Typing Sinhala Sensibly, With Google

Google Transliteration. My Sinhala is obviously shit.


I can’t speak Sinhala let alone type it, yet I know that it is a need. Years ago I wrote a Sinhala font and always imagined a transliterated solution, where you could type ‘mata bada gini’ and it would type the appropriate Sinhala. Right now the dominant way to type is with the Wijesekera keyboard layout which has no relation to the letters on the board. Transliteration at least lowers the learning curve a bit, especially since almost everyone in Sri Lanka can recognize the English alphabet. I just discovered (via @dinidu) that Google has a transliteration solution which works for Sinhala. It’s pretty cool. Try it out.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

13 Comments »

2010-05-20 12:39:52

ela niyami…dan….wadakaranwa..

 
The way of the Dodo
2010-05-20 13:18:52

That’s the coolest shit ever

 
2010-05-20 13:49:22

You didn’t know about this?
http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter/t1.html
This is easier because you can see both English and Sinhala text.

 
2010-05-20 14:44:10

Indi, have you tried my “Sayura” quasi transliteration scheme? It comes bundled with Fedora/RedHat for a long time, and also available for other GNU/Linux systems.

It’s NOT transliterated. Typing ?? is “mm”, not “mama”. Although this may sound a bit counter intuitive at first, it is quite fast once you are used to this oddity. Also we use only the English letters and leave the symbols and numbers alone.

http://www.sayura.net/im/

 
2010-05-20 14:47:45

????

 
2010-05-20 14:51:38

@Anuradha I have tried that Linux solution, on your computer years ago, I think. It is good. @Sach, I have tried the Uni thing, also good. There are a lot of decent solutions out now. The Google one is a bit extra interesting in that it integrates with Blogger and Gmail

 
U-Map
2010-05-20 20:34:26

???????? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ?????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 
U-Map
2010-05-20 20:36:32

Unfortunately your comment section doesn’t support Sinhala unicode. :(

 
Coconut
2010-05-20 23:45:13

Crazy cool tool !
but for some wired reason in for me is just types one sinhala letter whatever I write. For all the other languanes it seems to be working.
Does anyone know what might be the reason for this ?

 
2010-05-22 10:22:23

@Indi Sayura has come a long way since you checked it out (in 2005 at FOSSSL conference at Excel World if I remember right). There are tons of tweaks that has gone in afterwards.

E.g.: We used “H” to make the previous letter a “mahaprana”. But using shift is not efficient. So I added less used “f” for this, and assigned upper case “F” for less frequently used “fa” sound. Doesn’t sound a major change, but such tweaks greatly improves efficiently, especially when used extensively and daily.

 
Shehan
2010-05-25 07:05:05

Pretty cool find indi….

Have installed sinhalese font but still unable to view the translation…..even tried the “indic text” troubleshoot on wiki

any ideas on a remedy guys?

Thanx in advance! :D

 
2010-05-26 21:35:35

U-Map,
oh..yes . my comment in sinhala also not showing..

 
Ishara
2011-07-03 20:17:47

shishya nama lekanaya
13 kala anshaya
santha jon viduhala
panthi bara – prageeth liyanage
ansha bara – prageeth liyanage
panthi bara – geeth nayomal

 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.

email indi AT indi.ca.


Recent Comments


Unequal Marriage In Sri Lanka (The Foreign Kind) (18)

DK: My thanks to everyone – well, perhaps not Acro – who has contributed to this. I’ve learned a lot. As I’ve said in a previous string I’m Sri Lankan-born, lost SL citizenship because of prevailing laws at the time I...

Why Does India Suck At The Olympics? (5)

David Blacker: First I’d like to see what the average Indian is. Or Chinese for that matter.

Dinuka: “…b ut the average Indian can take the average Chinese person in a fight.” Really? Do tell me how you came to that conclusion, I’m interested to know.

Carasek: I think David Blacker’s got it about right, though there are a few additional reasons. First, South Asians love their sport as much as the next person, but they don’t necessarily do sport as much as the next person. Leaving...

New New Kottu (7)

Chavie: Thanks bro. :)

Chavie: Yeps, any combination of language/popula rity that you use to view a page can be used to obtain a feed. Let’s say you’re looking at Sinhala posts popular today: http://kottu.or g/si/today You can get the feed for that...

D: Can we get separate RSS feeds based on the language?

General Sarath Fonseka Out Soon? (12)

David Blacker: Nothing wrong with the Sinhalese being divided by politics rather than united by ethnicity. And yes, of course SL must cooperate with an international investigation if one is initiated. We can’t afford not to. The idea is to...

You’re Nobody Till (45)

Regewaypere2: Asortyment uzupe?nia Outcast przestrzenna uciecha przygodowa i klisza Setnie Speedway. Nu?e na godzin? poprzednio wschodem s?o?ca nieruchomosci odby? wspomnian? z wykorzystaniem Benwolia przechadzk? w gaju sykomorowym mamy w...

Sarath Fonseka And Minority Politics (9)

tastyjujubes: Being more “Tamil 221; is not going to help the Sri Lankan Tamils to be honest. Being even more insular, introverted and ethnocentric is not going to help the Tamil people. The Tamils of Sri Lanka live on an island with a...

Why Does India Suck At The Olympics?

Today on the morning show we talked about the Olympics, namely China’s emerging dominance. For me the bigger question is India. Why does India suck so much? In 2008 the US won 110 medals, China won 100 and India won… 3. India has over a billion people, some economic clout and is by all counts an emerging superpower, but they suck at the Olympics. Why?

New New Kottu

Janith has updated Kottu with rims and shit. Seriously, it looks pretty good. You could say the desktop look is cosmetic, but check out the mobile. Kottu now looks like an app with settings and menus and such. The biggest problem with K2 is me, ie, it now takes me up to a month to respond to emails. OMG I’m scared of my email. But Janith’s done this code and design update all by himself and it looks pretty good. Check it out. There was one bug with the previous page link. Lettuce know if there’s any more.

Miss Travel. Alternately, Mistravel

This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like seekingarrangement.com connects women to ‘sugar daddies’ already. I guess Miss Travel is just taking that trend international. Wait, I checked, it’s the same guy doing both.

Buying Appliances Online (Singer)

Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from Singer, ONLINE. I put the online in all caps because it’s pretty awesome. I ordered the thing in like 15 minutes on Saturday and they just delivered it today. It’s pretty awesome, this brave new world.