Sinhala alphabet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

Sinhala
Type:	Abugida
Languages:	Sinhala
Time period:	300 or 200 BC to the present
Parent writing systems:	Brahmi Sinhala
ISO 15924 code:	`Sinh`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

The Sinhala script is used to write the Sinhala language. It is a modified Brahmic abugida which is composed almost entirely of curlicues.

The Sinhala alphabet is quite similar to other Indic alphabets, as all of them appear to be offshoots of the Sanskrit alphabet.

1 The basic characters of the Sinhalese script
2 Ligatures
3 Sinhala in Unicode
4 Sinhala transliteration
5 External links

[edit] The basic characters of the Sinhalese script

This alphabet to the right is the Sinhala alphabet as prescribed by the Education Department of Sri Lanka for School Children.

[edit] Consonant graphemes

Sinhala graphemes

Rows 5-12 in the table to the left show the Sinhala consonant graphemes. These graphemes all carry an inherent /a/, unless this is removed by the hal kirima or an other diacritic vowel is attached.

Next to ෆ, the representation of /f/ can also be done by a ප with a latin <f> inscribed in the cup.

[edit] Prenasalized consonant graphemes

Sinhala prenasalized stops

These are shown in the table on the right. They consist of <d>, <D>, <g> respectively, with a small stroke attached to the left (/d/=<ද> /nd/=<ඳ>). <mb> is represented by the left half of <m> and the right half of b>.

[edit] Vocalic graphemes

Rows 1-3 in the table to the left show the Sinhala graphemes representing independent vowels. These are only used when the vocalic phoneme does not follow a consonant. This is almost exclusively at the onset of words, some place names like Ja-Ela nonwithstanding,

[edit] Anusvara and Visarga

Row 4 shows the Anusvara and the Visarga. The former is common, while the latter is very rare.

[edit] Vocalic diacritics

Sinhala vowel diacritics

Every consonant grapheme can be modified by a vocalic diacritic. This diacritic replaces the inherent vowel by another vowel. There are different diacritics for corresponding long and short vowels, but they are usually similar in shape. As a rule, the diacritics attach to the consonant grapheme at the following places:

<a> is the inherent vowel and not specially marked
The inherent vowel can be removed by the hal kirima, which attaches to the top of the consonant grapheme. See discussion below.
<aa>(ා) follows the consonant grapheme
<ä>(ැ) and <ää>(ෑ) follow the consonant grapheme
and <ii> attach above the consonant grapheme
<e>(ෙ) precedes the consonant grapheme
<ee> is expressed by putting both <e> and hal kirima
<o> is the combination of <e> and <a> (ෙ_ා)
<oo> is like <o>, but with a hal kirima attached to ා.
and <uu> attach below the consonant sign. There are different ways of writing them, depending on the consonant

<r>(ෘ) and <rr>(ෘෘ) follow the consonant grapheme
<l>(ෟ) (obsolete) follows the consonant grapheme

<ei> precedes the consonant grapheme. It is made up of a doubled <e> (ෙෙ_)
<au> is the combination of <e> and <l> (ෙ_ෟ)

[edit] Inherent vowel remover hal kirima

The inherent vowel can be removed by a special diacritic, the hal kirima. It comes in two shapes. One is a litte arch, which attaches on consonant graphemes ending at the left upper corner. The other one resembles a little flag and attaches to the top right corner of the other consonants. For <r> and <l>, the flag attaches more to the left.

[edit] Ligatures

Sinhala ligatures

Certain combinations of graphemes trigger special ligatures. This is the case for the vocalic diacritics and <uu> and for some combinations of <d> and <a>, <o>, <oo>, <ä>, <ää>, and <uu>.

[edit] Ligatures involving and <uu>

p shape, common
t shape, used with some graphemes ending at the lower right corner
L shape, only used with retroflex l
d shape, only used with d

[edit] Ligatures of <d>

<d+aa>
<d+ä>
<d+ää>
<d+o>
<d+oo>
<d+u>
<d+uu>
<d+r>

[edit] Representation of <r> in consonant clusters

A <r> following a consonant can be marked by a little arch under the consonant grapheme. A <r> preceding a consonant can be marked by a little loop over that consonant grapheme.

[edit] Sinhala in Unicode

The Unicode range for Sinhala is U+0D80 ... U+0DFF.

D80

඀

ඁ

ං

ඃ

඄

අ

ආ

ඇ

ඈ

ඉ

ඊ

උ

ඌ

ඍ

ඎ

ඏ

D90

ඐ

එ

ඒ

ඓ

ඔ

ඕ

ඖ

඗

඘

඙

ක

ඛ

ග

ඝ

ඞ

ඟ

DA0

ච

ඡ

ජ

ඣ

ඤ

ඥ

ඦ

ට

ඨ

ඩ

ඪ

ණ

ඬ

ත

ථ

ද

DB0

ධ

න

඲

ඳ

ප

ඵ

බ

භ

ම

ඹ

ය

ර

඼

ල

඾

඿

DC0

ව

ශ

ෂ

ස

හ

ළ

ෆ

෇

෈

෉

්

෋

෌

෍

෎

ා

DD0

ැ

ෑ

ි

ී

ු

෕

ූ

෗

ෘ

ෙ

ේ

ෛ

ො

ෝ

ෞ

ෟ

DE0

෠

෡

෢

෣

෤

෥

෦

෧

෨

෩

෪

෫

෬

෭

෮

෯

DF0

෰

෱

ෲ

ෳ

෴

෵

෶

෷

෸

෹

෺

෻

෼

෽

෾

෿

[edit] Sinhala transliteration

Sinhala transliteration can be done in analogy to Devanagari transliteration. A problem is the transliteration of /අැ/, not found in Devangari. This is <ä> in the German tradition of Wilhelm Geiger, and <æ> in the anglophone tradition (e.g. James Gair).

Layman's transliterations in Sri Lanka normally follow neither of these. Vowels are transliterated according to English spelling equivalences, which can yield a variety of spellings for a number of phonemes. /ii/ for instance can be <ee>, <e>, <ea>, , ... .

A transliteration pattern peculiar to Sinhala (and Tamil), and facilitated by the absence of phonemic aspirates, is the use of <th> for the voiceless dental stop, and the use of <t> for the voiceless retroflex stop. This is presumably because the retroflex stop /ʈ/ is perceived the same as the English alveolar stop /t/, and the Sinhala dental stop /t̪/ is equated with the English voiceless dental fricative /θ/ . Dental and retroflex voiced stops are alway rendered as <d>, though, presumably because <dh> is not found as a representation of /ð/ in English orthography.