Script guide › Brahmic / Indic
Burmese vs Sinhala
Burmese and Sinhala sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Brahmic / Indic group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.
The tell
Both round: Burmese is nearly all closed circles ('bubble script'); Sinhala's curls open into hooks and tails.
Side by side
Burmese
လူတိုင်းသည် လွတ်လပ်စွာနှင့် တန်းတူညီမျှစွာ မွေးဖွားလာကြသည်။
မင်္ဂလာပါ၊ နေကောင်းလား။
မြန်မာစာ လှပါသည်။
Burmese's own tells
- Almost everything is a circle or part of one — 'bubble script' is the classic nickname.
On signs in:
- Myanmar
Sinhala
සියලු මනුෂ්යයෝ නිදහස්ව උපත ලබා ඇත.
ආයුබෝවන්, ඔබට කොහොමද?
ශ්රී ලංකාව ලස්සන රටකි.
Sinhala's own tells
- Very round, plump curls with no top bar — many letters look like a letter C written forwards, backwards, or upside down.
On signs in:
- Sri Lanka