Sinhalese is the language of the Sinhalese, the largest ethnic group of Sri Lanka. Sinhalese is classified as belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian sub-group of the Indo-European group of languages. Approximately 16 million people speak Sinhalese, most of whom live in Sri Lanka. The languages of government on the island formerly known as “Ceylon” are Sinhalese, Tamil and English. Sinhalese is closely related to the language Dhivehi spoken in the Maldives.
In this article you will read more about the Sinhalese alphabet. You will be introduced to the letters of this alphabet and will find helpful tips how to translate these into the Roman alphabet.
The Sinhalese alphabet is one of the South Indian alphabets. It is a so-called “Abugida” alphabet. Its letters originate from the Brahman script, whose oldest documents date back to the 3rd Century B.C. The Sinhalese alphabet comprises 58 letters of which 42 are consonants and 16 vowels.
The form of the alphabet was influenced by the South Indian Grantha script. To European eyes the letters might seem very ornate or even over the top, with some letters resembling an apple.
The reason for the ornate appearance of the Sinhalese letters is the consistency of Ola, young leaves from the Talipot Palm Tree that were used in ancient Sri Lanka as a sort of paper. The letters were cut into the leaves with metal tools. With letters with straight lines or angular forms there was a greater danger that the leaves would tear and curved letters were easier to carve, and so the angular letters of the original Brahmi script developed to the curved forms seen to day in Sinhalese. Every now and then it is possible to see this technique being used in today’s Sri Lanka.
Sinhalese is the only language in the world that uses the Sinhalese alphabet. Even for speakers of other Indian languages it is not easy to read. A characteristic of Sinhalese is that every consonant has its own vowel built into it. Every consonant contains the vowel “a” in its basic form, and the vowel is not written. If the consonant has another vowel behind it, a vowel sign is written into the consonant. The vowels are therefore not separate letters (except at the beginning of words) but instead added to the consonants and a part of the consonants.
The classical language Elu (Old Sinhalese) uses only a part of the Sinhalese alphabet (Elu hodiva). None the less, it is taught in its own right in Sri Lankan schools.
The full alphabet (Misra hodiva = mixed alphabet) includes letters that are only used for writing words borrowed from Sanskrit or Pali. These are mainly consonants that are usually no differently read as the unaspirated consonants of the Sinhalese language. For example for the Latin letter “f” a new letter was created.
When the written language is so different to the spoken language, then this is referred to by linguists as diglossia. The language is spoken differently to how it is written. The difference is apparent not only in vocabulary, but also in syntax and grammar.
The letters of the Sinhalese script are as follows:
We have prepared a PDF document for you here. In this PDF we will show you all the Sinhalese letters to learn and write.
We are delighted that you would like to learn Sinhalese. We have prepared some interesting links for you.: