Singlish to Sinhala Converter - Type Sinhala Unicode with English Letters

Type with English letters and read Sinhala Unicode as you go: ammaa becomes අම්මා and aayuboowan becomes ආයුබෝවන් (a doubled letter makes a long vowel).

Maintained by Hirantha Sandaruwan Lakshan. Updated 13 October 2026.

About this tool

The mapping is fixed and written out on this page, so the same letters always give the same result. It is this tool's own scheme, not a standard: Singlish has no single standard, so keys differ from other Singlish keyboards, and some words need a different spelling than you are used to. It runs in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and the result can be pasted into any app that supports Unicode Sinhala.

How it works

Each Latin key stands for one Sinhala letter or vowel sign. The converter reads your text from left to right and always takes the longest key that matches, so aae is one vowel and not a plus ae. Case matters. Lowercase gives the basic letters, and capital letters give the retroflex and special ones: t is ත and T is ට, d is ද and D is ඩ, n is න and N is ණ, l is ල and L is ළ, s is ස and S is ෂ. A capital that has no key of its own is read as its lowercase letter, so a capital A or K at the start of a sentence does no harm. A capital that is a key (T, D, N, L, S, H and a few more) keeps its own meaning, so type those in lowercase when you mean ත, ද, න, ල, ස or හ.

A consonant on its own carries the vowel a. A vowel key after a consonant gives the vowel sign, so ki is කි and kee is කේ. Long vowels are typed with two letters (aa, ii, uu, ee, oo). When a consonant is followed by another consonant, a space, punctuation or the end of the text, it gets hal kirima, the sign that removes its vowel. That gives kk as ක්ක, nd as න්ද and ndh as න්ධ.

Three joins use a zero width joiner, an invisible character that the Unicode Standard uses to ask for the reduced form of a letter. A consonant followed by r gives rakaransaya (kra is ක්‍ර), a consonant followed by y gives yansaya (dya is ද්‍ය), and r followed by a consonant gives repaya (karma is කර්‍ම). The letter x is the anusvara ං (laxkaa is ලංකා) and a capital H after a letter is the visarga ඃ. A backslash is an invisible separator that stops two keys joining: n\G is න්ග, while nG is ඟ.

The casual way to type Singlish uses one a for both the short and the long sound, and the tool cannot guess which words end in a long vowel. The word amma gives අම්ම, because a single a is short. The word ammaa gives අම්මා. If you are used to th for ත and t for ට, note that this tool uses t for ත, th for ථ and T for ට. A Sinhala font is needed to read the result. Most phones and computers have one, and if you see empty boxes, install a font such as Noto Sans Sinhala. Have a native reader proof anything important.

Worked examples

A greeting and a place name

aayuboowan gives ආයුබෝවන්. shrii laxkaa gives ශ්‍රී ලංකා. In shrii, sh is ශ, r adds rakaransaya and ii is the long ී. In laxkaa, x is the anusvara ං. ammaa gives අම්මා, and amma, with one a, gives අම්ම.

Conjuncts

sundara gives සුන්දර, andha gives අන්ධ, akka gives අක්ක, kramaya gives ක්‍රමය, vidyaa gives විද්‍යා and dharmaya gives ධර්‍මය.

Retroflex letters and a visarga

maTa gives මට while mata gives මත. paaDama gives පාඩම, kaNDaayama gives කණ්ඩායම, puSpa gives පුෂ්ප and duHkha gives දුඃඛ.

