Sinhala alphabet

Origin

The Sinhala alphabet, a descendent of the Brahmi script, started to appear in inscriptions during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Both the alphabet and the language have changed considerably since then. The earliest surviving literature in Sinhala dates from the 9th century AD.

Notable features

Type of writing system: syllabic alphabet.
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.
Prenasalized consonants, such as mb, nd, ṇd and ng, are formed by special conjunct symbols that combine the stop and the homorganic nasal.
Conjunct symbols are used only when writing Sanskrit of Pali with the Sinhala alphabet.
A subset of the letters, known as Eḷu hōḷdiya, was used to write classical Sinhala (Eḷu) - shown in blue below. Many extra letters were added to write Sanskrit and Pali loanwords.

Used to write:

Sinhala or Sinhalese (සිංහල), an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Sri Lanka by about 12 million people. There are also considerable numbers of Sinhala speakers in Singapore, Thailand, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

Also used to write Pali and Sanskrit in Sri Lanka.

Sinhala alphabet

Vowels

Sinhala vowels

Vowel diacritics with ka

Sinhala vowel diacritics with ka

Consonants

Sinhala consonants and conjuncts

Numerals

Old Sinhala numerals

These numerals are no longer used in written Sinhala, instead the Western-style numerals are used.

Spreadsheet of the Sinhala alphabet (Excel, 56K)

Sample text in Sinhala

සියලූ මනුෂ්‍යයෝ නිදහස්ව උපත ලබා ඇත. ගරුත්වයෙන් හා අයිතිවාසිකම් සමාන වෙති. යුක්ති අයුක්ති පිළිබඳ හැඟීමෙන් හා හෘදය සාක්ෂියෙන් යුත් ඔවුනොවුන්වුන්ට සැළකිය යුත්තේ සහෝදරත්වය පිළිබඳ හැඟීමෙනි.

Transliteration

Siyalū manuṣyayō nidahasva upata labā. Garutvayen hā ayitivāsikam samāna veti. Yukti ayukti piḷiban̆da hæn̆gīmen hā hṛdaya sākṣiyen yut ovunōvunvunṭa sæḷakiya yuttō sahōdaratvaya piḷiban̆da hæn̆gīmen.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Useful phrases in Sinhala | Tower of Babel in Sinhala

Sinhala language learning materials

Links

Information about the Sinhala alphabet and language
http://www.sinhalapage.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhala_language
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/sinhalachart.html
http://www.sinhala-online.com

Sinhala lessons and courses
http://www.speaksinhala.com
http://www.sihaderana.com/lessons_intro.php
http://mylanguages.org/learn_sinhala.php
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Sinhala
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rTFAAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y

Sinhala phrases
http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=31976
http://www.sinhala-online.com/sinhalese-conversation.html?unicode=yes
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/language/sinhala-phrases.html
http://www.languageshome.com/English-Sinhalese.htm
http://www.the-backpacking-site.com/countries/sri_lanka-phrase.html

Sinhala and Tamil word and letter puzzles
http://panther.lk/toys/toys.asp?ToysCat=5

The South Asian Literary Recordings Project - Sinhalese authors reading extracts from their work: http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/sinhalese.html

Online Sinhala dictionaries
http://lenadic.com/dictionary.php
http://www.sinhaladictionary.org
http://www.sinhala-online.com/sinhalese-dictionary.html
http://www.lanka.info/dictionary/EnglishToSinhala.jsp
http://dictionary.tamilcube.com/sinhala-dictionary.aspx
http://www.freepcclinic.com/madura_online_dictionary.html