අල්කරනවා, v. t. to unvocalise by suppressing the vowel; in writing, to add the අල් mark (/?/ or /?/) for that purpose.

ආ, n. The second vowel of the alphabet, sounded like a in 'calm' or 'charm' its non-initial form is (ා) following the consonant it vocalizes, as කා Kā.

ඇ, n. The third vowel of the alphabet, though in some grammars and vocabularies this and the next are placed last of all. Its sound is a modification of අ, and like the sound of a in fat, bat, mat. Its non-initial form is (ැ) following the consonant it vocalizes, as කැබ්, cab.

ඈ, n. The fourth vowel of the alphabet, the lengthened sound of ඇ. Its non-initial form is (ැ) following the consonant it vocalizes, as මෑ Mã.

ඉ, n. The fifth vowel of the alphabet; the third in Sanskrit, which has not the two preceding. Its sound is the fine sharp sound of i in pin; its non-initial form is (ි), called ඉස්පිල්ල head or top piece, placed above the consonant it vocalizes: as කි,මි පින්, ki, mi, pin.

ඊ, n. The sixth vowel of the alphabet. Its sound is the previous vowel lengthened, and is the same as ee in Peel or Feel. Its non-initial form is ී placed above the consonant it vocalizes, as කී, මී, kí, mí.

උ, n. The seventh vowel of the alphabet. Its sound is that of oo in Foot. Its non-initial forms /?/ and ු called පාපිල්ල—lower or foot piece—are placed below the consonant they vocalize, as කු, මු, koo, moo.

ඌ, n. The eighth vowel of the alphabet. Its sound is that of oo in Food. Its non-initial forms (, ූ) are attached to the lower part of the consonant they vocalize, as කූ kōō, මූ mōō.

එ, n. The eleventh letter of the alphabet: a pure short vowel having the sound of e as heard in met. Its non-initial form (‍ෙ) is written before the consonant it vocalizes, as ‍දෙන් den, මෙන් men.

ඓ, n. The thirteenth letter of the alphabet. Its sound is that of i in Time or ie in Die. Its non-initial form is (ෛ) placed before the consonant it vocalizes, as ඩෛ, Die.

ක, n. The first consonant of the alphabet, K. When no vowel is written with it, like all the consonants, it is vocalized by means of the first vowel අ, which though unwritten is pronounced after it, as ක ka.

කටපයාදිය, n. (ක, ට, ප, ය, ආදිය). A mnemonic system of letters nsed as numerals, කටපය being the first column, thus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ක ඛ ග ඝ ඬ ච ඡ ජ ඣ ඤ ට ඨ ඩ ඪ ණ ත ථ ද ධ න ප ඵ බ භ ම ය ර ල ව ශ ෂ ස හ ළ. Each letter in each column represents the figure under which it is placed. The above consonants must in reading be vocalized with vowels, though the vowels count for nothing. E. g., ගජකම, reading backwards=5 1 8 3.

නිර්, prefix, expressing negation and sometimes emphasis, also the sense of Out, Forth. The ර් is vocalized by a following vowel, as නිරග්නි for නිර්අග්නි.

මළකුරු, n. (මළ අකුර), dead letter, viz. unvocalized consonant. අල් අකර, as ක්, ග්, &c.