Thaana

Thaana is the writing system for the Dhivehi language[?] spoken in the Maldives. It shows clear influences from Arabic, but whereas Arabic has numerous forms for every letter, Thaana has one form for each letter. It is also by and large a 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.

Thaana, like Arabic, is written right-to-left. It also indicates vowels with superscripts (or, in the case of /i/ and /i:/, subscripts). Each letter must carry a vowel or a sukun (which indicates "no vowel"). The letter alifu has three main uses: It can act as a carrier for a vowel with no preceding consonant; 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/.

Thaana occupies Unicode codepoints 1920-1983 (hexadecimal 0780-07BF), supported natively on Windows XP. (ed. note: please note other operating systems that support Thaana, I don't know if any others exist)

Characters of the Thaana script
(vowels are displayed with an alifu carrier)

Grapheme	HTML Unicode	Name	Romanization	SAMPA value
ހ	&1920;	HAA	h	/h/
ށ	&1921;	SHAVIYANI	sh	/S/
ނ	&1922;	NOONU	n	/n/
ރ	&1923;	RAA	r	/r/
ބ	&1924;	BAA	b	/b/
ޅ	&1925;	LHAVIYANI	lh	/l'/
ކ	&1926;	KAAFU	k	/k/
އ	&1927;	ALIFU	varies - see article	n/a
ވ	&1928;	VAAVU	v	/v/
މ	&1929;	MEEMU	m	/m/
ފ	&1930;	FAAFU	f	/f/
ދ	&1931;	DHAALU	dh	?
ތ	&1932;	THAA	th	?
ލ	&1933;	LAAMU	l	/l/
ގ	&1934;	GAAFU	g	/g/
ޏ	&1935;	GNAVIYANI	gn	/ñ/
ސ	&1936;	SEENU	s	/s/
ޑ	&1937;	DAVIYANI	d	/d/
ޒ	&1938;	ZAVIYANI	z	/z/
ޓ	&1939;	TAVIYANI	t	/t/
ޔ	&1940;	YAA	y	/y/
ޕ	&1941;	PAVIYANI	p	/p/
ޖ	&1942;	JAVIYANI	j	/dZ/
ޗ	&1943;	CHAVIYANI	ch	/tS/
ޘ	&1944;	TTAA	Arabic-to-Dhivehi transliteration characters
ޙ	&1945;	HHAA
ޚ	&1946;	KHAA
ޛ	&1947;	THAALU
ޜ	&1948;	ZAA
ޝ	&1949;	SHEENU
ޞ	&1950;	SAADHU
ޟ	&1951;	DAADHU
ޠ	&1952;	TO
ޡ	&1953;	ZO
ޢ	&1954;	AINU
ޣ	&1955;	GHAINU
ޤ	&1956;	QAAFU
ޥ	&1957;	WAAVU
ައ	&1958;	ABAFILI	a	/a/
ާއ	&1959;	AABAAFILI	aa	/a:/
ިއ	&1960;	IBIFILI	i	/i/
ީއ	&1961;	EEBEEFILI	ee	/i:/
ުއ	&1962;	UBUFILI	u	/u/
ޫއ	&1963;	OOBOOFILI	oo	/u:/
ެއ	&1964;	EBEFILI	e	/e/
ޭއ	&1965;	EYBEYFILI	ey	/e:/
ޮއ	&1966;	OBOFILI	o	/o/
ޯއ	&1967;	OABOAFILI	oa	/o:/
ްއ	&1968;	SUKUN	varies - see article	n/a
ޱ	&1969;	NAA	?	?

External links: A brief description of Thaana is available at this website (http://www.maldivesculture.com/thaana01.html)