Sinhala script
| Sinhalese alphabet සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව |
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|---|---|
| Type | |
| Languages | Sinhalese |
|
Time period
|
C. 700–present |
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Parent systems
|
Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
|
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Child systems
|
Dhives Akuru |
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Sister systems
|
Kannada script Malayalam script Tigalari script |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| ISO 15924 | Sinh, 348 |
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Unicode alias
|
Sinhala |
|
|
The Sinhalese alphabet (Sinhalese: සිංහල අක්ෂර මාලාව) (Siṁhala Akṣara Mālāva) is an alphabet used by the Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to write the Sinhalese language and also the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit. The Sinhalese alphabet, which is one of the Brahmic scripts, a descendant of the ancient Indian Brahmi script closely related to the South Indian Kadamba alphabet.
Sinhalese is often considered two alphabets, or an alphabet within an alphabet, due to the presence of two sets of letters. The core set, known as the śuddha siṃhala (pure Sinhalese, ශුද්ධ සිංහල) or eḷu hōḍiya (Eḷu alphabet එළු හෝඩිය ), can represent all native phonemes. In order to render Sanskrit and Pali words, an extended set, the miśra siṃhala (mixed Sinhalese, මිශ්ර සිංහල), is available.
The alphabet is written from left to right. The Sinhalese script is an abugida, as each consonant has an inherent vowel (/a/), which can be changed with the different vowel signs or removed (see image on left for examples).
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Wikipedia