Sinhala Letters: Intro

Hello, everyone! Today's post is a revised edition of the 08/12/2022 post (now archived). I will be introducing the Sinhala alphabet and its pronunciation here. However, this isn't the entire thing you need to know to read and write Sinhala letters, as vowels are used with diacritics (vowel symbols) unlike in Latin script (like English). Let's get started.

Vowels

Below is a table of the vowels in Sinhala, there are 18 of them. However, for your much relief, two of them are no longer used in common life. I have highlighted them for you.

අ	ආ	ඇ	ඈ	ඉ	ඊ
උ	ඌ	ඍ	ඎ	ඏ	ඐ
එ	ඒ	ඓ	ඔ	ඕ	ඖ

Now we need to learn how to pronounce these. Please refer to the table below for that. I have added the phonetic sound as well as an English phrase that includes the sound.

අ	ʌ	up
ආ	ɑː	father
ඇ	ae	cat
ඈ	aeː	Anne
ඉ	i	it
ඊ	ii	meat
උ	u	put
ඌ	uu	loop
ඍ	ru	fruit
ඎ	ruu	broom
ඏ	li	-
ඐ	liː	-
එ	e	bed
ඒ	eː	ate
ඓ	ai	night
ඔ	o	not
ඕ	oː	note
ඖ	au	foul

Sounds and Consonants

Now that we have covered the vowels, let's move on to the remainder. Don't get scared when I say sounds, because they are pretty much like vowels, but catergorised outside them (highlighted in blue). Learning the consonants are much easier because, much of these sounds are light and heavy versions of the same sound. Also, please note that the soiltary letter in pink is a letter used, but not in the alphabet.

අං	අඃ
ක	ඛ	ග	ඝ	ඞ	ඟ
ච	ඡ	ජ	ඣ	ඤ	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
ඥ

Now that the consonants are covered, let's see how to pronounce them. Some sounds might not be used in English, so it might not have examples, however, I have included instructions for those. Please note that the letter sounds are written with the inherent vowel 'a' sound (අ) and the examples only refer to the pure consonant pronunciations. Let's crack on.

අං	ŋ	ring
අඃ	Voiceless Aspirant	-
ක	ka	kind
ඛ	χa	clock
ග	ga	gamma
ඝ	gʰa	ghost
ඞ	ŋ	ring
ඟ	ᵑɡa	younger
ච	t͡ʃa	chat
ඡ	t͡ʃaʰ	as above, aspirant
ජ	d͡ʒa	jump
ඣ	d͡ʒa	as above, aspirant
ඤ	ɲa	piñata
ඦ	nd͡ʒa	jump (nasal)
ට	ʈa	top
ඨ	ʈa	as above, aspirant
ඩ	ɖa	dock
ඪ	ɖa	as above, aspirant
ණ	ɳa	noise
ඬ	ᶯɖa	dock (nasal)
ත	t̪a	sloth
ථ	t̪aʰ	as above, aspirant
ද	d̪a	Dhamma
ධ	d̪aʰ	as above, aspirant
න	na	name
ඳ	ⁿda	Dhamma (nasal)
ප	pa	pen
ඵ	pʰa	as above, aspirant
බ	ba	bond
භ	bʰa	as above, aspirant
ම	ma	mode
ඹ	ᵐba	bond (nasal)
ය	ja	yes
ර	ra	road
ල	la	lead
ව	ʋa/va	vine
ශ	sa	shop
ෂ	sa	shop
ස	sa	stop
හ	ha	happy
ළ	la	luck
ෆ	fa	fun
&nbsp
ඥ	gna	piñata (dental)

Ok, so that's it. You have completly gone through the individual pronunciations of the Sinhala Alphabet. You might have found repititive or largely similar sounds, but that is part of the richness of the language (and there are some grammer reasons behind that too). Find the full alphabet here (I didn't skip any letter. I mean the whole alphabet without the seperation). So, untill next time, have a great time!