Sinhala script

**Sinhala script** (Sinhala: සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව; _Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva_) is an Abugida, a script between a syllabic and alphabetic script. It is also known as **Sinhalese script**. It is written from left to right. It is used to write Sinhala, which is the official language of Sri Lanka. It is also used to write Sanskrit and Pali. These languages are used for religious texts. The Sinhalese Akṣara Mālāva, one of the Brahmic scripts, comes from the Ancient Indian Brahmi script. It is also related to the ancient Kannada script.

## History

Sinhala script comes from Brahmi, and was imported from Northern India, around the 3rd century BCE. Sinhala script developed in a complex way: Part independently but also strongly influenced by South Indian scripts at various stages. It is clearly influenced by the early Grantha script. Pottery from the 6th century BCE has been found in Anuradhapura, with lithic inscriptions dating from 2nd century BCE written in Prakrit.

Medieval Sinhalese first began to be used around 750 AD. It has a very strong influence from the Grantha script. As a result, Medieval (and modern) Sinhalese look similar to the South Indian scripts. By the 9th century CE, literature written in Sinhala script appeared and the script began to be used in other texts. As an example, the Buddhist literature of the Theravada-Buddhists of Sri Lanka, written in Pali, used Sinhala script.

Modern Sinhalese first appeared in the 13th century and is marked by the writing of the grammar book _Sidat Sangara_. In 1736, the Dutch were the first to print with Sinhala type on the island. The resulting type followed the features of the native Sinhala script that was written on palm leaves. The Dutch created type that was the same width throughout the letters (monolinear) with no separation between words in early documents. During the Colonial period, a new style of Sinhala also began to used which was high contrast and had different thicknesses. This high contrast type slowly replaced the monolinear type as the preferred style.

Today, the alphabet is used by over 16 million people to write Sinhala in very different situations, such as newspapers, TV commercials, government announcements, graffiti, and schoolbooks.

Sinhala is the main language written in this script, but rare instances of Sri Lanka Malay are recorded.

### Sidath sangara alphabet

This alphabet was invented in the Dambadeniya period (1220–1345). This is the first specific Sinhala alphabet to be found in writing.
|colspan="6"|Vowels (10)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|||ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|||||
|එ|ඒ||ඔ|ඕ||
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක||ග||||
|||ජ||||
|ට||ඩ||ණ||
|ත||ද||න||
|ප||බ||ම||
|ය|ර|ල|ව|||
|||ස|හ|ළ|අං|

### Śuddha set

This alphabet includes the letters usually used everyday. It is enough to write almost every word in Sinhala.
|colspan="6"|Vowels (12)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|||||
|එ|ඒ||ඔ|ඕ||
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක||ග||||
|||ජ||||
|ට||ඩ||ණ||
|ත||ද||න||
|ප||බ||ම||
|ය|ර|ල|ව|||
|||ස|හ|ළ|අං|

### Miśra set

The Śuddha set was not enough to spell Pali and Sanskrit words correctly. So, new letters had to be used. This alphabet first appears in Abraham Mendis Gunasekara's Comprehensive Grammar of the Sinhalese Language, a grammar book published in 1891.
|colspan="6"|Vowels (18)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|ඏ|ඐ|
|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ|
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ||
|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ||
|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ||
|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න||
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම||
|ය|ර|ල|ව||අඃ|
|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|අං|

### National Institute of Education Alphabet

The alphabet was adopted by the National Institute of Education in 1989. This is the alphabet commonly used in schools in Sri Lanka.
|colspan="6"|Vowels (18)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|ඏ|ඐ|
|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ|
|අං|අඃ|||||
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ|ඟ|
|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ|ඦ|
|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ|ඬ|
|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න|ඳ|
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම|ඹ|
|ය|ර|ල|ව|||
|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|ෆ|

### Contemporary Sinhala Alphabet (Modern Sinhala Alphabet)

This alphabet was first published in 1990 by J.B. Dissanayake. Here, the vowels **අ** and **ආ** have two forms as open and closed.
|colspan="6"|Vowels(18)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ (open)|ආ(open)|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|||
|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ|
|අ (closed)|ආ(closed)|||||
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ|ඟ|
|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ|ඥ|
|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ|ඬ|
|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න|ඳ|
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම|ඹ|
|ය|ර|ල|ව|||
|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|ෆ|
|අං|අඃ|||||

### International Standards Institution Sinhala Alphabet

|colspan="7"|Vowels (18)||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ||
|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|ඏ|ඐ||
|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ||
|colspan="7"|||||||
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ|ඟ||
|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ|ඦ|ඥ|
|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ|ඬ||
|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න|ඳ||
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම|ඹ||
|ය|ර|ල|ව||||
|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|ෆ||
|අං|අඃ||||||

### Unicode Sinhala Alphabet

|colspan="6"|ස්වර (18)|||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|
|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|ඏ|ඐ|
|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ|
|colspan="6"||||||
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ|ඟ|
|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ|ඦ|
|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ|ඬ|
|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න|ඳ|
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම|ඹ|
|ය|ර|ල|ව|||
|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|ෆ|
|අං|අඃ|||||
|ක්‍ෂ|ඥ|ළු||||

## Structure

It uses consonants as its base unit. To make different sounds, small strokes of lines called 'pili' (in Sinhala) are written before, after, above or below the base consonant.

