Tamil Sinhala Alphabet |best| Direct

| 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/ |

Both scripts emerged from the Southern Brahmi lineage , though they diverged over centuries to suit their respective phonetic needs. tamil sinhala alphabet

Tamil vowels are independent forms and also appear as diacritics (called uyir kkurukkam or short modifiers) attached to consonants. | Short | Long | IPA | |-------|------|-----|

| Feature | Tamil | Sinhala | |---------|-------|---------| | | 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 | 1 special character