ඓ (ai), ඖ (au) – rare, mainly in Sanskrit loans. 3.2 Consonants (Vyanjana) – ~40 Sinhala organizes consonants by place of articulation and voicing/aspiration . Velar (back of mouth) | Unvoiced unasp. | Unvoiced asp. | Voiced unasp. | Voiced asp. | Nasal | |----------------|---------------|---------------|--------------|-------| | ක (ka) | ඛ (kha) | ග (ga) | ඝ (gha) | ඞ (ṅa) | Palatal | ච (ca) | ඡ (cha) | ජ (ja) | ඣ (jha) | ඤ (ña) | Retroflex (tongue curled back) | ට (ṭa) | ඨ (ṭha) | ඩ (ḍa) | ඪ (ḍha) | ණ (ṇa) | Dental (tongue against teeth) | ත (ta) | ථ (tha) | ද (da) | ධ (dha) | න (na) | Labial (lips) | ප (pa) | ඵ (pha) | බ (ba) | භ (bha) | ම (ma) | Semivowels, sibilants, liquids | Letter | Sound | |--------|-------| | ය | ya | | ර | ra | | ල | la | | ව | va | | ශ | śa (palatal sh) | | ෂ | ṣa (retroflex sh) | | ස | sa (dental s) | | හ | ha | | ළ | ḷa (retroflex l) | 3.3 Diacritics (Pilli) Like Tamil, Sinhala vowels are attached to consonants as diacritics. Example with ක් (k + inherent a removed):
| Short | Long | IPA | |-------|------|-----| | அ (a) | ஆ (ā) | /a/, /aː/ | | இ (i) | ஈ (ī) | /i/, /iː/ | | உ (u) | ஊ (ū) | /u/, /uː/ | | எ (e) | ஏ (ē) | /e/, /eː/ | | ஐ (ai) | – | /aɪ/ | | ஒ (o) | ஓ (ō) | /o/, /oː/ | | ஔ (au) | – | /aʊ/ | tamil sinhala alphabet
| Feature | Tamil | Sinhala | |---------|-------|---------| | Language family | Dravidian | Indo-Aryan (related to Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi) | | Script type | Abugida (vowel diacritics attached to consonants) | Abugida (similar to Brahmic scripts) | | Direction | Left to right | Left to right | | Number of letters | 247 (12 vowels, 18 consonants, 1 special character, plus combined forms) | ~54–60 basic letters (plus many conjuncts and modifiers; total glyphs > 300) | | Notable feature | No aspirated or voiced consonants (e.g., no kha , ga separate from ka ) | Differentiates voiced, unvoiced, aspirated, and nasal sounds | | Official in | India (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry), Sri Lanka, Singapore | Sri Lanka | 2. The Tamil Alphabet (தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி) Tamil is known for its phonetic simplicity and syllabic structure . It avoids many distinctions found in other Indian scripts. 2.1 Vowels (Uyir Ezhuththu – "Soul Letters") – 12 Tamil vowels are independent forms and also appear as diacritics (called uyir kkurukkam or short modifiers) attached to consonants. ඓ (ai), ඖ (au) – rare, mainly in Sanskrit loans
