Sinhala
සිංහල අක්ෂර
Abugida · 64 letters
Each consonant carries an implied vowel — ka, not k — and marks hung above, below or around it change that vowel. You learn the consonants, then the vowel marks, then the combinations: three steps instead of one. Every script of India, plus Thai and Khmer.
What pays off on the road
- Only one country writes it: telling it from Malayalam, just as round, puts you in Sri Lanka. Tamil is often on the same sign, with English.
- නගරය city, පාර road, මාවත avenue: three words that cut up a sign.
- Reading a name: the fourteen vowel signs first — ු is the commonest sign of our names.
How it works
Loops, an island, and nothing else
Sinhala is made of almost-closed loops, very round, with no top bar. It resembles no script on the mainland and is confused with nothing.
It serves one language and one country: seeing it means Sri Lanka. No other script in this section gives so clean an answer.
It carries four signs the others lack: ඹ, ඟ and ඳ write a consonant with its nasal in front in a single stroke, where the north would write two.
A consonant carries its vowel
This is what separates these scripts from an alphabet. ක does not read "k" but "ka": the consonant arrives with an "a", and a sign is needed to change it or silence it.
The vowel signs sit around the consonant — above, below, after, and some to the left — and replace the "a". The virama silences it without putting anything in its place: that is how two consonants in a row get written.
The final "a" is not pronounced: ලංකා reads "lanka", not "lankaa". The rule has mid-word exceptions no table renders, and that is why this section has no place-name quiz.
The consonant order is a classification, not an alphabet
The thirty-three consonants are not arranged at random but by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips: velars, palatals, retroflexes, dentals, labials, then semivowels and sibilants.
It is a phonetic classification two and a half thousand years old, and it holds for every script of India. Learning the first makes the next ones twice as fast: you already know where you are going, only the shapes remain.
Retroflexes, a sound Europe does not have
A whole series is pronounced with the tongue curled back to the palate. A European does not hear the difference from the dental series, and that is fine: both transliterate the same way on signs and maps.
What matters is knowing they exist — otherwise you wonder why two different signs give the same sound.
Cheat sheet
The consonants
Thirty-three signs arranged by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips. Each carries an "a" that only a vowel sign or the virama replaces.
| ක | ka | k | the sound k, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඛ | kha | kh | the sound kh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ග | ga | g | the sound g, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඝ | gha | gh | the sound gh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඞ | nga | ng | the sound ng, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ච | cha | ch | the sound ch, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඡ | chha | chh | the sound chh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ජ | ja | j | the sound j, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඣ | jha | jh | the sound jh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඤ | nya | ny | the sound ny, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ට | ta | t | the sound t, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඨ | tha | th | the sound th, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඩ | da | d | the sound d, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඪ | dha | dh | the sound dh, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ණ | na | n | the sound n, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ත | ta | t | the sound t, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ථ | tha | th | the sound th, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ද | da | d | the sound d, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ධ | dha | dh | the sound dh, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| න | na | n | the sound n, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ප | pa | p | the sound p, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ඵ | pha | ph | the sound ph, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| බ | ba | b | the sound b, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| භ | bha | bh | the sound bh, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ම | ma | m | the sound m, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ය | ya | y | the sound y, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ර | ra | r | the sound r, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ල | la | l | the sound l, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ව | va | v | the sound v, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ශ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ෂ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ස | sa | s | the sound s, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| හ | ha | h | the sound h, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ළ | la | l | a retroflex l |
| ඹ | mba | mb | a b with its nasal in front, in a single sign |
| ඟ | nga | ng | a g with its nasal in front |
| ඳ | nda | nd | a d with its nasal in front |
The full vowels
Fifteen signs, used when the vowel has no consonant to carry it — at the start of a word, most often. Everywhere else the vowel sign does the work.
| අ | a plein | a | the sound a, when no consonant carries it |
| ආ | a plein longue | a | the sound a long, when no consonant carries it |
| ඇ | ae plein | ae | the sound ae, when no consonant carries it |
| ඈ | ae plein longue | ae | the sound ae long, when no consonant carries it |
| ඉ | i plein | i | the sound i, when no consonant carries it |
| ඊ | i plein longue | i | the sound i long, when no consonant carries it |
| උ | u plein | u | the sound u, when no consonant carries it |
| ඌ | u plein longue | u | the sound u long, when no consonant carries it |
| ඍ | ri plein | ri | the sound ri, when no consonant carries it |
| එ | e plein | e | the sound e, when no consonant carries it |
| ඒ | e plein longue | e | the sound e long, when no consonant carries it |
| ඓ | ai plein | ai | the sound ai, when no consonant carries it |
| ඔ | o plein | o | the sound o, when no consonant carries it |
| ඕ | o plein longue | o | the sound o long, when no consonant carries it |
| ඖ | au plein | au | the sound au, when no consonant carries it |
The vowel signs
Fourteen signs that sit around the consonant and replace its "a". Some are drawn to its left but read after it: it is the rendering that moves them, not the reading.
| ා | signe a long | a | the sound a long, set on the consonant |
| ැ | signe ae | ae | the sound ae, set on the consonant |
| ෑ | signe ae long | ae | the sound ae long, set on the consonant |
| ි | signe i | i | the sound i, set on the consonant |
| ී | signe i long | i | the sound i long, set on the consonant |
| ු | signe u | u | the sound u, set on the consonant |
| ූ | signe u long | u | the sound u long, set on the consonant |
| ෘ | signe ri | ri | the sound ri, set on the consonant |
| ෙ | signe e | e | the sound e, set on the consonant |
| ේ | signe e long | e | the sound e long, set on the consonant |
| ෛ | signe ai | ai | the sound ai, set on the consonant |
| ො | signe o | o | the sound o, set on the consonant |
| ෝ | signe o long | o | the sound o long, set on the consonant |
| ෞ | signe au | au | the sound au, set on the consonant |
The marks
Three, and the last is the most useful: the virama silences the inherent vowel, which is how a lone consonant or two consonants in a row get written.
| ං | anusvara | n | nasalises the vowel before it |
| ඃ | visarga | h | a breath at the end of a syllable |
| ් | hal kirima | silences the inherent vowel: ක් is "k", not "ka" |
The words on signs
| ලංකා | lanka | Lanka |
| කොළඹ | kolamba | Colombo |
| නගරය | nagaraya | city |
| පාර | para | road |
| ගම | gama | village |
| ස්ථානය | sthanaya | station |
| විහාරය | viharaya | temple |
| උතුරු | uturu | north |
| දකුණු | dakunu | south |
| නැගෙනහිර | naegenahira | east |
| බස්නාහිර | basnahira | west |
| මාවත | mavata | avenue |