sinhala text. However, if forsome reason, it is desired not to use the rakaransaya or yansaya, the zwj should beomitted.
5.7 Repaya
The repaya ෲT represents the letter ර preceding a consonant. It is represented by thesequence 0DBB 0DCA 200D cons (ර + ෲ + zwj + cons).
e.g. කර = 0D9A 0DBB 0DCA 200D 0DB8 (ක + ර + ෲ + zwj + ම)
A stand-alone repaya is represented by the sequence 0DBB 0DCA 200D 200C
(ර + ෲ + zwj + zwnj).
A yansaya with repaya (in words wich as කFයරFලය) is represented by the code
sequence 0DBB 0DCA 200D 200C 0DCA 200D 0DBA (ර + ෲ + zwj + zwnj + ෲ +zwj +ය).
NOTE: As the repaya appears on the keyboard, users will not need to key in theabove sequences.
5.8 Other conjunct letters (බJඳ අකර)Conjuct letters are represented by the sequence cons 0DCA 200D cons (cons + ෲ + zwj+ cons). The second consonant may optionally be followed by a vowel sign.
e.g. න = 0DB1 0DCA 200D 0DAF (න + ෲ + zwj + ද),ෙකk = 0D9A 0DCA 200D 0DC2 0DDA (ක + ෲ + zwj + ෂ + ෙෲk)
Conjuct letters may be further joined by a rakaransaya or yansaya.
e.g. නF = 0DB1 0DCA 200D 0DAF 0DCA 200D 0DBB 0DCF
(න + ෲ + zwj + ද + ෲ + zwj + ර + ෲF)
NOTE: The convention of writing a pure consonant touching the following letter,
instead of using an al-lakuna, is common in Pali text written in Sinhala script. Thismay be represented by using the sequence 0DCA 200D between the two letters.

6 KEYBOARD INPUT
Text encoded as specified in this standard may be input to a computer system in many
ways, e.g., text recognition, 10-key keypad, etc. However, much text is input using
standard computer keyboards (e.g., 101-key). This section provides guidelines on how
Sinhala text may be entered using such a keyboard.
Each Sinhala letter, such as ක (represented by a character sequence) is input by asequence of keys on the keyboard. Thus there is a many-to-many relation between
keys and characters.
The set of symbols which appear on the keyboard, and the key sequences to generateeach letter, are independent of the mapping of symbols to keys. The same key
sequences may be used by several keyboard layouts.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

15This section specifies the recommended key sequences for generating Sinhalacharacters on a standard computer keyboard. One recommended keyboard layout,
based on the Wijesekara keyboard, is specified in Section 7.
Key sequences are defined on the principle “type as you write”. Each symbol is typed
in the order it is written in, which may be different to the encoding sequence or the
display order.
NOTE: This standard does not specify the symbols which are displayed during theintermediate stages in the construction and deletion of letters.
6.1 Keyboard Symbols
A Sinhala keyboard should have the following symbols, which may be assigned tokeys in suitable ways. Each physical key may have several symbols assigned to it, one
for each shift-state. Generally, only the symbols of the unshifted and the normal shiftstates will be printed on the keyboard.
Keys should be assigned to the following:
Consonantsකඛගඝඞඟ
චඡජඣඤඥඦ
ටඨඩඪණඬ
තථදධනඳ
පඵබභමඹ
යරලවශෂ
සහළෆ
Vowelsඅ ඉ ඊ උ ඍ ඏ එ and ඔ
NOTES:
1. Other vowels are produced by a key sequence.
2. The ඏ symbol need not be printed on the keyboard, but may be keyed using a shiftstate.
Leading vowel sign – kombuwa (ෙෲ).
Trailing vowel signs aela-pilla (ෲF), ketti aeda-pilla (ෲJ), diga aeda-pilla (ෲK), ketti is-pilla ( ෲ)L ,diga is-pilla ( ෲ)M , keti paa-pilla ( ෲN), diga paa-pilla ( ෲO), gaeta-pilla (ෲP) andgayanukitta (ෲR).
NOTE: Composite vowel signs are entered as a sequence of two or more keys.
The al-lakuna - ( ෲ)SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments

