Lingoflyඣ — maha-ja-yanna
«maha-ja-yanna» is a consonant of the Sinhala script, read as “jha”. Aspirated “jha”; it does not occur in Sinhala words. The Sinhala alphabet has 59 letters in total. In the alphabet it sits in the “aspirates and sanskrit letters” group.
In short
| Character | ඣ |
| Name | maha-ja-yanna |
| Sound | jha |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 28th of 76: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ජ and ඤ.
How to type ඣ
- On a phone: add the Sinhala keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0DA3 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0DA3.
- Unicode code point: U+0DA3. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
Aspirated “jha”; it does not occur in Sinhala words
The character in the “aspirates and sanskrit letters” group
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.
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 — 59 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 ඣ read?
As “jha” — it is a consonant of the Sinhala script. Aspirated “jha”; it does not occur in Sinhala words.
What is the letter ඣ called?
Maha-ja-yanna. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Sinhala script: it is called “maha-ja-yanna” and reads as “jha”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.