Talk:Sinhala phrasebook

Comments
This language is written in a diffrent script. Any user can look up Omniglot for information. --(WT-en) CurvyEthyl 22:16, 28 September 2010 (EDT)

BedeRavindra (talk) 00:16, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Heading Diacritics, using the symbol 'ə' instead of 'a'
If the first consonant of a word is followed by "a" sound, such as ක(ka), ග(ga), න(na) the 'a' sound can be pronounced as 'a' or as 'ə'. It is difficult to know which one, except through usage. But nearly all subsequent consonants that are accompanied by an 'a' is pronounced as 'ə'. This gives the typical mumbling sound when sinhala is spoken. If the last consonant is accompanied by an 'a', it can be a 'a' or 'ə', but it can be recognised, unlike when it occurs at the beginning, because any that ends with 'a' sound is written as a 'ā' though in effect it is a short 'a' sound. Though this helps with the ambiguity between 'a' and 'ə' at the end of the word, it creates and ambiguity when it comes to the ending 'ā' sound, as it can be a short 'a' or a long'ā' as mentioned in the subsequent bullet point 1, which says "Even when some words appear in writing with a long 'ā' sound at their end, it tends to be pronounced 'a' in everyday speech. ", but that is not too bad, as the difference between the real 'ā' and a 'a' as the last vowel is minimal, because 'ā' sounds, though distinctly a long sound at the beginning and in the middles of a word, at the end of the words are never pronounced as long 'ā' sounds, anyway.

Comments @BedeRavindra
Ravi, as you suggested, I added this section in an info box to the "Pronunciation guide" section. Have a look.

BedeRavindra (talk) 03:39, 26 August 2019 (UTC) Thanks Sujeewa, I restructured the text a little.

"A" as in "bad"?
Could we please pick another word? I don't know Sinhala, but I seriously doubt the sound is at all similar to how New Yorkers pronounce "bad", and the pronunciation of that vowel is very different in England than it is in pretty much any part of the U.S. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I can't speak proper Sinhala (a si-1.5 on a babel scale, and that's only for speaking), but I can speak bits and pieces of it, and I've always used a as it as a held A, but my response isn't the best, since it's been years since I last visited Srilanka for a long period of time (almost 15 years). My mum has a little book of some phrases, but it's not with me at the moment (somewhere in the house) and it's from 2005. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 01:08, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no better sense of what that sound is now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:27, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Basically how you say bad in an American or an Australian accent. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 05:32, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Which is very different from how Britons say "bad". But I don't think Australian pronunciations are very similar to American pronunciations at all, so I'm still pretty mystified. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:13, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Any new ideas of a better English word to use to illustrate this sound? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:24, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * According to the Wikipedia article on the wikipedia:Sinhala script, the IPA pronunciation is [æ], in phonetics a near-open front unrounded vowel, which I guess is General American "bad". Not modern Received Pronunciation bad though. Gizza ( roam ) 22:49, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess the only good solution is for someone to link sound files of pronunciations by a native speaker. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:13, 23 February 2022 (UTC)