Mediaeval Sinhalese Art c3.29

c3.29

The English reader is recommended to ignore all diacritical marks on consonants, pronounce consonants as in English, and vowels as in French, except ‘e’ which is like ‘a’ in *man*. The *n* in Sinhalese (*siṃhala*) is pronounced like the *n* in *pink*, or, more exactly, like the *n* in the French word, *bon*. The *h* should be distinctly pronounced, like the *h* in *pin-head*. A few fully anglicised words such as *adigar* for *adikārama*, are printed without diacritical marks. In Sinhalese words the common contraction ‘e’ (or ‘e’*) for *aya* is used side by side with the full termination, as in *ḍaṅge, ḍaṅgaya*. The ending *ya* is also often omitted, as in *vihāra*, for *vihāraya*, a Buddhist temple. The corruption ‘e’ for *aya* in *devāle* (*deva+alaya*, god-mansion) is also used. Sinhalese words in the plural are usually given in the Sinhalese form, as *tuppoṭi*, plural of *tuppoṭiya*; but the English ‘s’ is sometimes added instead.