Sinhala was traditionally written using its unique script, which evolved from the ancient Brahmi script. The oldest records of writing in Sri Lanka can be traced back to Brahmi, which gradually developed into the distinct Sinhala script used today. During its evolution, the Sinhala script was influenced by intermediary scripts such as Pallava and Grantha.
Today, Sinhala is one of the official languages of Sri Lanka and is widely used in everyday communication, literature, education, and cultural expression. It also plays a significant role in Buddhist religious texts and practices, making it an integral part of Sri Lanka's heritage.
The Sinhala alphabet is categorized into vowels (ස්වර අකුරු) and consonants (ව්යාඤ්ජන අකුරු). Additionally, traditional Sinhala includes specific numerals, though these are rarely used today, as they have been replaced by the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (0–9).
Below is a breakdown of the Vowels, Consonants, and Numerals in the Sinhala script.
In Sinhala, vowels are called ස්වර අකුරු (svara akuru). There are 14 main vowels in Sinhala, each characterized by its distinct sound. Additionally, Sinhala includes four traditional vowels—ඍ (r), ඎ (rr), ඏ (l), and ඐ (ll)—bringing the total number of vowels to 18.
Unlike in English, Sinhala vowels can exist as independent vowels (stand-alone letters) or as dependent vowels (diacritical marks attached to consonants). Dependent vowels modify consonants and cannot stand alone.
For example, අ in අග්නි (agni), meaning "fire," is an independent vowel. When the consonant ක (ka) combines with the vowel ආ (aa), it forms කා (kaa), where " ා" is the dependent vowel mark for "aa".
In Sinhala, consonants are called ව්යාඤ්ජන අකුරු (vyāñjana akuru). There are 36 modern consonants in Sinhala. Additionally, Sinhala includes 5 extra consonants that are primarily used in classical, religious, or Sanskrit-derived words. This brings the total number of consonants in Sinhala to 41.
Below are all the consonants used in Sinhala.
Sinhala also uses diacritic marks to indicate variations in vowel sounds and additional symbols like:
Including modern, traditional, and additional letters, there are a total of 59 letters in the Sinhala script. Of these, 18 are vowel letters, and the remaining 41 are consonants.
The development of the script is attributed to the Brahmi script, which was brought to Sri Lanka by Indian missionaries around the 3rd century BCE, during the reign of King Devanampiya Tissa.
In Sinhala, there are 18 vowel letters (ස්වර අකුරු / svara akuru) and 41 consonant letters (ව්යාඤ්ජන අකුරු / vyāñjana akuru).
In addition to these letters, Sinhala has its own traditional numeral system, which has largely fallen out of use in favor of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system (0-9).
As of the most recent estimates, Sinhala is spoken by approximately 17 million people worldwide. It is the official language of Sri Lanka and is spoken by the majority of the population, which is predominantly Sinhalese.
In addition to Sri Lanka, smaller communities of Sinhala speakers can be found in countries with Sri Lankan populations, such as in the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Australia.
Sinhala and Hindi share several similarities due to their common Indo-Aryan origin. Both languages belong to the Indo-European language family, which means they share some vocabulary and grammatical features.
Both languages have been significantly influenced by Sanskrit and have a history of borrowing words from other languages. For example, Hindi incorporates words from Persian, Arabic, and English, while Sinhala has borrowed from Tamil, Pali, English, and Sanskrit.