### Example

ක = 'ka' sound _(this is the base consonant)_

ක +  ි = කි = 'ki' sound _(a small arch like shape is placed on top of ක)_

ක + ් = ක් = 'k' sound _(a small flag like shape is placed on top of ක)_

ක + ෙ = කෙ = 'ke' sound _(a swirl is placed in front of ක)_

## Letters and how they are pronounced

Here, the letters of the National Institute of Education Alphabet are shown.

### Vowels

There are 18 vowels.
|Vowels||||||||||||||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|අ|ආ|ඇ|ඈ|ඉ|ඊ|උ|ඌ|ඍ|ඎ|ඏ|ඐ|එ|ඒ|ඓ|ඔ|ඕ|ඖ|
|a|ā|æ|ǣ|i|ī|u|ū|r̥|r̥̄|l̥|l̥̄|e|ē|ai|o|ō|au|
|[a,ə]|[aː,a]|[æ]|[æː]|[i]|[iː]|[u]|[uː]|[ri,ru]|[riː,ruː]|[li]|[li:]|[e]|[eː]|[ɑj]|[o]|[oː]|[ɑw]|

- **අ** is pronounced like the _u_ in _cut_
- **ආ** is pronounced like the _a_ in _father_
- **ඇ** is pronounced like the _a_ in _cat_
- **ඈ** is pronounced like **ඇ** but the sound is held longer
- **ඉ** is pronounced like the i in _is_
- **ඊ** is pronounced like the _ee_ in _feet_
- **උ** is pronounced like the _u_ in _put_
- **ඌ** is pronounced like the _u_ in _flute_
- **ඍ** is pronounced like the _ri_ in _river_ <small>(when it is combined with a consonant, it is pronounced like _ru_)</small>
- **ඎ** is pronounced like the _ree_ in _reel_ <small>This vowel occurs rarely</small>
- **ඏ** is pronounced as _li_ or _lu_. <small>This vowel is no longer in use</small>
- **ඐ** is pronounced as **ඏ** but the sound is held longer. <small>This vowel is no longer in use</small>
- **එ** is pronounced like the _e_ in _bed_
- **ඒ** is pronounced like the _a_ in _ancient_
- **ඓ** is pronounced like _eye_
- **ඔ** is pronounced like the _o_ in _cot_
- **ඕ** is pronounced like the _o_ in _go_
- **ඖ** is pronounced like the _ou_ in _house_

### Consonants

There are 42 consonants. The consonants are divided into many groups based on how they are pronounced.

|Consonants||||||||||||||||||||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|ක|ඛ|ග|ඝ|ඞ|ඟ|ච|ඡ|ජ|ඣ|ඤ|ඦ|ට|ඨ|ඩ|ඪ|ණ|ඬ|ත|ථ|ද|ධ|න|ඳ|
|k|kha|g|gha|ṅa|ňg|c|cha|j|jha|ña|n̆ja|ṭ|ṭha|ḍ|ḍha|ṇ|ňḍ|t|tha|d|dha|na|ňd|
|[k]|[ka]|[g]|[ɡa]|[ŋa]|[ᵑɡ]|[t͡ʃ~t͡ɕ]|[t͡ʃa]|[d͡ʒ~d͡ʑ]|[d͡ʒa]|[ɲa]|[nd͡ʒa]|[ʈ]|[ʈa]|[ɖ]|[ɖa]|[n]|[ᶯɖ]|[t]|[t̪a]|[d]|[d̪a]|[na]|[ⁿd]|
|Consonants||||||||||||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|ප|ඵ|බ|භ|ම|ඹ|ය|ර|ල|ව|ශ|ෂ|ස|හ|ළ|ෆ|
|p|pha|b|bha|m|m̌b|y|r|l|v|śa|ṣa|s|h|ḷ|f|
|[p]|[pa]|[b]|[ba]|[m]|[ᵐb]|[j]|[r]|[l]|[ʋ]|[sa]|[sa]|[s]|[ɦ]|[ɭ]|[fa, ɸa, pa]|
The consonant ඥ (pronounced like ඤ - like the _ny_ in _canyon_) is used today but it is **not included** in the National Institute of Education Alphabet.

## Infobox (language family)

- **name**: Sinhala script (Sinhalese)
- **altname**:
_Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva_
- **region**: Sri Lanka
- **fam1**: Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
- **fam2**: Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician alpabet
- **fam3**: Aramaic alphabet
- **fam4**: Brāhmī
- **child1**: Tamil-Brahmi
- **iso15924**: Sinh