LingoflySinhala alphabet
The Sinhala alphabet is the Sinhala script: 59 letters. 18 vowels, 41 consonants, 14 vowel signs and 3 other marks; a consonant already contains an “a”. The characters are grouped: the twelve vowels you need, two diphthongs — and four from sanskrit, twenty consonants of “pure sinhala”. Every character on this page can be played: the sound is stored as a file and does not depend on the voices installed on your system.
All 59 letters in one list
අ, ආ, ඇ, ඈ, ඉ, ඊ, උ, ඌ, ඍ, ඎ, ඏ, ඐ, එ, ඒ, ඓ, ඔ, ඕ, ඖ, ක, ඛ, ග, ඝ, ඞ, ඟ, ච, ඡ, ජ, ඣ, ඤ, ඥ, 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
The tables on this page also include කා, කැ, කෑ, කි, කී, කු, කූ, කෘ, කෙ, කේ, කෛ, කො, කෝ, කෞ, ක්, කං and කඃ: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet.
The twelve vowels you need
A separate vowel letter stands only at the beginning of a word: inside it the vowels are written as signs. Every short one has a long pair, and the length changes the meaning.
Two diphthongs — and four from Sanskrit
The diphthongs ඓ ඖ (“ai”, “au”) are not common. The last four (ඍ ඎ ඏ ඐ) are met almost never. These are the Sanskrit syllabic “r” and “l”, left in the table for completeness.
Twenty consonants of “pure Sinhala”
Shuddha sinhaala is what native words are written with. Having learned these twenty, you read almost any sign: everything else in the script is needed for Sanskrit and Pali borrowings.
- කkaka-yanna
- ගgaga-yanna
- චchacha-yanna
- ජjaja-yanna
- ටttamurdhaja-ta-yanna
- ඩddamurdhaja-da-yanna
- ණnnamurdhaja-na-yanna
- තtadantaja-ta-yanna
- දdadantaja-da-yanna
- නnadantaja-na-yanna
- පpapa-yanna
- බbaba-yanna
- මmama-yanna
- යyaya-yanna
- රrara-yanna
- ලladantaja-la-yanna
- වvava-yanna
- සsadantaja-sa-yanna
- හhaha-yanna
- ළllamurdhaja-la-yanna
Aspirates and Sanskrit letters
Misra sinhaala. The aspirates (ඛ ඝ ඡ ඣ ඨ ඪ ථ ධ ඵ භ) sound like their plain pairs in everyday speech: the puff is heard only in deliberately bookish reading. Reading them is a must; writing them is not.
- ඛkhamaha-ka-yanna
- ඝghamaha-ga-yanna
- ඞngkantu-na-yanna
- ඡchhamaha-cha-yanna
- ඣjhamaha-ja-yanna
- ඤnyataaluja-na-yanna
- ඥgntaaluja-sanyoga-naasikyaya
- ඨtthamaha-murdhaja-ta-yanna
- ඪddhamaha-murdhaja-da-yanna
- ථthamaha-dantaja-ta-yanna
- ධdhamaha-dantaja-da-yanna
- ඵphamaha-pa-yanna
- භbhamaha-ba-yanna
- ශshataaluja-sa-yanna
- ෂsshamurdhaja-sa-yanna
- ෆfafa-yanna
Five half-nasal letters — a mark of Sinhala
One letter for a nasal shade plus a consonant: ඟ, ඦ, ඬ, ඳ, ඹ. Sanskrit has nothing of the kind, nor do the neighboring Tamils — this is what makes Sinhala Sinhala.
Pili — fourteen vowel signs
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.
Hal, bindu and visarga
Three signs that are not vowels. Hal kirima removes the vowel altogether, the bindu adds a nasal shade, the visarga has remained from Sanskrit.
What to know about this script
There are 59 letters: 18 vowels and 41 consonants, as in Unicode. School charts often say 60: sources differ by one consonant. The script descends from the Indian brahmi, like the scripts of India. The line runs left to right. There are no capital letters. The round shapes are the trace of a palm leaf. A straight line drawn with a stylus tore the leaf along its veins, so every line of Sinhala writing bends.
Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does
Sinhala letters are round because people wrote on palm leaves: a straight line cut with a stylus split the leaf along the grain and tore it. The explanation is accepted by everyone, but there is no direct proof of it — a reconstruction from the writing material, not a document.
K. D. Somadasa, «Lankāvē puskoḷa pot nāmāvaliya» (a catalogue of palm-leaf manuscripts of Sri Lanka); Richard Salomon, «Indian Epigraphy», 1998
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “a”?
The same sound already sits inside every consonant: ක is “ka”, not “k”. A separate letter is needed only at the beginning of a word
- Which character reads as “aae”?
The same open “a”, but long
- Which character reads as “u”?
The usual “u” as in “put”
- Which character reads as “rii”?
The long pair to ඍ; it almost never turns up in live text
- Which character reads as “e”?
Close “e”, like the first part of the “ay” in “day” without the glide
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- 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.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 59 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Sinhala alphabet?
59 letters — the Sinhala script: අ, ආ, ඇ, ඈ, ඉ, ඊ, උ, ඌ, ඍ, ඎ, ඏ, ඐ, එ, ඒ, ඓ, ඔ, ඕ, ඖ, ක, ඛ, ග, ඝ, ඞ, ඟ, ච, ඡ, ජ, ඣ, ඤ, ඥ, 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. The tables on this page also include කා, කැ, කෑ, කි, කී, කු, කූ, කෘ, කෙ, කේ, කෛ, කො, කෝ, කෞ, ක්, කං and කඃ: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet. There are no capital and small forms: the character is written the same way everywhere.
Can I listen to how the Sinhala letters sound?
Yes. 68 of the 76 signs on this page have sound: click a character to hear it. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.
How long does it take to learn the Sinhala alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.