Sinhala to International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) Transliteration Scheme - in progress

Vowels

Consonants

Consonant Clusters

Objective

Provide a transliteration scheme between Sinhala and the International Phonetic Alphabet to allow non-Sinhala speakers to identify the phonemes associated with Sinhala letters.

Clarification

When a Sinhala consonant is part of a word, the inherent vowel is a 'ə' (schwa). So a 'ක', when it is part of a word, is transliterated to a 'kə'. There are two exceptions to this rule.

1. When the Sinhala consonant is the first letter of a word, the inherent vowel is a 'ʌ' (caret). So a 'ක', when it is the first letter of a word is transliterated to a 'kʌ'.
2. When one is simply referring to the letter by itself, the inherent vowel is a 'ʌ' (caret). So the letter 'ක' is transliterated to a 'kʌ'.

Revision History

Revision Log

References

• http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
• http://www.wordiq.com/definition/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_for_English
• http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/unicode_ipa-chart.htm
• http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm