Author: [Generated for Academic Purposes] Date: April 14, 2026 Subject: South Asian Linguistics / Writing Systems Abstract This paper investigates the correspondences between the Sinhala and Tamil writing systems, focusing on graphemic (letter-form) similarities, phonetic mappings, and the historical and practical dimensions of converting Sinhala characters into Tamil characters. Despite belonging to different language families (Indo-Aryan vs. Dravidian), Sinhala and Tamil scripts share a common Brahmic origin and centuries of mutual influence. This study provides a systematic letter-by-letter comparison, identifies isomorphic and allomorphic graphemes, analyzes phonetic overlap and divergence, and discusses practical applications in transliteration and machine translation. The findings reveal that while surface similarities exist, accurate conversion requires a phonological, not merely visual, mapping strategy. 1. Introduction Sri Lanka is a bilingual nation where Sinhala and Tamil are official languages. The Sinhala script (used for the Sinhala language) and the Tamil script (used for Sri Lankan Tamil) both derive from the ancient Brahmi script, yet have evolved distinct characteristics. In digital humanities, language learning, and automated translation systems, the task of converting “Sinhala to Tamil letters” arises frequently. However, such conversion is not straightforward due to differences in vowel representation, inherent vowels, conjunct formation, and granularity of phonemes. Note: Voicing and aspiration are not marked in
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