Sinhala Diacritics: Intro
26 August, 2023
This is a post from our old site. Original post is archived
here.
Hello everyone, this took longer than I wanted it to take. However, now that it's out, I hope you enjoy it. Here I will be introducing the diacritics. Don't be afraid of this scary sounding name, the principal is simple. In Sinhala, when adding a vowel to a consonant, we write the corresponding vowel symbol instead of writing the vowel. These are called 'pili' (පිලි) in Sinhala. But this doesn't apply when the vowel is a stand-alone sound. This wouldn't be a new concept if you know languages like Tamil, Hindi, Korean or even Hebrew. However, this won't be too hard.
Now if you are unfamiliar with the alphabet, I suggest you read the letter post beforehand, else you'd be very confused. I will add the vowels here for reference, though.
Vowels
| අ |
ආ |
ඇ |
ඈ |
ඉ |
ඊ |
| උ |
ඌ |
ඍ |
ඎ |
ඏ |
ඐ |
| එ |
ඒ |
ඓ |
ඔ |
ඕ |
ඖ |
Now that the vowels are introduced, let's get on with the diacritics. Now the default consonant used for examples usually is ක but since there are some variations in the diacritics, ම will also be used.
| Vowel |
Diacritic |
Example |
Sound |
| Pure form |
◌් |
ක් |
k |
| ම් |
m |
| අ |
Inherent |
ක |
kʌ |
| ආ |
◌ා |
කා |
kɑː |
| ඇ |
◌ැ |
කැ |
kae |
| ඈ |
◌ෑ |
කෑ |
kaeː |
| ඉ |
◌ි |
කි |
ki |
| ඊ |
◌ී |
කී |
kii |
| උ |
◌ු |
කු |
ku |
| මු |
mu |
| ඌ |
◌ූ |
කූ |
kuu |
| මූ |
muu |
| ඍ |
◌ෘ |
කෘ |
kru |
| ඎ |
◌ෲ |
කෲ |
kruu |
| ඏ |
Not Used |
| ඐ |
Not Used |
| එ |
ෙ |
කෙ |
ke |
| ඒ |
ේ |
කේ |
keː |
| ඓ |
ෛ |
කෛ |
kai |
| ඔ |
ො |
කො |
ko |
| ඕ |
ෝ |
කෝ |
koː |
| ඖ |
ෞ |
කෞ |
kau |
Now that the diacritic types are introduced, you must've noticed that two diacritics have two versions. So, to make sure you understand that correctly, I have added two tables of the consonants for you to know which one is which. Also, some consonants DO NOT have those diacritics, they are highlighted in Orange.
| |
Team ක් |
|
Team ම් |
|
No Pure Form |
| ක |
ඛ |
ග |
ඝ |
ඞ |
ඟ |
| ච |
ඡ |
ජ |
ඣ |
ඤ |
ඦ |
| ට |
ඨ |
ඩ |
ඪ |
ණ |
ඬ |
| ත |
ථ |
ද |
ධ |
න |
ඳ |
| ප |
ඵ |
බ |
භ |
ම |
ඹ |
| ය |
ර |
ල |
ව |
| ශ |
ෂ |
ස |
හ |
ළ |
ෆ |
| |
| ඥ |
| |
Team කු & කූ |
|
Team මු & මූ |
|
|
Weirds |
| ක |
ඛ |
ග |
ඝ |
ඞ |
ඟ |
| ච |
ඡ |
ජ |
ඣ |
ඤ |
ඦ |
| ට |
ඨ |
ඩ |
ඪ |
ණ |
ඬ |
| ත |
ථ |
ද |
ධ |
න |
ඳ |
| ප |
ඵ |
බ |
භ |
ම |
ඹ |
| ය |
ර |
ල |
ව |
| ශ |
ෂ |
ස |
හ |
ළ |
ෆ |
| |
| ඥ |
| ර + උ |
◌ු |
රු |
ru |
| ර + ඌ |
◌ූ |
රූ |
ruu |
| ළ + උ |
◌ු |
ළු |
lu |
| ළ + ඌ |
◌ූ |
ළූ |
luu |
| |
Team ඍ & ඎ |
|
Team ඍ Only |
|
Not Applicable |
| ක |
ඛ |
ග |
ඝ |
ඞ |
ඟ |
| ච |
ඡ |
ජ |
ඣ |
ඤ |
ඦ |
| ට |
ඨ |
ඩ |
ඪ |
ණ |
ඬ |
| ත |
ථ |
ද |
ධ |
න |
ඳ |
| ප |
ඵ |
බ |
භ |
ම |
ඹ |
| ය |
ර |
ල |
ව |
| ශ |
ෂ |
ස |
හ |
ළ |
ෆ |
| |
| ඥ |
Ok guys, that's it. Really. Pretty easy right? Eh... Maybe not. Regardless, keep on practicing because there are some weird ones too. Ones I will post soon, but so weird that even I need to read twice sometimes. Also, make sure you pay close attention to the letters because some of them look really (really) similar but have very different sounds (එ,ඵ and ළු are very different letters). Full alphabet here. Until next time, keep learning!
