Typing Guide

How it works

As you type a word in Latin letters, EasyAkuru shows a small candidate popup near the text caret with a live preview and, once enough letters make it ambiguous, numbered alternates. Pressing Space, Enter, Tab, a punctuation key, or a digit commits the word and replaces the Latin text already on screen with its Sinhala rendering. For example, typing mama gives මම, and api gives අපි.

Sinhala is an abugida: a consonant letter already carries a short "a" sound unless a vowel sign replaces it or a virama (hal kirīma, ්) removes it entirely. The rules below follow from that one idea.

The hal (virama) rule

Every consonant keeps its built-in "a" sound unless you type a vowel sign after it or it is followed by another consonant, punctuation, or the end of the word — in which case EasyAkuru automatically adds the virama (්) to cancel the vowel. You never type the virama yourself.

You type	Result	Why
`ka`	ක	consonant + inherent "a" (typed explicitly)
`k`	ක්	consonant with nothing after it: virama added automatically
`gaman`	ගමන්	word-final consonant with no vowel typed: virama added

The inherent vowel is never assumed for you — if you want ම you type ma, not just m. This matches Google Input Tools' and Helakuru's convention, and is why visin gives විසින් and ekak gives එකක්, while mama keeps both its inherent vowels and gives මම.

Independent vowels

Used at the start of a word, or when a vowel follows another vowel.

Latin	Sinhala	Latin	Sinhala
`a`	අ	`e`	එ
`aa`, `A`	ආ	`ee`, `E`	ඒ
`ae`	ඇ	`ai`	ඓ
`aae`, `Ae`	ඈ	`o`	ඔ
`i`	ඉ	`oo`, `O`	ඕ
`ii`, `I`	ඊ	`au`	ඖ
`u`	උ	`R`	ඍ (vocalic r)
`uu`, `U`	ඌ	`RR`	ඎ (long vocalic r)

Dependent vowel signs

Typed right after a consonant; they replace its inherent "a" (the "a" sign itself is never typed — it's the default). For example ki gives කි and koo gives කෝ.

After a consonant	Sign	After a consonant	Sign
`aa`, `A`	ා	`ee`, `E`	ේ
`ae`	ැ	`ai`	ෛ
`aae`, `Ae`	ෑ	`o`	ො
`i`	ි	`oo`, `O`	ෝ
`ii`, `I`	ී	`au`	ෞ
`u`	ු	`R`	ෘ (vocalic r, e.g. `kRShi` → කෘෂි)
`uu`, `U`	ූ	`RR`	ෲ (long vocalic r)

Consonants

Capital letters (T D N L Sh) are how you reach the retroflex sounds — English has no separate letters for dental vs. retroflex consonants, so capitalisation is the convention. A doubled letter is not a shortcut for these; it means gemination instead (see below), so type the capital deliberately.

Latin	Sinhala	Latin	Sinhala	Latin	Sinhala
`k`	ක	`t`, `T`	ට (retroflex)	`p`	ප
`kh`	ඛ	`th`	ත (dental)	`ph`	ඵ
`g`	ග	`thh`	ථ (dental aspirated)	`f`	ෆ
`gh`	ඝ	`Th`	ඨ (retroflex aspirated)	`b`	බ
`nG`	ඞ	`d`	ද (dental)	`bh`	භ
`ch`, `c`	ච	`dh`	ධ (dental aspirated)	`m`	ම
`chh`	ඡ	`D`	ඩ (retroflex)	`y`	ය
`j`	ජ	`Dh`	ඪ (retroflex aspirated)	`r`	ර
`jh`	ඣ	`N`	ණ (retroflex)	`l`	ල
`nY`	ඤ	`n`	න	`L`	ළ (retroflex)
`jny`	ඥ			`v`, `w`	ව
				`Sh`	ෂ (retroflex)
				`sh`	ශ
				`s`	ස
				`h`	හ
				`z`	ස (no native "z" sound; maps to ස)

ඞ/ඤ are spelled nG/nY, not ng/ny — plain n+g and n+y stay ordinary consonant clusters, because they're far more common (ballangee → බල්ලන්ගේ, saamaanya → සාමාන්‍ය).

