GUIDE
Typing Sinhala: Wijesekara, and an alphabet in two halves
Sinhala is typed on Wijesekara, designed for Sinhala typewriters in the 1950s and carried over to computers unchanged. The alphabet is large — around 60 letters in common use — and splits into a core set for native words and an extended set for Sanskrit and Pali loanwords, which is why some letters appear constantly and others almost never.
A script with almost no straight lines
Sinhala is written in rounded letterforms, and the usual explanation for that is practical rather than aesthetic. The script was historically written on dried palm leaves with a stylus, and a straight stroke drawn along the grain would split the leaf. Curves do not.
Whatever the history, the effect on a modern typist is real: Sinhala letters differ from one another in ways that are easy to see on paper and harder to distinguish at small sizes on screen. Reading back what you typed is slower at first than the equivalent in a script built from straight strokes, and it speeds up with familiarity rather than with practice at the keyboard.
None of that changes what your hands do. Sinhala is typed one key per letter, left to right, with no input method in between.
A layout designed for a typewriter
The arrangement dates from the 1950s and was worked out for a mechanical machine, which is unusual in itself — most national layouts were revised once the constraints of levers and a typebasket stopped applying.
It also means Sinhala never joined the pan-Indic standard. InScript puts the phonetically equivalent letter at the same position in every script that belongs to it, so a Hindi typist finds a Telugu or Gujarati keyboard half familiar. Sinhala does not participate: measured key by key against Devanagari InScript, it holds one position in common. Tamil 99 is the only other script here in the same position.
The practical consequence is that Sinhala is learned on its own terms. Nothing transfers into it from the Indian layouts and nothing transfers out, so if you already type another South Asian language, treat this as a new keyboard rather than a variant.
An alphabet in two halves
Sinhala has around 60 letters in common use, plus vowel signs that attach around the consonant and ligature forms for consonant clusters. That is a large inventory to place on a keyboard, and the layout leans on the shifted level to do it.
The part worth knowing before you start is that the alphabet is conventionally divided in two. A core set is used for native Sinhala words; an extended set exists for Sanskrit and Pali loanwords. Both are in the alphabet and both are on the keyboard, and their frequencies are nothing alike — some letters turn up in almost every sentence and others almost never.
That division is the most useful thing a learner can know about the order to learn in. Time spent on the core set pays back on every line you type; the extended set can wait until you meet it, which for most learners is in formal or religious text rather than in ordinary writing.
What the chart shows, and what it leaves out
The keyboard guide under the Sinhala lessons draws the three rows of unshifted keys. Because the alphabet is larger than those rows, the chart reaches most of what the practice words need and not all of it, and the remainder is on the shifted level.
This is the same limitation every large-alphabet script here runs into, and it is worth being explicit about rather than letting a chart imply completeness. What the chart is good for is the letters you will press most and the positions your fingers should learn first. What it cannot show is a shifted level or a ligature.
For the rest, the operating system's own on-screen keyboard is the right tool, because it knows about the levels. Turn on the Sinhala layout, put the on-screen keyboard beside it for a week, and the positions stop needing either one.
Questions
What is the Wijesekara layout?
The standard Sinhala keyboard, designed for Sinhala typewriters in the 1950s and carried over to computers largely unchanged. It is what these lessons teach and what a Sinhala keyboard in Sri Lanka will have.
Does typing Hindi or Tamil help with Sinhala?
Almost not at all. The InScript family shares its positions across the Indian scripts, and Sinhala never joined it — measured against Devanagari InScript it holds a single position in common. Tamil 99 is the only other script here that stands outside the family.
Why are Sinhala letters round?
The usual explanation is the writing surface. Sinhala was historically written on dried palm leaves with a stylus, and a straight stroke along the grain would split the leaf, so the letterforms curve. It is a property of the script rather than of the keyboard.
Why do some Sinhala letters almost never appear?
Because the alphabet divides into a core set used for native Sinhala words and an extended set for Sanskrit and Pali loanwords. Both are on the keyboard; only one of them turns up in ordinary writing, which is a useful thing to know when deciding what to learn first.
Why does the keyboard guide not show every Sinhala letter?
Because there are more letters than an unshifted level has keys. The chart shows the ones you will press most; the rest are on the shifted level, where your operating system's own on-screen keyboard will show them.
Put it into practice
The language this guide is about: Sinhala.
Reading about typing is the smaller half. The beginner course starts on the home row, the speed test will tell you where you stand, and all of it works in 86 languages without an account.