Do we need ණ and ළ?

[skanthan]

Sometime ago, someone had told me that ණ and ළ should be dropped from the Sinhala alphabet and the letters න and ල be used in their place. I understand that from a phonemic point of view, ණ and ළ are pronounced the same as න and ල.


But in reality, would dropping ණ and ළ be a good idea? There are many words of Sanskrit and Pali origin that have those letters in them and while we could perhaps drop ණ and ළ from some ශුද්ධ සිංහල words, it would be better to retain them in words of Sanskrit and Pali origin.

 

[Simsons]

Leave the alphabet alone man. Don't you have better things to do? WTH

 

[twisted]

fortunately, this is the kind of shit that doesn't worry me.

 

[lakshan6010]

තන,තණ
Those 2 words giving 2 different ideas....how we could drop them ....?

 

[chamee1982]

yes we need........

 

[skanthan]

Leave the alphabet alone man. Don't you have better things to do? WTH

Hey, I am not the one who wants those two letters out of our alphabet. (I think dropping ණ and ළ from the Sinhala alphabet would be a very bad move. ) I am trying to get some answers to that person who told me they think ණ and ළ should be dropped from the alphabet!

 

[skanthan]

yes we need........

I totally agree with you %100. Actually, according to Sinhala grammar, ණ and ළ are actually supposed to be pronounced by rolling the tip of the tongue back towards the hard palate as we do when pronouncing ට, ඨ, ඩ and ඪ. But since the 13th century CE, ණ and ළ have been pronounced the same as න and ල.

 

[skanthan]

තන,තණ
Those 2 words giving 2 different ideas....how we could drop them ....?

You are right. I think the person who said ණ and ළ should be done away with does not have a clear understanding of Sinhala grammar. When I pointed out that such a move would result in many homophones in the language ie: තන/තණ, being spelt simply as තන, he retorted that people can read from context.

 

[smother]

තන,තණ
Those 2 words giving 2 different ideas....how we could drop them ....?

this answer is much better!!

and

​

 

[rajitha_ks]

තන,තණ
Those 2 words giving 2 different ideas....how we could drop them ....?

man you get the meaning depending on the context.

 

[DemonAkalanka]

කන
කණ

 

[skanthan]

this answer is much better!!​

​

and​

​

Let me guess. තන means breasts and තණ means grass.

 

[skanthan]

So, we do need ණ and ළ after all!

Starting from 12th February, 2012, I will be taking part in Sinhala language classes on the the 2nd and 4th Sundays of every month. Wish me luck!

 

[skanthan]

man you get the meaning depending on the context.

What do you mean by that? Please give an example. Thank you.

 

[HardLife]

යකෝ උඹ ලංකාවෙ උන්ට සේවය කරන්නෙ නැතුව කැනඩාවෙ සුද්දන්ගේ පු^ හෝදන්න ගියා නම් තියෙන වැඩක් බලන් හිටු!

 

[jds2012]

 

[skanthan]

අ ආ ඇ ඈ ඉ ඊ
උ ඌ එ ඒ ඔ ඕ
ක ග ජ ට ඩ ණ
ත ද න ප බ ම
ය ර ල ව
ස හ ළ අං
ඟ ඬ ඳ ඹ​