ී — dirga is-pilla
«dirga is-pilla» is diacritic of Sinhala, the “the Sinhala script” script, read as “-ii”. Long “i”: කී — “kii”. The Sinhala alphabet has 76 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. On a carrier the character looks like this: කී. It appears, for example, in the word “සීනි” — sugar.
In short
| Character | ී |
| Name | dirga is-pilla |
| Sound | -ii |
| What it is | diacritic |
| On the carrier | කී |
In our course the character comes 64th of 76: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ි and ු, appears in 327 words of this site.
How it sounds
Long “i”: කී — “kii”
The character in the “pili — fourteen vowel signs” group
Shown on ක (ka): on its own a vowel sign is not written. From කා the “k” has to be subtracted in one’s head — and the very vowel the sign means remains. One of them, kombuva (ෙ), is written to the left of the letter although it sounds after it.
Words with this character
- සීනිsīnisugar
- කීයද?kīyada?how much is it?
- මුළු ගාන කීයද?muḷu gāna kīyada?how much in total?
- පිරිසිදු කිරීමpirisidu kirīmacleaning
- රෙදි සේදීමredi sēdīmalaundry
- ලේ පරීක්ෂාවlē parīkṣāvablood test
- පොලීසියට කතා කරන්නpolīsiyaṭa katā karannacall the police
- සීතලයිsītalayicold (weather)
- ග්රීෂ්ම කාලයgrīṣma kālayasummer
- ශීත කාලයśīta kālayawinter
- ෆ්රීfrīfree (not busy)
- බිසීbisībusy
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound, see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 76 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Sinhala character ී read?
As “-ii” — it is diacritic of the “the Sinhala script” script. Long “i”: කී — “kii”.
What is the letter ී called?
Dirga is-pilla. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Sinhala script: it is called “dirga is-pilla” and reads as “-ii”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.