16

NOTE: Although the al-lakuna takes two forms, (e.g. ක and ට) they are both enteredusing the same key.
Semi-Consonants - anusvaraya (ෲH) and visargaya (ෲI).
Non-vocalic strokes - yansaya (ෲS), rakaransaya (ෲT) and repaya ( ර ෲ).
Punctuation - kundaliya (෴).
Non-standard character form - muurdhaja lu (ළ).
NOTE: This letter has a non-standard form, and is assigned a key for userconvenience.
The sanyakaya - may be used to generate “sanyaka” letters such as ඟ and ඳ inconjunction with letters such as ග and ද.
NOTE: Keys are also assigned to the symbols ඟ, ඳ etc.
The join key - used to join two letters to form conjuct letters such as න.
NOTE: An implementer may assign a key for thealthough it is not requred to enter Sinhala text.

zero-width joiner character,

The inv key - used to produce an invisible base character.
Non-Sinhala symbols - keys should be assigned for numerals, punctuation marks andstandard symbols.
6.2 Key sequences
Each letter is entered by one or more key sequences as follows:
Consonants
A consonant is entered with a single key.
e.g. ක ම ඣ, ඟ
Vowels
A vowel is entered with 1 or 2 keys.
අඅ + ෲF = ආඅ + ෲJ = ඇඅ + ෲK = ඈඉඊඋඋ + ෲR = ඌඍඍ + ෲP = ඎඑSLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments17එ+ෲ=ඒ
ෙෲ + එ = ඓඔඔ+ෲ=ඕඔ + ෲR = ඖ
Pure consonants“al” modifier - 2 keys: cons + al-lakuna. e.g. ක + ෲ = ක, ම + ෲ = ම
NOTE: Only one key is used for both types of al-lakuna.
Consonants with vowel signs
aa modifier - 2 keys: cons + aelapilla. e.g. ක + ෲF = කF, ද + ෲF = දFae modifier: - 2 keys: cons + ketti aeda-pilla, e.g. ක + ෲJ = කJ
aee modifier: - 2 keys: cons + diga aedapilla, e.g. ක + ෲK = කK
NOTE: There are no special keys for ර and ර, e.g.: ර + ෲJ = ර, ර + ෲK = රi modifier - 2 keys: cons + keti ispilla. e.g. ක + ෲL = ක
ii modifier - 2 keys: cons + diga ispilla. e.g. ක + ෲ M = කu modifier: - 2 keys: cons + diga paapilla. e.g. ප + ෲN = ප
uu modifier: - 2 keys: cons + keti paapilla. e.g. , ප + ෲO = ප
The paapillas for ක හ ග, etc. are entered using the same keys as for the other letters.
e.g.: ක + ෲN = ක
The character ළ is assigned to a key. However it can also be entered as ළ + ෲN = ළ.
The character ළ may be keyed as either ළ + ෲO = ළ, (logical sequence) or ළ + ෲK = ළ(visual sequence).
The characters ර and ර are entered as ර + ෲN and ර + ෲO respectively.
r modifier (vocalic r) - 2 keys: cons + gaetapilla. e.g. ග + ෲP = ගP·
rr modifier (vocalic rr) - 3 keys: cons + gaetapilla + gaetapilla.
··e.g. ග + ෲP + ෲP = ග
NOTE: There is no key for the sign ෲ .
e modifier - 2 keys: kombuwa + cons. e.g. ෙෲ + ක = ෙකNOTE: The kombuwa key is pressed before the consonant, in writing order.
ee modifier - 3 keys: kombuwa + cons + al-lakuna. e.g. ෙෲ + ක + ෲ = ෙක,ෙෲ + ම + ෲ = ෙමai modifier - 3 keys: kombuwa + kombuwa + cons. e.g ෙෲ + ෙෲ + ක = කකo modifier - 3 keys: kombuwa + cons + aelapilla. e.g. ෙෲ + ක + ෲF = ෙකdoo modifier - 4 keys: kombuwa + cons + aelapilla + al-lakuna.
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e.g. ෙෲ + ක + ෲF + ෲ = ෙකeau modifier - 3 keys: kombuwa + cons + gayanukitta. e.g. ෙෲ + ක + ෲR = ෙකf
Semi-consonants
The signs ෲH and ෲI are keyed following a consonant or vowel sign. They will always
be the last key of a key sequence.
6.3 Conjunct letters
Rakaransaya (ෲT)
This symbol will normally be entered using the rakaransaya key.
e.g.: ක + ෲT = ක
Vowel signs, as shown in Table 3, may be keyed following the rakaransaya. However,
the kombuwa is keyed preceding the base letter. The ispilla may be keyed either
before or after the rakaransaya, to conform with the practice in writing.
e.g. ට + ෲT = ට, ට + ෲT + ෲF = ටF , ට + ෲT + ෲJ = ටJ, ට + ෲT + ෲK = ටK,
ත + ෲT + ෲ L = ත, ෙෲ + ප + ෲT + ෲF = ෙපd
The following alternative sequences are also valid:e.g. බ + ෲL + ෲT = බ, ට + ෲL + ෲT = ට
NOTE: Sequences other than those shown in Table 3, such as ට + ෲT + ෲN and ට + ෲT
+ ෲO are not used with the rakaransaya, but keying them in should be allowed.
Yansaya (ෲS)
This symbol will normally be entered using the yansaya key.
e.g. ත + ෲS = තS
The yansaya may be combined with vowel signs, as shown in Table 3.
e.g. ක + ෲS + ෲN = කg, ෙෲ + ක + ෲS = ෙකS
Sequences other than those shown in Table 3 are not used with the yansaya, but
keying them in should be allowed.
RepayaThe repaya symbol is keyed in following a consonant, i.e., the writing sequence.
e.g. ක + ර ෲ = ක
Other conjunct letters (බJඳ අකර)Conjunct letters are generated by pressing the "join" key between two consonants.
e.g.: ක + join + ෂ = ක, ක + join + ෂ + ෲF = කFෙෲ + ක + join + ෂ + ෲF + ෲ = ෙකe
6.4 Other
Sanyaka letters
The sanyaka letters ඳ ඟ ඬ ඦ may be generated by the keys ද ග ඩ ජ respectively,
followed by the sanyakaya key. This is an optional feature.
Stand-alone signs

