Script guide › Brahmic / Indic
How to recognize Sinhala
Sinhala is one of 14 languages in Grafle's Brahmic / Indic group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Very round, plump curls with no top bar — many letters look like a letter C written forwards, backwards, or upside down.
What Sinhala looks like
සියලු මනුෂ්යයෝ නිදහස්ව උපත ලබා ඇත.
ආයුබෝවන්, ඔබට කොහොමද?
ශ්රී ලංකාව ලස්සන රටකි.
Brahmic / Indic scripts: The scripts of South and Southeast Asia — letters hang from top bars, curl into loops, or stack vowel marks above and below.
Where you'll see it on signs
- Sri Lanka
Easy to confuse with
- Malayalam — Both very round — Sinhala's curls are plumper, separate little spirals; Malayalam's run denser and more tangled.
- Tamil — Sinhala is plump and spiral-round; Tamil is squarer with bold angles and corners.
- Burmese — Both round: Burmese is nearly all closed circles ('bubble script'); Sinhala's curls open into hooks and tails.