OSX has no default Sinhala language support. Installing the Akshar Open Type font from Kamban makes it possible to get barely legible Sinhala character display. The specifics of OSX Sinhala display issues have already been covered in this March 2007 post by Sanjana. Nothing much has changed a year and a month later. If you want to have EASILY readable Sinhala on a Mac, it means getting a 50 US Dollar Sinhala language kit from Xenotypetech. Which is no small amount in Sri Lankan rupees – specially for a “non professional” use.
I thought I had got used to painfully reading SInhala like a pre-schooler due to the mangled way it displays on my mac. Yet the Sinhala blog marathon of this weekend made me realise my makeshift method is no good. These screen shots of Achcharu, Kottu (below), and webalochana shows why..
Here is how a post on kottu.org appears. Compare this with the screen shot.
So its either pay up for Xenotypetech or get a PC. For me Windows means work. OS X means fun. Mainly because I have over the years converted it into a command line driven UNIX box 
Most likely I’ll have to set up a Linux machine or get some sort of virtual machine running Linux. The problem with Linux is that I end up endlessly tinkering with it and never get anything else done. OSX is locked down enough to limit these distractions. I suppose I’ll find some open-source/ legally free software that can do that. Windows remains the last gasp option.
OSX/Apple hardware is such a tiny niche market that its a miracle a company like Xenotypetech has got involved. The price though is steep. Specially with other free options with Linux.
I did spot this hopeful post on Mac Rumors of developing a shaper and Keyboard driver for Sinhala in OSX 10.5. That was in December 2007. That’s about all I’ve heard. Perhaps there are others in the know who can elaborate. Till then I just have to squint on and stop whining…
Postscript
The SinhalaPage Resources Directory is less well known but has well described Software & Fonts section.
For anyone contemplating running a Sinhala GNU Linux distribution disk image on an open source virtual machine on you mac there are a few options. I haven’t tried any of these. The chances of me finding the time to poke around is slim.
- Sun’s Virtual box (beta testing 20th April 2008)
- Q – a port of QEMU for OSX
- Bochs – might be interesting for the more geeky types. There’s a Bochs on Mac OS X post that might scare off lesser mortals like me.
April 20, 2008 at 9:56 am
Machang, just to point out that my screenshot was also taken off my Mac, which appears to render Sinhala UNICODE better than your machine (a Mac too I presume?).
SH
April 20, 2008 at 11:31 am
Thanks CERNO for taking this subject
I hope every one would see the jpg image of Sinhala.
This is what we have in UNICODE CONSORTIUM or in SLSI 1134.
SInhala that ICTA and the guys at the UNI know only above.
Only the type writer concept.
Only I have objected to the SLSI 1134 and given a solution to the problem. No one listens.
There is nothing called “SINHALA UNICODE”. Unicode is a standard in the unicode consortium in USA and it is equal to the ISO and this what has been registered at the Sri Lanka Standard Institute as SLSI 1134.(donald objected and it has been a recorded document)
The Sinhala Unicode standard was not developed in Sri Lanka. It was designed by an American called Daniels and then picked up by a font maker called Everson. The proposal of the Unicode standard for Sri Lanka was proposed by Everson and endorsed by Camillus Jayewardena Ven. Mettavihari who is a Dane
(Camillus Jayewardena (University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka), Mettavihari (IBRIC – International Buddhist Research & Information Centre, Sri Lanka).
Unicode standard for Sinhala was made in America and will be extended in America. The frogs in the well croak and croak.
This is the truth Sir
April 20, 2008 at 11:36 am
You could get more examples on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7528191@N04/
some are posted by me rest by others
Donald
April 20, 2008 at 11:57 am
In Tamil also we had lot of problems, especially the bad implementation. Though Tamil had enough space, they messed up and came up with a inefficient way!
Now Tamil nadu gov and Indian gov working on it and trying to get a new format named as TUNE!, but it seems UNICODE consortium is not goin to approve the new adoptation!