Sanyaka (prenasalized) consonants

z is otherwise a stand-in for "s", so it's free to prefix the prenasalized stops.

Latin	Sinhala	Example
`zg`	ඟ
`zj`	ඦ
`zD`	ඬ
`zd`	ඳ	`hozda` → හොඳ (good)
`zb`	ඹ

Gemination (doubled consonants)

Doubling a consonant letter spells a genuine geminated consonant — a virama followed by a repeat of the same letter — rather than a shortcut to a retroflex sound. That's why the retroflex sounds have their own dedicated capital letters instead of doubled spellings.

You type	Result
`malli`	මල්ලි (younger brother)
`enne`	එන්නෙ

Conjuncts: rakāraṃśaya and yansaya

A consonant followed by r or y and then a vowel, mid-word, forms a conjunct: the virama is followed by a zero-width joiner and the conjunct consonant, instead of a plain cluster.

Pattern	You type	Result	Note
rakāraṃśaya (consonant + r + vowel)	`krama`	ක්‍රම	method
yansaya (consonant + y + vowel)	`vyaapaaraya`	ව්‍යාපාරය	business
ර + ය (no joiner)	`kaarya`	කාර්ය	work — repaya + ය is a plain cluster, not a yansaya
ර + ය (no joiner)	`aachaarya`	ආචාර්ය	teacher
ර + ය (no joiner)	`suurya`	සූර්ය	sun

Anusvara — `M`

Capital M adds the anusvara (ං) to the end of a syllable that already has its vowel — it attaches rather than replacing anything, unlike a dependent vowel sign.

You type	Result
`laMkaa`	ලංකා (Lanka)
`siMhala`	සිංහල (Sinhala)
`kM`	කං

Syllable break — `q`

q emits nothing; it just ends the current syllable, the same way punctuation would. It exists for the rare cases where the default conjunct/vowel reading is also a real spelling, so only a dictionary could pick correctly:

You type	Result	Without `q`
`kalqyaama`	කල්යාම (plain hal + ය)	`kalyaaNa` → කල්‍යාණ (yansaya)
`vagaquththarakaru`	වගඋත්තරකරු (vowel hiatus across a compound boundary)	`vagau...` would read as the ෞ sign
`avasanqya`	අවසන්ය	would otherwise get an unwanted yansaya

Common words

You type	Result	Meaning
`mama`	මම	I
`api`	අපි	we
`kohomada`	කොහොමද	how / how are you
`karanawaa`	කරනවා	do / doing
`yanawaa`	යනවා	go / going
`kanawaa`	කනවා	eat / eating
`sthuthiyi`	ස්තුතියි	thank you
`aayuboovan`	ආයුබෝවන්	traditional greeting
`koheda`	කොහෙද	where
`mokakda`	මොකක්ද	what
`laMkaawa`	ලංකාව	Sri Lanka
`puluwan`	පුලුවන්	can / possible
`gedara`	ගෙදර	home
`ammaa`	අම්මා	mother
`thaaththaa`	තාත්තා	father

Candidate popup keys

While the popup is open under the word you're typing:

Key	Action
`1`–`9`	Pick that numbered candidate and commit it
`↑` / `↓`	Move the highlighted candidate
`Page Up` / `Page Down`	Move the highlighted candidate
`Space`, `Enter`, `Tab`, punctuation	Commit the highlighted candidate, then type the key itself
`Backspace`	Edit the Latin word (deletes the last Latin letter, re-previews)
`Esc`	Revert to the raw Latin text you typed and close the popup
`Ctrl` + `Space`	Toggle EasyAkuru on/off entirely, from anywhere

Need help with installing, enabling, or troubleshooting instead of the typing rules? See the Support page.