Thaana
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Thaana is the writing system for the Dhivehi language spoken in the Maldives. It is an abugida, with vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. It is a largely phonemic script: With a few minor exceptions, spelling can be predicted from pronunciation, and pronunciation from spelling. It is also easily mapped from the romanization system used for Dhivehi.
The origins of Thaana are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See Hindu-Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (z–ch) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y, which is of unknown origin. This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the original Semitic alphabet — unless the Indic numerals were (see Brahmi numerals).
Thaana, like Arabic, is written right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a sukun (which indicates "no vowel"). The only exception to this rule is noonu which, when written without a diacritic, indicates prenasalization of a following stop.
The vowel signs are called fili; there are five fili for short vowels (a,i,u,e,o), where the first three look identical to the Arabic vowel signs (fatha, kasra and damma). Long vowels (aa,ee,oo,ey,oa) are denoted by doubled fili (except oa, which is a modification of the short obofili).
The letter alifu has no sound value of its own and is used for three different purposes: It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant, this is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a diphthong; when it carries a sukun, it indicates gemination (lengthening) of the following consonant; and if alifu+sukun occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in /eh/. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by noonu+sukun preceding the nasal to be geminated.
Thaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF).
| Grapheme | HTML Unicode | Name | Romanization | IPA value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | ހ | HAA | h | |
| | ށ | SHAVIYANI | sh | |
| | ނ | NOONU | n | |
| | ރ | RAA | r | |
| | ބ | BAA | b | |
| | ޅ | LHAVIYANI | lh | |
| | ކ | KAAFU | k | |
| | އ | ALIFU | varies | see article |
| | ވ | VAAVU | v | |
| | މ | MEEMU | m | |
| | ފ | FAAFU | f | |
| | ދ | DHAALU | dh | |
| | ތ | THAA | th | |
| | ލ | LAAMU | l | |
| | ގ | GAAFU | g | |
| | ޏ | GNAVIYANI | gn | |
| | ސ | SEENU | s | |
| | ޑ | DAVIYANI | d | |
| | ޒ | ZAVIYANI | z | |
| | ޓ | TAVIYANI | t | |
| | ޔ | YAA | y | |
| | ޕ | PAVIYANI | p | |
| | ޖ | JAVIYANI | j | |
| | ޗ | CHAVIYANI | ch | |
| | ޘ | TTAA | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters | |
| | ޙ | HHAA | ||
| | ޚ | KHAA | ||
| | ޛ | THAALU | ||
| | ޜ | ZAA | English-to-Dhivehi transliteration [ʒ] | |
| | ޝ | SHEENU | Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters | |
| | ޞ | SAADHU | ||
| | ޟ | DAADHU | ||
| | ޠ | TO | ||
| | ޡ | ZO | ||
| | ޢ | AINU | ||
| | ޣ | GHAINU | ||
| | ޤ | QAAFU | ||
| | ޥ | WAAVU | ||
| | ަ | ABAFILI | a | |
| | ާ | AABAAFILI | aa | |
| | ި | IBIFILI | i | |
| | ީ | EEBEEFILI | ee | |
| | ު | UBUFILI | u | |
| | ޫ | OOBOOFILI | oo | |
| | ެ | EBEFILI | e | |
| | ޭ | EYBEYFILI | ey | |
| | ޮ | OBOFILI | o | |
| | ޯ | OABOAFILI | oa | |
| | ް | SUKUN | varies | see article |
| | ޱ | NAA (Addu dialect) | ? | ? |
Source: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thaana.htm
External links
- A brief description of Thaana is available at [this website]
- [Project thaana] - resource for developers
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