April 20, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Sanjana:
Should have known that 
Though your mac has better rendering than mine. Got anything specific installed? I’m running an Intel mac mini single core OS X 10.4.11. My main browser is Firefox 2.0.0.14
Donald: Thank you for your input and the link to the screen shot. Will update the post. Though you lost me there on the details
Mayooresan: Thank you for that perspective
Do you think this will cause a split with UNICODE consortium/standard?
April 20, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Tamil too have the same problem like sinhala only registering typewriter text in unicode.
Do not worry sir. you create a national standard in Tamil Nadu. With your 247 characters and need more on grantha to represent the old tamil text. Need “ba” and “Fa” sound characters to write foreign words in Tamil. You put all these and make a new standard IME in Tamil Nadu or I can do it in Lanka after Sinhala. We can ask unicode consortium to fly a kite as our Indic characters can stand alone in internet as an Indic Standard.
Donald
April 20, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Dear Cerno
Re Andy Daniels see
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html
http://www.unicode.org/Public/TEXT/UTR-2.TXT
Do you know that Everson is proposing new numbers for Sinhala? Whose language is Sinhala, Cerno?
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3195.pdf
I write the truth. That is why others are angry and censor my comments. All these have to be exposed without and fear. We got to protect our National Language Sinhala.
We got to work in all three languages in Sri Lanka (Sinhala, Tamil and English) across all platforms.
Only I have the solution Sir
Donald
April 20, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] 20, 2008 Cerno’s post encouraged me to go back to what I had written mid-last year on the lack of Sinhala language [...]
April 20, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Email me if you want the fonts I’ve installed on my Mac, which seems to render UNICODE text far better than yours. See my post here – http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/sinhala-on-os-x-leopard-still-out-of-luck/
SH
April 21, 2008 at 8:33 am
Sanjana: Many thanks. I will do that. Are those fonts available online? A link would be a handy resource for other Mac users.
Donald: Thank you for you input and the info
April 21, 2008 at 9:08 am
Honestly, I don’t know. These are fonts (UNICODE + non-UNICODE) that I’ve collected over the years and installed on my Mac. Some of them worked, some did not. Together, something seems to be going right since my legibility of Sinhala UNICODE is far better than the hieroglyphs you get on your Mac!
I would have put the fonts up as a link, but may run into copyright issues and what not.
Frankly though, I wish the Colombo Uni’s LTRL or ICTA could do something about them fonts on a Mac.
SH
April 21, 2008 at 12:03 pm
A Font is not required. The ICTA or the UNI will have to publish the character allocation table for sinhala and Tamil.
This will be the standard for all IT development.
Only I have done and published. Either they have to accept my one or publish a new one better than me.
Once this is published all new software developers will do the needful.
If ICTA and UNI accept my solution there will be over 100,000 new jobs within 6 months.
Donald
April 21, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Sanjana Just sent the email
Personally, I doubt if there’s an interest in Sinhala language support for the mac 
I wonder what the Mac count in the country is like.
donald: From the looks of things, till the powers that be see the light, we’ll have to make do with make shift methods.
April 21, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Some of my writings on Sinhala Unicode and its completeness:
http://anuradha.sayura.net/2006/03/is-sinhala-unicode-incomplete.html
http://anuradha.sayura.net/2007/05/unicode-and-sinhala-alphabet.html
April 21, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I thank Cerno for permitting me to post my comments.
Most of the sites delete my comments.
The repercussions are on the way. I have no sympathy towards the people who are intentionally destroying Sinhala.
Donald
April 22, 2008 at 2:48 am
Hi Cerno,
Bumped into your post… I am the one who requested for some Apple.Developer forum for help.. yep around 4 months ago.. that was after I had read so many apple developer manuals, but needed that first push.. so had to request for some help, but sadly nobody replied.. and then my postgrad caught up with me.. and now I have less time to breath let alone dev a shaper…. but I will be back in SL for a short time in the middle of the year when I will meet the ppl at LTRL… and promise you I will look into it.
PS: Donald.. stop grumbling, Unicode works… but some minor glitches to be ironed out… it seems you are more worried about you patent than the development to Sinhala (Don’t be a typical Sri Lankan selling the “good for all” for your personal gains), it’s pointless trying to make you understand Unicode because as the saying goes “You can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make the it drink (if it does not want to)” … if you can’t work with your Mac throw it into the garbage.. and buy a PC and install Linux or Windows… Period!
