Phonology
- The presence of so-called prenasalized consonants. A very short homorganic nasal is added before a voiced plosive. The nasal is syllabified with the onset of the following syllable, which means that the moraic weight of the preceding syllable is left unchanged.
- The pronunciation of unstressed short a as schwa ə, which otherwise has no written symbol.
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n̪ | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | ||
Plosive | p | t̪ | ʈ | tʃ | k | ||
b | d̪ | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | |||
ᵐb | ⁿ̪d̪ | ᶯɖ | ᵑɡ | ||||
Fricative | (f) | s | (ʃ) | h | |||
Rhotic | r | ||||||
Approximant | ʋ | l | j |
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Close | iː | i | uː | u | ||
Mid | eː | e | (ə) | oː | o | |
Open | æː | æ | aː | a |
Read more about this topic: Sinhala Language