How to read and say Sinhala
Letters, sounds and stress from Wikivoyage's Sinhala phrasebook. Then hear the phrases and practice them, free.
▶ Practice Sinhala phrasesThe Sinhala alphabet consist of vowels, consonants and diacritics. If a vowel sound occurs at the beginning of a word, the corresponding vowel letter is used. Vowel sounds that come after a consonant sound are usually denoted by the consonant letter + the necessary diacritic/s. An attempt has been made below to transliterate the Sinhala vowels and consonants with reasonable accuracy using Roman characters and some other signs.
Vowels
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Diacritics, using the symbol 'ə' instead of 'a'
As discussed under the heading Diacritics, if the first consonant of a word is followed by the vowel 'a', as in ක(ka), ග(ga), න(na) the 'a' sound might be pronounced as 'a' or as 'ə', in most cases it is pronounced as 'a'. It is difficult to know which one, except through usage. Eg. ක at the beginning of a word is mostly 'ka', but might also be a 'kə'. But nearly all subsequent consonants in the middle of a word that are accompanied by the vowel 'a' is pronounced as 'ə'. This gives the typical mumbling sound when sinhala is spoken. If the last consonant is accompanied by the vowel 'a', the 'a' sound is written using an 'ā', though in effect it is a short 'a' sound. Eg. ක as the last letter of a word is almost always pronounced 'kə', while 'ka' is written 'කා', though pronounced as a short 'ka'. Though this helps to resolve the ambiguity between 'a' and 'ə' at the end of a word, it creates another ambiguity when it comes to the ending 'ā' sound, as it can be a short 'a' or a long 'ā' as mentioned further below. essentially a 'කා' might be a short 'ka' or a long 'kā'. But that is not too bad, as the pronunciation difference between the real 'ā' and an 'a' as the last vowel is minimal. The 'ā' sound, though pronounced distinctly as a long sound at the beginning or in the middle of a word, at the end of the words are never pronounced as long 'ā' sounds, anyway. |
- අ - a
- short version of the following; like 'u' in "cut" in some pronunciations
- ආ - ā
- close to 'a' in "father”
- ඇ - A
- short version of the following
- ඈ - Ā
- like 'a' in "bad”
- ඉ - i
- like 'y' in "happy"
- ඊ - ī
- like 'ee' in "feel" (long version of the preceding)
- එ - e
- like 'e' in "bed"
- ඒ - ē
- like 'a' in "table" in pronunciations without the diphthong (long version of the preceding)
- ඔ - o
- close ‘o’ sound; short version of the following
- ඕ - ō
- long close ‘o’ sound; like 'o' in "note" in pronunciations without the diphthong
- උ - u
- close to 'u' in "put" (short version of the following)
- ඌ - ū
- like 'u' in "flute"
- ඓ - ai
- like 'i' in "like" (NOT like 'ai' in "wait")
- ඖ - au
- like 'ow' in "how" (NOT like ‘au’ in "automatic")
- ඍ - ru/ri
- many pronounce it like 'ri' in "ridge"
- ඎ - rū/rī
- many pronounce it like 'ree' in "reel"
- අං - aNG
- nasal sound like 'un' in "uncle"
- අඃ - aH
- guttural sound like 'ah' in "aha!" (NOT like 'ah' in "ah!")
Consonants
- ක - k
- like 'k' in "kite"
- ඛ - K
- somewhat close to ‘ckh' in "blackhead" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘k’ in everyday speech)
- ග - g
- like 'g' in "gum"
- ඝ - G
- somewhat close to 'g h' in "big hat" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘g’ in everyday speech)
- ච - ch
- like 'ch' in "chat"
- ඡ - CH
- somewhat close to 'ch h' in "church hymn" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘ch’ in everyday speech)
- ජ - j
- like 'j' in "jam"
- ඣ - J
- somewhat close to 'dge h' in "judge him" (aspirated version of the preceding – used only in writing some words of Pali origin)
- ට - t
- retroflex ‘t’; somewhat close to 't' in "cat"
- ඨ - T
- somewhat close to 't h' in "cat hops" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘t’ in everyday speech)
- ඩ - d
- retroflex ‘d’; somewhat close to 'd' in "bad"
- ඪ - D
- somewhat close to 'd H' in "Mad Hatter" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘d’ in everyday speech)
- ත - th
- dental ‘t’; somewhat close to 'th' in "thin"
- ථ - TH
- somewhat close to ‘th h’ in “bath house” (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘th’ in everyday speech)
- ද - dh
- dental ‘d’; somewhat close to 'th' in "this"
- ධ - DH
- somewhat close to 'th h' in "with him" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘dh’ in everyday speech)
- ප - p
- like 'p' in "tap"
- ඵ - P
- somewhat close to 'p h' in "top hat" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘p’ in everyday speech)
- බ - b
- like 'b' in "cab"
- භ - B
- somewhat close to 'b h' in "grab him" (aspirated version of the preceding – often reduced to ‘b’ in everyday speech)
- ම - m
- like 'm' in "him"
- ය - y
- like 'y' in "yard"
- ර - r
- like 'r' in "red"
- ව - v
- approximant ‘v’; somewhat close to 'v' in "van"
- ස - s
- like 's' in "side"
- ශ / ෂ - sh
- like 'sh' in "cash" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)
- න / ණ - n
- like 'n' in "can" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)
- ල / ළ - l
- like 'l' in "lake" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)
- හ - h
- like 'h' in "hat"
- ෆ - f
- like 'f' in "fan" (a letter to transcribe foreign words as the sound does not occur in Sinhala)
- ඟ - NG
- nasal sound like 'ng' in "singer"
- ඬ - ND
- nasal sound somewhat close to 'n d' in "can do"
- ඳ - NDH
- nasal sound somewhat close to 'n th' in "can they"
- ඹ - MB
- nasal sound somewhat close to 'mb' in "tomboy"
- ඤ / ඥ - GN
- nasal sound somewhat close to 'ny' in "canyon" (both Sinhala letters are pronounced alike today, but they are not interchangeable)
The ‘z’ sound, which is not found in Sinhala, is sometimes written 'zස' when transcribing foreign words. Similarly, some people tend to opt for 'fප' to denote the 'f' sound instead of using the letter 'ෆ'.
