Sinhala (idea)

The Sinhala script, also known as Sinhalese, is used to write the Sinhala language, the majority language of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon. It is also used to write the Pali and Sanskrit languages. The script is a descendant of Brahmi from the Indo-Aryan language family and resembles the scripts of South India in form and structure, rather than the Dravidian languages which surround it geographically.

Sinhala differs from other languages of the region in that it has a series of pre-nasalized stops that are distinguished from the combination of a nasal followed by a stop. In other words, both forms occur and are written differently. In addition, Sinhala has separate distinct signs for both a short and long low front vowel sounding similar to the initial vowel of the English word apple, usually represented in IPA as U+00E6  æ  Latin small letter ae. The independent forms of these vowels are encoded as U+0D87 and U+0D88; the corresponding dependent forms are U+0DD0 and U+0DD1.

Because of these extra letters, the encoding for Sinhala does not precisely follow the pattern established for the other Indic scripts (e.g. Devanagari), but does use the same general structure, making use of phonetic order, matra reordering, and the use of the virama (U+0DCA  ්  Sinhala sign al lakuna) to indicate conjunct consonant clusters. Sinhala does not use half-forms in the Devanagari manner, but does use many ligatures.

The Sinhala script may also be used to write Tamil. In this case, some additional combinations may be required. Some letters, such as U+0DBB  ර  Sinhala letter rayanna   and U+0DB1  න  Sinhala letter dantaja nayanna, may be modified by adding the equivalent of a nukta, wwhich is not presently encoded in the Sinhala block, although it is available in the Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati and Oriya blocks.

Neither the Sinhala numerals nor U+0DF4  ෴  Sinhala punctuation kunddaliya   is in general use today, having been replaced by Western digits and Western-style punctuation. The kunddaliya was formerly used as a full stop; it is included for scholarly use. The Sinhala numerals are not presently encoded.

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Unicode's Sinhala code block reserves the 128 code points from U+0D80 to U+0DFF, of which 80 are currently assigned.

Malayalam <-- Sinhala --> Thai

All the characters in this code block were added in Unicode 3.0

Number of characters in each General Category :

Letter, Other            Lo : 59
Mark, Non-Spacing        Mn :  5
Mark, Spacing Combining  Mc : 15
Punctuation, Other       Po :  1

Number of characters in each Bidirectional Category :

Left To Right       L : 75
Non Spacing Mark  NSM :  5

The columns below should be interpreted as :

1. The Unicode code for the character
2. The character in question
3. The Unicode name for the character
4. The Unicode General Category for the character
5. The Unicode Bidirectional Category for the character

If the characters below show up poorly, or not at all, see Unicode Support for possible solutions.

 

Sinhala

     Various signs

U+0D82   ං   Sinhala sign anusvaraya Mc L

aka anusvara

U+0D83   ඃ   Sinhala sign visargaya Mc L

aka visarga

     Independent vowels

U+0D85   අ   Sinhala letter ayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter A

U+0D86   ආ   Sinhala letter aayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter aa

U+0D87   ඇ   Sinhala letter aeyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ae

U+0D88   ඈ   Sinhala letter aeeyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter aae

U+0D89   ඉ   Sinhala letter iyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter I

U+0D8A   ඊ   Sinhala letter iiyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ii

U+0D8B   උ   Sinhala letter uyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter U

U+0D8C   ඌ   Sinhala letter uuyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter uu

U+0D8D   ඍ   Sinhala letter iruyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter vocalic r

U+0D8E   ඎ   Sinhala letter iruuyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter vocalic rr

U+0D8F   ඏ   Sinhala letter iluyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter vocalic l

U+0D90   ඐ   Sinhala letter iluuyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter vocalic ll

U+0D91   එ   Sinhala letter eyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter E

U+0D92   ඒ   Sinhala letter eeyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ee

U+0D93   ඓ   Sinhala letter aiyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ai

U+0D94   ඔ   Sinhala letter oyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter O

U+0D95   ඕ   Sinhala letter ooyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter oo

U+0D96   ඖ   Sinhala letter auyanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter au

     Consonants

U+0D9A   ක   Sinhala letter alpapraana kayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ka

U+0D9B   ඛ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana kayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter kha

U+0D9C   ග   Sinhala letter alpapraana gayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ga

U+0D9D   ඝ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana gayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter gha

U+0D9E   ඞ   Sinhala letter kantaja naasikyaya Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nga

U+0D9F   ඟ   Sinhala letter sanyaka gayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nnga

