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Font: Thaana
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Font Samples
Known also as ‘Maldivian’ or ‘Gabuli Tana’, Thaana script is used exclusively for writing Dhivehi, the official language of the Maldives. Dhivehi is an Indo-Aryan language which is most closely related to Sinhala, one of the two principal languages spoken in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).
Dating back to the 17th century AD, Thaana script developed under strong influence from Arabic script. The evidence for this influence can be readily seen in the right-to-left directionality of the script, as well as names and shapes of numerous letters. Thaana is an alphabetic script consisting of symbols for 24 basic consonants and 10 vowels. Vowel marks are not independent, but appear above or below consonantal letters. Based on the shapes of the basic consonants, an additional 14 letters are used in writing sounds present only in Arabic loanwords. In contrast to Arabic writing, Thaana letters are never joined to their neighbors, and their shapes remain unvaried regardless of context. Moreover, while Arabic is often written without vowel marks, Thaana is always written in fully vocalized form; i.e. each consonant is always paired with a vowel mark. Some attribute Thaana’s use of vowel marks to the infl uence of Indic scripts. However, unlike Indic scripts, Thaana consonants do not have a so-called implicit vowel; each occurrence of a consonantal letter must be explicitly paired with a vowel mark. Incidentally, the shapes of fi ve vowel marks are directly borrowed from Arabic. One of these fi ve marks is the sukun (Arabic for ‘silence’) which signals the absence of a vowel. In reviewing an alphabet chart of Thaana, one notes a striking resemblance between the fi rst nine letters of Thaana and the Arabic digits 1 through 9.
In a typical Thaana newspaper, one will see a smattering of words written in Arabic alongside the Thaana text, making it clear that the Maldivian populace is also familiar with Arabic script.
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