Diacritics
All stand-alone Sinhala consonant letters have the corresponding consonant sound + the inherent vowel sound ‘a’(see above) in them. However, in some syllables this inherent vowel sound is reduced to a schwa (i.e. the sound of 'a' in "about" or 'o' in “carrot”) and this transliteration will use the symbol 'ə' instead of 'a' to indicate this. When some other vowel sound is attached to a consonant sound – or when there is no vowel sound attached to it – marks called diacritics are added to the consonant letter to denote the combination – or to show the lack of an attached vowel sound. Here are some examples of how such diacritics are used.
| zero vowel | අ - a | ආ - ā | ඇ - A | ඈ - Ā | ඉ - i | ඊ - ī | එ - e | ඒ - ē | ඔ - o | ඕ - ō | උ - u | ඌ - ū | ඓ - ai | ඖ - au | ඍ - ru/ri | ඎ - rū/rī | අං - aNG | අඃ - aH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ම් - m | ම - ma/mə | මා - mā | මැ - mA | මෑ - mĀ | මි - mi | මී - mī | මෙ - me | මේ - mē | මො - mo | මෝ - mō | මු - mu | මූ - mū | මෛ - mai | මෞ - mau | මෘ - mru | මෲ - mrū | මං - maNG | මඃ - maH |
| ක් - k | ක - ka/kə | කා - kā | කැ - kA | කෑ - kĀ | කි - ki | කී - kī | කෙ - ke | කේ - kē | කො - ko | කෝ - kō | කු - ku | කූ - kū | කෛ - kai | කෞ - kau | කෘ - kru | කෲ - krū | කං - kaNG | කඃ - kaH |
As can be seen above, the diacritics differ between these two letters when there is no attached vowel sound as ‘ම්’/'ක්'; as well as for the vowel sounds in ‘මු’/කු and ‘මූ’/'කූ'. The other letters also follow either of these two patterns. Only the letter 'ර - ra/rə' has the completely erratic 'රු - ru'/'රූ - rū', which are not to be confused with 'රැ - rA'/'රෑ - rĀ'.
- Even when some words appear in writing with a long 'ā' sound at their end, it tends to be pronounced 'a' in everyday speech. For example, 'මිනිහා - minihā (man)' becomes 'මිනිහ - miniha' and 'දෙනවා - dhenəvā (give)' becomes 'දෙනව - dhenəva'. Similarly, in some words the long ‘ē’ sound at the end tends to turn into the short ‘e’ in speech. For example, 'මගේ – magē (my/mine)’ becomes ‘මගෙ – mage’ and ‘කරත්තේ – karaththē (cart)’ becomes ‘කරත්තෙ – karaththe’. In the phrases below, the colloquial short patterns have mostly been given to facilitate pronunciation. (However, this is rarely done in actual writing. It may be found in dialogue transcription in some novels.)
- There is a special letter that is used in some words to denote the sound ‘lu’: 'ළු - lu'
- The nasalized sound found in ‘මං’ or ‘කං’ occurs with other diacritics too, like in 'කෝං – kōNG' or 'මුං - muNG'.
- A vowel or a consonant with an attached vowel sound can stand alone as a syllable; or it can combine with a consonant having no attached vowel sound to make up a syllable together: 'අම්·මා - am·mā (mother)', 'බ·ලා·පො·රොත්·තු·ව - ba·lā·po·roth·thu·və (hope)'
- As may be clear from the above point, when a double consonant occurs, each one of them has to be pronounced separately (i.e. it has to be geminated) since they belong to two separate syllables, like in ‘එන්·න - en·nə’ (come).
- Sinhala is a rhotic language, so the letter ‘r’ should be pronounced even when it stands alone as 'ර් - r'.
Combined consonants
In certain words, some consonant combinations fuse into one character
- For certain consonants, the following diacritic can add the sound '-ra/-rə': 'ක්ර - kra/krə', ප්ර - pra/prə etc.
It can be combined with some other diacritics to denote the corresponding sounds: 'ක්රි - kri', 'ක්රෝ - krō' etc. So the ‘Sri’ in Sri Lanka, which actually should be pronounced ‘shrī' though most people do not, is written ‘ශ්රී’. - The sound '-ya/yə' is often combined with the preceding consonant if that consonant has no attached vowel sound: 'ව්ය - vya/vyə', 'ද්ය - dhya/dhyə' etc.
Some other diacritics can also be added to this combination, like 'ව්යූ - ‘vyū'. - Some consonant letters are written in an attached manner in some words, like 'ක්ෂ - ksha'.