Things to know about Sinhala

Sinhala is the official language of Sri Lanka. It is a member of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.

Typing Sinhala Characters

Sinhala is written in a syllabic alphabet, meaning that each character represents a consonant sound followed by an inherent vowel sound, which can be changed by adding diacritic marks. Vowels can also appear independently at the beginning of syllables. Sinhala text is written from left to right, like English.

To type Sinhala characters:

1. Position your cursor somewhere where you can type, and verify that the virtual keyboard layout is set to Sinhala.
2. Locate the character you want on the virtual keyboard, then click on it or press the corresponding key on your physical keyboard. Additional characters are available by holding down the Shift key. See Typing special scripts for details.

Using Transliterated Sinhala Content

You may have some transliterated Sinhala content in addition to content which uses the actual Sinhala characters. Transliterated content can help you master vocabulary and pronunciation before tackling a new writing system.

You do not have to type actual Sinhala characters in transliterated Sinhala content. You can type the transliterations anywhere typed answers are required.

The transliterated Sinhala content may use a variety of special characters to indicate tone. See Typing accents or special characters for instructions on typing these characters.

See also:

• Typing special scripts
• Typing accents or special characters
• Language-specific information

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