Helabasa Sinhala Keyboard Help

Overview

This keyboard lets you type in Sinhala (Sinhalese). It works in a similar way to the Wijesekara Sinhala typewriter, so people who are used to typing in Sinhala will find it easy to use. It works with a normal English (QWERTY) keyboard.

If a special font is needed for this language, most computers will download it automatically.

Using this Keyboard

Quickstart

This keyboard is based on the Sinhala typewriter. There are separate keys for consonants and vowels. As most Sinhala characters are made up of both consonant and vowel parts, each part needs to be typed separately, and they will be combined automatically. You should type the characters in the same order that they would be written on paper.

For example, typing c will produce the vowel ඉ. If this vowel is combined with a consonant, though, such as කි, the vowel part ි is typed with s after the consonant has been typed. If you press Backspace once, only the vowel part will be erased, and you can type a different vowel.

Examples

Keyboard Details

On the On Screen Keyboard you can see the 40 consonants ක ඛ ග ඝ ඞ හ ච ඡ ජ ඣ ඤ ට ඨ ඩ ඪ ණ ඬ ත ථ ද ධ න ඳ ප ඵ බ භ ම ඹ ය ර ල ව ළ ශ ෂ ස ඦ ඟ ෆ, the vowels අ ආ ඇ ඈ ඉ ඊ උ ඌ ඍ ඎ එ ඒ ‌ඓ ඔ ඕ ඖ ා ැ ෑ ි ී ු ූ ෘ ෲ ෙ ේ ෛ ො ෝ ෞ ං ඃ , and the ් ෴ marks. There are also numbers and punctuation marks.

When you type a consonant and a vowel part, the computer will automatically combine them to make one character. If you use the arrow keys to move through the text, you only need to press an arrow key once to move past each character. If you press Delete before (on the left of) a combined consonant and vowel, it will be erased completely, but if you press Backspace after a character, only the vowel part will be erased (even if you typed the vowel before the consonant).

Vowels

When you type consonants and vowel parts, you should follow the same order that the parts are written on paper with. Vowel parts that appear on the left of the consonant should be typed first, but all others should be typed after the consonant. If you type any of the independent vowels, they will not be combined with consonants.

All the consonants naturally include the vowel sound අ, so if you want to produce a consonant with no vowel, you need to add the ් mark. You can do this by typing a right after typing a consonant. After you have typed the ් mark, you cannot type a vowel to combine with that consonant.

Keystroke Examples

In the following table you can see examples of how to type the different vowels with the consonant ක. For a complete table of Sinhala characters and how to type them, click here.

Consonant	Vowel	Combined	Keystrokes		Consonant	Vowel	Combined	Keystrokes
ක	්	ක්	ka		ක	ඍ	කෘ	kD
	අ	ක	k			ඎ	කෲ	kDD
	ආ	කා	kd			එ	කෙ	fk
	ඇ	කැ	fka			ඒ	කේ	ffk
	ඈ	කෑ	fkd			‌ඓ	කෛ	fkda
	ඉ	කි	ks			ඔ	කො	fk[Ad];
	ඊ	කී	kS			ඕ	කෝ	k[Aj];
	උ	කු	kq			ඖ	කෞ	k[Ay];
	ඌ	කූ	kQ

Troubleshooting

Fonts

If you see squares when you type, or the Sinhala characters do not appear correctly, please read the KeymanWeb troubleshooting guide.

Problem Solving

If a vowel does not appear when you type it, make sure you have not typed another vowel already, or the ් mark. Also, some of the vowel parts will not appear until you have typed a consonant.

Further Resources

Other Internet Resources

Download Helabasa Sinhala Keyboard for Keyman Desktop

Sinhala Writing System at Omniglot.com
Sinhala Language at Wikipedia.org
Sinhala Script at Wikipedia.org

Technical Information

System Requirements

It is recommended that you use an English QWERTY hardware keyboard with this keyboard.

Unicode Version

This keyboard complies with Unicode 5.1

Keyboard Authorship

This keyboard was created by MyPC Computer Systems. For more information about keyboards produced by these developers, see http://www.helabasa.com. Tavultesoft gratefully acknowledges the contribution made by the authors in developing this keyboard and making it freely available for use with Keyman Desktop and KeymanWeb. Their effort assists in enabling people to communicate in their own language.

Copyright and Terms of Use

The Helabasa Sinhala Keyboard for Keyman Desktop and KeymanWeb is Copyright 2008 MyPC Computer Systems and Tavultesoft. It may be freely distributed and used, but must not be modified or adapted in any way without written permission from Tavultesoft.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY TAVULTESOFT PTY LTD "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL TAVULTESOFT PTY LTD BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.