April 22, 2008 at 10:18 am
Dear Hakim
Come on a public platform I will prove that Sinhala language is not working. The Sinhala SLSI 1134 or what has been registered in unicode is incomplete. Why dont you come forward and take my challenge.
I can organize the auditorium of Ingrin Institute. Give me a date and time. invite the media.
Else you fix it at the Colombo University auditorium I will come over and do my presentation.
Donald
April 22, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Can you check your email and let me know if you got ‘em?
April 22, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Hakim: Oh come on
I’m certainly not going to chuck my precious fruit in the can 
All the best with your efforts. Keep me posted on how it turns out
Anuradha: Thank you for the links. They will definitely make the discussion more informative
Donald: I hope you find some resolution
Sanjana: Will do
and let you know by email.
April 23, 2008 at 5:24 pm
I always challenge ICTA & University to come to a public platform also Dr Harsha do have an open invitation for a debate on his topic on Biz TV.
None come forward. If they have a solution why cant they face my challenge.
April 23, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hey Cerno
Nop not your Mac Bro… we will solve it for you soon… Inshallah(God willing)
. It was Donald’s Mac I suggested to be thrown in the garbage! LOL!
April 24, 2008 at 9:09 am
Donald: Hope you find out sooner than later
Hakim:
Iknow i know – just kidding. Though most mac users are hardly ever likely to do that. I’m still holding on to the carcass of the a dead 8year old powerbook – with a broken hard drive connection to the main boards and half the keys dead.
April 24, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hakim why dont you talk of some technical stuff.
Macs will never get end up in a garbage box but the computers using microsoft operating system will soon end in garbage bins. Microsoft will have to rewrite the whole computer OS to be in par or close to apple. With this change the older computers what you are using (assembled ones ) will have to put into bins. Sri Lanka should ban of importing used computers. People around the world is packing these old computers and send them to sri lanka as aid. We got to stop this garbage dumping.
Donald
April 24, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Cerno: Yep, I know what you mean! No way chucking an Apple!
Donald: I don’t waste my time on people like you… and for your off the topic comment… I use a Mac too… with OS X n Linux
April 25, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hakim: Are you using Boot camp or some other emulator? Or are you running Linux as the host OS with mac-on-linux (meaning you got a PowerPC mac)
Donald: You have a point there. I don’t think outright bans work as they tend to create black markets and rarely stamps out the need driving the whole process. Perhaps what might work better is a healthier form of demand for donated computers. Rejecting toxic junk though is critical. Another thing is get better used machines with a decent life cycle plan for the hardware. Recycling local used computers should be a priority over blindly accepting other people’s toxic wastes. And there defiantly should be a disposal method for hardware components (tricky and expensive though it is)- no matter how old the machine is. Old machines work quite well for basic stuff and they cut costs – up-to a point though. The disposal process should always be part of the life cycle.
Its all in the details – that complex dance between needs, costs and other considerations. At the basic level that involves planning. A very difficult business to pull off in a third world country at war.
April 25, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Some countries do have a very high rate for recycle – so it is cheaper to ship to a country like sri lanka. then gets credit. Yes I agree with you even a p2 or p3 is enough to send an email ,browse a text based web site, write a letter and keep some excel accounts. Also to learn typing skills.
What these people are sending is junk. may run for 2 or 3 months and end. NO drivers, No spare parts, no one knows what is the hardware etc etc.
Ban the imports or create a system to retrieve the gold or silver that is in the computer and discard the rest in envoirnment friendly method. This will also open new job opportunities in Sri Lanka. (in mumbai they discard used ships)
April 25, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Hakim
I use MAC’s from F2. 8MB, 160MB HD, two floppy drives, cost me US$ 17,000 in early 90’s Today you can buy 4 high end macs for the same value.
I know what I am talking and writing.