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19

Stand-alone vowel signs are keyed using the “inv” key (ෲ) followed or preceded by thedesired vowel signs or other symbol.
The symbol yansaya with repaya (as in ආයර) is entered by the key sequenceෲS + ර ෲ.
7 KEYBOARD LAYOUT
The keyboard symbols specified in Section 6 may be mapped to a keyboard in several
ways. The keyboard layout given in Figure 1 is a possible arrangement. It is a
modification of the layout in SLS1134:2001 which in turn was based on the
Wijesekara keyboard. Other layouts may be used depending on users’ requirements.
7.1 Keys
A standard computer keyboard has 48 assignable keys on the main keyboard. Eachphysical key on a standard computer keyboard can be assigned to up to 4 symbols, forthe following shift states:
unshifted
shift
ctrl-alt (alt-gr)
shift ctrl-alt (shift alt-gr)
Therefore a total of 48 × 4 = 196 keys are available for use. The symbols defined in
Section 6 are assigned to these keys as shown in Figure 1.
NOTE: The shift ctrl-alt state is not used in this keyboard layout, but implementers
may use it for defining additional symbols, etc.

SLS 1134:2004 – Draft for Public Comments207.2 Keyboard Layout
The layout of the keyboard is shown in Figure 1 below.
1st row – US ASCII layout
2nd row – with ALT-GR (right-alt) key pressed
3rd row – with shift
4th row – unshifted
Symbols Used
ර = repaya
eng = English mode (caps lock)san = “sanyakaya”
ෲ = invisible character = touch adjacent characters (e.g. for Pali text)
 = join adjacent characters (to form conjunct letters)

CL = caps lock

`

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

-

=

ර

!
1

@
2

#
3

$
4

%
5

^
6

&
7

*
8

(
9

)
0

_
-

+
=

[

]

ඥ
ඤ

:
;

`
ෲT

CL

Q

A

N

W

O

උ
අ
S

_
R

eng

E

D

M
L

K ඍ
J ර
F.

X

”

ඞ ඦ
ෲI ඣ
ෲH ජ

'

T

ඔ
එ
G

P ෆ ඨ
F ෙ ට

Z

san

C

R

V

ඬ
ඪ
ඩ

B

ඊ
ඉ

Y

ශ
හ
H

ෲS
ය
N

භ
බ

U

ඹ
ම
.J

ළ
ව
M

ඵ
ප

I

O

P

ෂ
ස

ඳ
ධ
ද

ඡ
ච

ඛ
ක

෴
ථ ,
ත .

K

ණ
න
,

ඏ
ළ
ල

L

.

ඟ
ඝ
ග

;

/

\

?
/

ෲ



space
non-breaking space
space
FIGURE 1 – Wijesekera-Based Keyboard Layout

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21'