Sinhala/1.2

To see the standard Sinhalese alphabet go to this appendix.

=The alphabet and its evolution= The above alphabet is the standard alphabet for Sinhalese. There are 18 vowels and 42 consonants in this modern alphabet. It has been using as the standard alphabet by Sri lankan National Institute of Education (NIE) since 1989. The first documentation of the Sinhala alphabet is found in the journal "Sidhath Sangarawa" (සිදත් සඟරාව; meaning, "The Journal of Theories") which was written in medieval Sinhala in the age of Dambadeniya (1220–1345). Known as "Sidhath Sangara Hodiya" (සිදත් සඟරා හෝඩිය; meaning, "The Alphabet of The Journal of Theories"). There are only 10 vowels and 20 consonants in this alphabet. It evolved to the modern Sinhala alphabet.

=How to pronounce= Try to memorize the letters and the sounds of each letter. 'අ' is the only letter in Sinhalese which can be pronounced in two ways. It is explained in the highlighted part of the previous lesson. Sound ə is never pronounced with the letter 'අ' which is always written in the beginning of a word, but with a consonant which has joined with the vowel sound of 'අ'. So, it is called "letter 'අ' (IPA: ʌ)". 'ඏ' and 'ඐ' are letters that are currently not in use, still the National Institute of Education hasn't removed them from the alphabet. All other vowels are just very simple and easy to understand. Listen to the audio files and practice to pronounce them.

Consonants
In the following table, the IPA for each consonant is shown without the inherent vowel for clarity. Note: in English, voiceless stops (/k, t, p/) are pronounced aspirated at the start of words when followed immediately by a vowel: cat /kʰæt/, tap /tʰæp/, pack /pʰæk/. Aspiration has been lost in modern Sinhala, so now the aspirated consonants are pronounced identically to their non-aspirated counterparts.