Guides to how Sinhala and Tamil scripts work: orthography, script mechanics, Unicode and the vocabulary of type.
Script mechanics
Every Sinhala consonant carries an inherent a. Vowel signs, called pili, change that vowel. This guide covers what they are, how Unicode stores them in logical order, and what a font has to do to draw them.
Script mechanics
Unlike most Indic scripts, Tamil writes consonant clusters with a visible dot rather than stacked conjuncts. The real complexity is in its vowel ligatures. This guide covers both, and what the 1978 script reform changed.