EDIT Writing system
Like other Indian scripts, Sinhala is a syllabic alphabet of the abugida type, which means the consonants have an inherent vowel (a) unless otherwise indicated by vowel signs. In Sinhala, the indications to change the vowel are extra strokes called matras.

The Sinhala alphabet exists in three different versions. The basic Alphabet that is used to write the classic language Elu is called the »Elu Hodyia« and consists of 12 vowels and 25 consonants.

It is part of the mixed Sinhala alphabet (Mishra Sinhala Akshara Malawa) that has 18 vowels and 41 consonants. It appears to be the alphabet encoded in Unicode 4.1 and shown here as it has 18 vowels (U+0D85 – U+ 0D96) and 41 consonants (U+0D9A – U+0DC6). This alphabet contains consonants that were added to be able to write loanwords from Sanskrit and Pali.

The accepted Sinhala alphabet, however, is the »Sammatha Sinhala Akshara Malawa« that consists of 20 vowels and 41 consonants.
In Sinhala, each consonants can be combined with every vowel which makes for an alphabet with a total of 1660 characters.

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EDIT Languages
Sinhala is used to write Sinhala or Sinhalese, a language that belongs to the Indoaryan subgroup of the Indoeuropen languages. There are about 16 million native speakers, most of them in Sri Lanka, but there are also some living in Singapore and Thailand. Sinhala and Tamil became official languages of Sri Lanka in 1956, Sinhala is the first official language.

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EDIT History
(this is an excerpt of an article by Donald Gaminitillake »Importance of information technology development in Sri Lanka«: www.dailymirror.lk/2003/06/17/feat/2.html)

It is not known precisely when Sinhala characters first existed. However, history suggests there were written communications amongst royalty as far back as 4th Century BC. However, archaeologists in Sri Lanka have not been able to decipher this evidence. The first known Sinhala characters found in Sri Lanka were inscribed on top of the caves which Buddhist monks used for meditation during 3 BC.

These consisted of only very simple characters which were later expanded. With written work the number of characters further expanded. The oldest script available, Siyabaslakara, is the work done during the latter part of the Anuradhapura era (8 to 9 AD). The development of the language was interrupted by the Chola invasion in 1017, which ended the Anuradhapura era.

The Polonnaruwa era commenced in 1070. Examples of some of the publications produced during this period include Butsarana, Amawathura, Kausilumina and Dhahamsarana. The development of the language was further interrupted by the Kalinga Marga invasion in 1215. Books published during the Dhambadeni era which commenced in 1236, include Pujawaliya, Sadharmaratnawaliya, and Kuveni Asna. The Dhambadeni era introduced a set of characters void of Sanskrit influences. The first such publication was Sidath Sagarawa. There after several Sanskrit characters were introduce due to the influence of a Sanskrit teacher called Pananee. During the Kotte period a subsequent series of characters were introduced which was called the Sodiya or alphabet, as mentioned in Kavyasekara by Venerable Totagamuwe Siri Rahula Thero.

The invasion of the Portuguese in 1505 hampered the development of the language. The Dutch who succeeded the Portuguese wished to propagate Protestant Christianity. They therefore translated the Protestant Bible into Sinhala. The Dutch priest Jacome Gonsalves who conducted the translation added several new characters into the then existing alphabet. It was also the Dutch who first introduced the printing press to Sri Lanka.

However, symantics of the Sinhala language was impeded for almost one and a half centuries until it was resurrected by the high priest, Venerable Walivita in the Kandyan era. It was during the Kandyan era the template of the current Sinhala alphabet was established.

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EDIT above unicode registration of sinhala characters are incomplete and incorrect.

Same web page seen on two different browsers
http://www.akuru.org/images/differentbrowser.jpg

unable to cut and paste text

http://www.akuru.org/images/garbagesinhala2.jpg

Unicode consortium expalin this issue as a security threat
visit
http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-96.html

Unconditionally we have to correct the SLSI1134 and correct the Sinhala unicode

Donald Gaminitillake

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