Typing guide: every key and what it gives

You type	You get	Kind	Notes
a	අ (nothing added after a consonant)	Vowel	Short a. After a consonant it adds nothing: ක stays ක.
aa	ආ alone, කා after a consonant	Vowel	Long a.
ae	ඇ alone, කැ after a consonant	Vowel	As in the English word cat.
aae	ඈ alone, කෑ after a consonant	Vowel	Long version of ae.
i	ඉ alone, කි after a consonant	Vowel
ii	ඊ alone, කී after a consonant	Vowel	Long i.
u	උ alone, කු after a consonant	Vowel
uu	ඌ alone, කූ after a consonant	Vowel	Long u.
Ru	ඍ alone, කෘ after a consonant	Vowel	Vocalic r, in words from Sanskrit. A plain ru is රු.
Ruu	ඎ alone, කෲ after a consonant	Vowel	Long vocalic r.
e	එ alone, කෙ after a consonant	Vowel	Short e.
ee	ඒ alone, කේ after a consonant	Vowel	Long e.
ai	ඓ alone, කෛ after a consonant	Vowel
o	ඔ alone, කො after a consonant	Vowel	Short o.
oo	ඕ alone, කෝ after a consonant	Vowel	Long o.
au	ඖ alone, කෞ after a consonant	Vowel
k	ක	Consonant: Velar	The letter with its own a. With no vowel after it, k gives ක් (see the rules at the end of this table).
kh	ඛ	Consonant: Velar	Aspirated k.
g	ග	Consonant: Velar
gh	ඝ	Consonant: Velar	Aspirated g.
Ng	ඞ	Consonant: Velar	Rare. Used in a few Pali and Sanskrit words.
nG	ඟ	Consonant: Velar	Prenasalised g, as in මඟ. A plain nga is න්ග.
c	ච	Consonant: Palatal
ch	ච	Consonant: Palatal	Same letter as c.
chh	ඡ	Consonant: Palatal	Aspirated c. Ch does the same.
Ch	ඡ	Consonant: Palatal	Same as chh.
j	ජ	Consonant: Palatal
jh	ඣ	Consonant: Palatal	Aspirated j.
Nj	ඤ	Consonant: Palatal	Rare, in Pali words.
jn	ඥ	Consonant: Palatal	As in ඥානය.
T	ට	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Capital T is the retroflex t, as in මට.
Th	ඨ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Aspirated retroflex t.
D	ඩ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Capital D is the retroflex d, as in පාඩම.
Dh	ඪ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Aspirated retroflex d.
N	ණ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Capital N is the retroflex n.
nD	ඬ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Prenasalised retroflex d. The plain pair n\Da gives න්ඩ.
L	ළ	Consonant: Retroflex (capital letters)	Capital L is the retroflex l.
t	ත	Consonant: Dental	Lowercase t is the dental t, as in තාත්තා.
th	ථ	Consonant: Dental	Aspirated t. Type t, not th, for ත.
d	ද	Consonant: Dental
dh	ධ	Consonant: Dental	Aspirated d.
n	න	Consonant: Dental
Nd	ඳ	Consonant: Dental	Prenasalised dental d. A plain nda is න්ද, as in සුන්දර.
p	ප	Consonant: Labial
ph	ඵ	Consonant: Labial	Aspirated p.
b	බ	Consonant: Labial
bh	භ	Consonant: Labial	Aspirated b.
m	ම	Consonant: Labial
mB	ඹ	Consonant: Labial	Prenasalised b, as in අඹ. A plain mba is ම්බ.
y	ය	Consonant: Other
r	ර	Consonant: Other
l	ල	Consonant: Other
v	ව	Consonant: Other
w	ව	Consonant: Other	Same letter as v.
sh	ශ	Consonant: Sibilants and h
S	ෂ	Consonant: Sibilants and h	Capital S is the retroflex sibilant, as in පුෂ්ප.
Sh	ෂ	Consonant: Sibilants and h	Same as S.
s	ස	Consonant: Sibilants and h
h	හ	Consonant: Sibilants and h
f	ෆ	Consonant: Sibilants and h
x	ං	Anusvara	Written after a letter, as in ලංකා (laxkaa). The letter before it keeps its own a.
H	ඃ	Visarga	Only after a letter, as in දුඃඛ (duHkha). At the start of a word, H is a plain h.
\	(nothing)	Separator	Stops two keys joining. n\G is න්ග; a plain nG is ඟ.
kka	ක්ක	Rule	Hal kirima: a consonant followed by another consonant loses its a.
akka	අක්ක	Rule	A doubled consonant joins the same way, and so do clusters such as nd, ndh and mb.
andha	අන්ධ	Rule	ndh is n and dh, joined with hal kirima.
k	ක්	Rule	A consonant at the end of a word or before a space gets hal kirima.
kra	ක්‍ර	Rule	Rakaransaya: a consonant followed by r.
dya	ද්‍ය	Rule	Yansaya: a consonant followed by y.
karma	කර්‍ම	Rule	Repaya: r followed by a consonant.
kx	කං	Rule	Anusvara keeps the consonant's own a.

Frequently asked questions

Why does amma give අම්ම and not අම්මා?

A single a is the short vowel. Singlish as people write it casually uses one a for both short and long sounds, and no tool can know which words end long. ammaa gives අම්මා, and aayuboowan gives ආයුබෝවන්.

How do I type ත and ට?

Lowercase t is ත and capital T is ට. The aspirated letters are th for ථ and Th for ඨ. Some keyboards use th for ත, so if you are used to that, switch to t here.

How do I type rakaransaya, yansaya and the ශ්‍රී in Sri Lanka?

Just type the letters. A consonant followed by r gives rakaransaya and followed by y gives yansaya. The invisible joiner is added for you. shrii gives ශ්‍රී and kra gives ක්‍ර.

How do I type the anusvara in ලංකා?

Type x where the ං goes: laxkaa gives ලංකා and sixhala gives සිංහල. The visarga ඃ is a capital H after a letter: duHkha gives දුඃඛ.

Do I need a Sinhala font?

Yes, to read the result. Most phones and computers include one. If you see empty boxes or question marks instead of letters, install a Sinhala font such as Noto Sans Sinhala. Text you copy is plain Unicode, so it keeps working in any app that supports Sinhala.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. The conversion runs in your browser as you type. Nothing is uploaded, stored or logged.

Can I rely on the result for an important document?

Use it to type quickly, then have a native reader proof anything important. The converter follows fixed rules and does not know spelling, so it will happily write a word the way you typed it, correct or not.

Does it match other Singlish keyboards?

Not exactly. Singlish has no single standard. For example, the Lexilogos phonetic keyboard uses a capital M for the anusvara where this tool uses x. This tool follows the table on this page, and text you paste from elsewhere passes through unchanged.

Sources & references

Updated Oct 13, 2026