| Feature | Tamil | Sinhala | |---------|-------|---------| | Language family | Dravidian | Indo-Aryan (related to Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi) | | Script type | Abugida (vowel diacritics attached to consonants) | Abugida (similar to Brahmic scripts) | | Direction | Left to right | Left to right | | Number of letters | 247 (12 vowels, 18 consonants, 1 special character, plus combined forms) | ~54–60 basic letters (plus many conjuncts and modifiers; total glyphs > 300) | | Notable feature | No aspirated or voiced consonants (e.g., no kha , ga separate from ka ) | Differentiates voiced, unvoiced, aspirated, and nasal sounds | | Official in | India (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry), Sri Lanka, Singapore | Sri Lanka | 2. The Tamil Alphabet (தமிழ் அரிச்சுவடி) Tamil is known for its phonetic simplicity and syllabic structure . It avoids many distinctions found in other Indian scripts. 2.1 Vowels (Uyir Ezhuththu – "Soul Letters") – 12 Tamil vowels are independent forms and also appear as diacritics (called uyir kkurukkam or short modifiers) attached to consonants.
| Short | Long | IPA | |-------|------|-----| | அ (a) | ஆ (ā) | /a/, /aː/ | | இ (i) | ஈ (ī) | /i/, /iː/ | | உ (u) | ஊ (ū) | /u/, /uː/ | | எ (e) | ஏ (ē) | /e/, /eː/ | | ஐ (ai) | – | /aɪ/ | | ஒ (o) | ஓ (ō) | /o/, /oː/ | | ஔ (au) | – | /aʊ/ | tamil sinhala alphabet
| Consonant + vowel | Tamil | Sound | |------------------|-------|-------| | க் + அ | க | ka | | க் + ஆ | கா | kā | | க் + இ | கி | ki | | க் + ஈ | கீ | kī | | … and so on | | | Sinhala is more complex. It distinguishes voiced/unvoiced , aspirated/unaspirated , and has conjunct consonants (like Sanskrit). Sinhala uses two main sets: Shuddha Sinhala (pure Sinhala, ~54 letters) and Miśra Sinhala (additional letters for Sanskrit/Pali loans). 3.1 Vowels (Swara) – 14 basic (each with short/long) | Short | Long | IPA | |-------|------|-----| | අ (a) | ආ (ā) | /a/, /aː/ | | ඉ (i) | ඊ (ī) | /i/, /iː/ | | උ (u) | ඌ (ū) | /u/, /uː/ | | එ (e) | ඒ (ē) | /e/, /eː/ | | ඔ (o) | ඕ (ō) | /o/, /oː/ | | – | ඇ (æ) | /æ/ (like a in cat ) | | – | ඈ (ǣ) | /æː/ | | Feature | Tamil | Sinhala | |---------|-------|---------|
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