Dhivehi

Letters

Combining marks

Punctuation

Other

Vowel sounds

Consonant sounds

	labial	dental	alveolar	post- alveolar	retroflex	palatal	velar	uvular	pharyngeal	glottal
stops	p b		t d		ʈ ɖ		k ɡ	q
pre-nasalised	ᵐb		ⁿd		ᶯɖ		ᵑɡ
ejective			tˤ dˤ
affricate			t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
fricatives	f	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ	ɕ	x ɣ		ħ ʕ	h
ejective			sˤ zˤ
nasal	m		n		ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
approximant	ʋ w	l̪	l		ɭ	j
trill/flap			r

Tone

Dhivehi is not a tonal language.

Structure

Native Maldivian words do not allow initial consonant clusters. The syllable structure is (C)V(C), ie. one vowel with the option of a consonant in the onset and/or coda. This affects the introduction of loanwords, such as is.kuːl from English school.wp

Vowel summary table

The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.

For additional details see vowel_mappings.

Here is the set of characters described in this section, grouped by general category.

Post-consonant vowels

Post-consonant vowels are written using 10 combining marks (no letters). Diphthongs are written as a vowel diacritic over a consonant followed by a standalone vowel.

Standalone vowels

Thaana represents standalone vowels using އ as a base, to which vowel diacritics are attached.

އާއިލާ

އިރުގައި

Vowel absence

The diacritic 07B0 indicates that there is no vowel following the consonant it sits on. This is always used, with one exception: when ށ is written with no diacritic, this indicates prenasalization of a following stop, eg. ކަނޑު It is the only case where a letter can appear without a diacritic.

Vowel sounds to characters

This section maps Dhivehi vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Thaana orthography.

The left column shows post-consonant vowels, and the right column standalone vowel letters.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

Consonant summary table

The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.

For additional details see consonant_mappings.

Basic consonants

For writing the languages of the Maldives there are 24 consonants in this block.

އ has no sound of its own, and is used in a number of situations, including as a support for standalone vowels (see standalone), to indicate gemination (see gemination), and to produce a glottal stop at the end of a word (see glottal).

Repertoire extension

A further 14 dotted versions of the normal consonants are available for transcribing Arabic sounds and the English sound ʒ (ޜ).

Glottal stop

Several combinations of characters at the end of a word indicate a glottal stop.

އް is the most commond,566 (however, Wiktionary sometimes transcribes this as h).

އެކެއް

A word-final ށް or ތް, also indicate a glottal stop, except that the latter also adds j before the stop.

ރަށް

ރަތް

Prenasalisation

Dhivehi, like Sinhala, has prenasalised stops that contrast with sequences of nasal plus stop.

These are not always written, but when they are the stop is preceded by ނ. No sukun is used (in fact, this is the only situation where a consonant character isn't followed by a diacritic).

ކަނޑު

ކަޑު

Obsolete consonant

ޱ was abolished from Maldivian official documents around 1953, but it is still seen in reprints of old books like the Bodu Tartheebu, and is used by the people of Addu Atoll and Fuvahmulah.

Consonant clusters

The diacritic 07B0 attached to a consonant signifies that it is not followed by a vowel.

Gemination

Gemination is common in Dhivehi. It is mostly written using އް before the doubled consonant.

ބައްޓެއް

However, if the consonant in question is a nasal, it is preceded instead by ން.d,566

އެންމެ

Gemination is also produced after ށް and ތް, except that the latter also adds j before the doubled consonant.

އަށްޑިހަ

އަތްޕުޅު

Consonant sounds to characters

This section maps Dhivehi consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Thaana orthography. Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

Context-based shaping & positioning

Thaana letters don't interact, so no special shaping is needed.

Base characters carry only a single combining mark.

Word boundaries

Words are separated by spaces.

Graphemes

Dhivehi graphemes are straightforward, and can be mapped to Unicode grapheme clusters.

Grapheme clusters

Base Combining_mark?

Nearly all base letters in Dhivehi are accompanied by a combining mark to indicate a vowel (or absence of a vowel). There is only one mark per base. All such sequences conform to Unicode grapheme clusters.

Click on the text version of this word to see more detail about the composition.

	ލަކްޝަދީބު
	އެކެއް

Phrase & section boundaries

See type samples.

Dhivehi punctuation uses a mixture of western and Arabic punctuation. The latter includes, in particular, ،, ؛ and ؟.

In the sample text at the top of the page Arabic commas and ASCII full stops are mixed together.

Mirrored characters

The words 'left' and 'right' in the Unicode names for parentheses, brackets, and other paired characters should be ignored. LEFT should be read as if it said START, and RIGHT as END. The direction in which the glyphs point will be automatically determined according to the base direction of the text.

The number of characters that are mirrored in this way is around 550, most of which are mathematical symbols. Some are single characters, rather than pairs. The following are some of the more common ones.

(␣)␣<␣>␣[␣]␣{␣}

Quotations & citations

The default quote marks are 201D at the start, and 201C at the end. Unlike the parentheses, these characters are not mirrored during display. This means that LEFT means use on the left, and RIGHT means use on the right, producing a sequential order that is the opposite of the English usage.

Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

Line breaking & hyphenation

The primary break-point for line-wrapping is the inter-word space.

Text alignment & justification

See type samples.

Justification of Dhivehi text appears to be common, and a common approach involves stretching inter-word spacing.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Dhivehi uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

Dhivehi places vowel marks above and below base characters but there is only ever one.

To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Dhivehi glyphs from a Noto font. The basic height of Dhivehi letters is typically below the Latin x-height, however extenders for some characters push below the baseline, and the combining marks can reach beyond the Latin ascenders and descenders, creating a need for slightly larger line spacing.

fig_baselines_other shows similar comparisons for the MV Boli font.