Donald
April 26, 2008 at 8:14 am
Donald: Totally agree with you on the need to have a proper policy for making sure only usable stuff gets here. Your mention of the Indian ship breaking industry is scary. I hope that used computers don’t turn Sri Lanka into the computer equivalent of those toxic ship breaking yards. Heard its happening in China and Africa.
April 27, 2008 at 10:33 am
Why not all of use post come policy proposals in to this site. Later one can edit it and make a proper document or a research paper and present it to a IT seminar.
April 27, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Donald:
IT policy isn’t exactly my area but I hope more knowledgeable people that I might suggest something workable. Perhaps a more public IT forum might get the desired audience 
(as much as I would like the the jump in traffic)
June 6, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I can do Sinhala if someone can help with the language. I have already ported OpenType fonts for Kannada and Telugu to the Mac & AAT.
I need a font that is released under a license that allows modification and redistribution. It should also look nice under Mac OS X’s font rendering system. I also will need web pages with Unicode Sinhala text, and screenshots of that text rendered correctly (using either Xenotype or Windows/Linux). Wikipedia is good.
June 6, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Nicholas: Wish I could help but I think some of the sites of the people who have comment on this post might be more helpful to you. As with most things dealing with language in Sri Lanka, this issue is quite convoluted and political. Makes the technical issues seem trivial. All the best
June 6, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Well I found a free front (GNU-licensed) but it doesn’t look very nice to my non-native-speaker eyes. Could you let me know which of the nine fonts here you like the best in terms of appearance, how badly not whether it’s broken:
http://web.nickshanks.com/typography/sinhala
I think Malithi Web works the best on a computer screen. (Not for print though).
The free one is LK LUG, which is rather thin and whispy at sizes < 18pt.
Ashkar is clearly the worst, with very large leading and blurred details even at a large size such as 18pt, as well as it being ‘more broken’
June 6, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Oh, and you could have made the google link point to google.com/search?q=50+USD+in+LKR
June 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Nicholas: Thank you for the info. That’s quite stunning to see Sinhala on OSX. And for the Google conversion tip
June 17, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Okay, so I posted a version of Malithi Web at http://web.nickshanks.com/typography/
I do some shaping and ligature substitution but not everything works right now. Specifically text with U+200D Zero Width Joiner is broken, and the ‘e’ vowel doesn’t get rearranged if it was typed as a compound vowel character (i.e. the sequence U+D9A U+DD9 U+DCA කේ works, but U+D9A U+DDA කේ does not).
June 18, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Nicolas: Thank you
I think you should also contact Anandawardhana who blogs in Sinhala. He’s involved with Sinhala character support. I am unfortunately clueless about the technical site of things
April 14, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Vista has Sinhala and Ubuntu can run OS with sinhala, but I use mac os x 10.5.2 still don’t have unicodes either.
so i hope they will include it very soon.
April 14, 2009 at 4:19 pm
http://web.nickshanks.com/typography/sinhala
This one is worked!
Thanks Nicholas Shanks !
April 14, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Nuwan Glad you found something useful here
April 21, 2009 at 10:16 am
As the only company providing a solution for Sinhala Mac users, I’d like to say that the problems with rendering have to do with a misunderstanding of the rendering available in OS X. Nick Shanks is on the right track and I support his work. Unfortunately, designing a complete font and working out the correct sequence for shaping on OS X is no trivial task. Our price reflects the small niche market that exists.
We do understand that the price is unrealistic in Sri Lanka and would love to offer a discounted price for Sri Lankans but there is no reliable way to verify location. In reality, we’d be happy to work with a Sri Lankan distributor who could handle in-country sales.
And if there’s an organization out there that would fund the release of our fonts into the public domain for Sinhala, we’re happy to discuss that too.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any information that might help.
April 21, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Kaonohi Kai: Thank you for commenting from the xenotypetech.com side of the story. I don’t think anyone would think of ill of xenotypetech for having to work in the market that they have. I think it is great that there’s at least one company on the planet creating a product like this for the mac.
April 26, 2009 at 4:51 am
I tried to use three fonts, namely SARASAVI UNICODE, LKLUG and Malithi Web, to create a LaTeX document in Sinhala. You can see my output in http://luku23.wordpress.com.
What’s wrong with these fonts?