U+0DA0   ච   Sinhala letter alpapraana cayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ca

U+0DA1   ඡ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana cayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter cha

U+0DA2   ජ   Sinhala letter alpapraana jayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ja

U+0DA3   ඣ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana jayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter jha

U+0DA4   ඤ   Sinhala letter taaluja naasikyaya Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nya

U+0DA5   ඥ   Sinhala letter taaluja sanyooga naaksikyaya Lo L

aka Sinhala letter jnya

U+0DA6   ඦ   Sinhala letter sanyaka jayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nyja

U+0DA7   ට   Sinhala letter alpapraana ttayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter tta

U+0DA8   ඨ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana ttayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ttha

U+0DA9   ඩ   Sinhala letter alpapraana ddayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter dda

U+0DAA   ඪ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana ddayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ddha

U+0DAB   ණ   Sinhala letter muurdhaja nayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nna

U+0DAC   ඬ   Sinhala letter sanyaka ddayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nndda

U+0DAD   ත   Sinhala letter alpapraana tayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ta

U+0DAE   ථ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana tayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter tha

U+0DAF   ද   Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter da

U+0DB0   ධ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana dayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter dha

U+0DB1   න   Sinhala letter dantaja nayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter na

U+0DB3   ඳ   Sinhala letter sanyaka dayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter nda

U+0DB4   ප   Sinhala letter alpapraana payanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter pa

U+0DB5   ඵ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana payanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter pha

U+0DB6   බ   Sinhala letter alpapraana bayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ba

U+0DB7   භ   Sinhala letter mahaapraana bayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter bha

U+0DB8   ම   Sinhala letter mayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ma

U+0DB9   ඹ   Sinhala letter amba bayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter mba

U+0DBA   ය   Sinhala letter yayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ya

U+0DBB   ර   Sinhala letter rayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ra

U+0DBD   ල   Sinhala letter dantaja layanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter la

* dental

U+0DC0   ව   Sinhala letter vayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter va

U+0DC1   ශ   Sinhala letter taaluja sayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter sha

U+0DC2   ෂ   Sinhala letter muurdhaja sayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ssa

* retroflex

U+0DC3   ස   Sinhala letter dantaja sayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter sa

* dental

U+0DC4   හ   Sinhala letter hayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter ha

U+0DC5   ළ   Sinhala letter muurdhaja layanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter lla

* retroflex

U+0DC6   ෆ   Sinhala letter fayanna Lo L

aka Sinhala letter fa

     Sign

U+0DCA   ්   Sinhala sign al lakuna Mn NSM

aka virama

     Dependent vowel signs

U+0DCF   ා   Sinhala vowel sign aela pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign aa

U+0DD0   ැ   Sinhala vowel sign ketti aeda pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign ae

U+0DD1   ෑ   Sinhala vowel sign diga aeda pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign aae

U+0DD2   ි   Sinhala vowel sign ketti is pilla Mn NSM

aka Sinhala vowel sign i

U+0DD3   ී   Sinhala vowel sign diga is pilla Mn NSM

aka Sinhala vowel sign ii

U+0DD4   ු   Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa pilla Mn NSM

aka Sinhala vowel sign u

U+0DD6   ූ   Sinhala vowel sign diga paa pilla Mn NSM

aka Sinhala vowel sign uu

U+0DD8   ෘ   Sinhala vowel sign gaetta pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign vocalic r

U+0DD9   ෙ   Sinhala vowel sign kombuva Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign e

U+0DDA   ේ   Sinhala vowel sign diga kombuva Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign ee

U+0DDB   ෛ   Sinhala vowel sign kombu deka Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign ai

     Two-part dependent vowel signs
These vowel signs have glyph pieces which stand on both sides of the consonant; they follow the consonant in logical order, and should be handled as a unit for most processing.

U+0DDC   ො   Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa aela pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign o

U+0DDD   ෝ   Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa diga aela pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign oo

U+0DDE   ෞ   Sinhala vowel sign kombuva haa gayanukitta Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign au

     Dependent vowel sign

U+0DDF   ෟ   Sinhala vowel sign gayanukitta Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign vocalic l

     Additional dependent vowel signs

U+0DF2   ෲ   Sinhala vowel sign diga gaetta pilla Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign vocalic rr

U+0DF3   ෳ   Sinhala vowel sign diga gayanukitta Mc L

aka Sinhala vowel sign vocalic ll

     Punctuation

U+0DF4   ෴   Sinhala punctuation kunddaliya Po L

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