Dhivehi Keyboard Layout

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Dhivehi language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dhivehi, Divehi or Mahl is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 350,000 people in the Republic of Maldives and also in the island of Minicoy (Maliku) in neighbouring India, where it is known by another name, the Mahal language or Mahl (މަހަލް). In the Maldives, it is the official national language.
Dhivehi is closely related to Sinhala. Many languages have influenced the development of Dhivehi through the ages, most importantly Arabic. Others include Malayalam, Hindi, French, Persian, Portuguese, and English.
H. C. P. Bell was one of the first transliterators of this tongue. Bell called the language Divehi, which was consistent with Maldives, the name of the country, for the -dives of Maldives and the word Divehi have the same root, Sanskrit dvīpa “island”.
Wilhelm Geiger was a German linguist who undertook the first research on Divehi linguistics in the early 20th century. He called the Maldivian language Divehi, without an “h”. In 1976, when a semi-official Latin transliteration was developed for the Maldive language, an “h” was added to the name of the language, but not to the name of the country. This inconsistency has yet to be resolved.
English words such as atoll (a ring of coral islands or reefs) and doni (a vessel for inter-atoll navigation) are anglicized forms of the Maldivian words Atolhu and Dhōni.

Dhivehi writing systems

The Dhivehi or Divehi writing systems are the different scripts used by Maldivians during their history. The early Maldivian scripts fell into the abugida category, while the relatively more recent Taana has characteristics of both an abugida and a true alphabet. An ancient form of Nagari script, as well as the Arabic and Latin alphabets have also been extensively used in the Maldives, but with a more restricted function. “Latin” was official only during a very brief period of the Islands’ history.
The language of the Maldives has had its very own script since very ancient times. It is likely that the first Maldivian script appeared in association with the expansion of Buddhism throughout South Asia. This was over two millennia ago, in the Mauryan period, during emperor Ashoka’s time. Manuscripts used by Maldivian Buddhist monks were probably written in a script that slowly evolved into a characteristic Maldivian form. Unfortunately none of those ancient documents have survived and presently the early forms of the Maldive script are only found etched on a few coral rocks and copper plates.

Latin Transliteration of the Dhivehi language

Towards the mid 1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir’s tenure, Telex machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. The new telex equipment was viewed as a great progress, however the local Tāna script was deemed to be an obstacle because messages on the telex machines could only be written in the Latin script. Following this, “Dhivehi Letin”, a new official Latin transliteration was swiftly approved by the Maldive government in 1976 and was quickly implemented by the administration. Booklets were printed and dispatched to all Atoll and Island Offices, as well as schools and merchant liners. This was seen by many as the effective demise of the Tāna script.
Clarence Maloney, the American anthropologist who was in the Maldives at the time of the change, lamented the inconsistencies of the “Dhivehi Letin” which ignored all previous linguistic research on the Maldivian language done by H.C.P. Bell and Wilhelm Geiger. He wondered why the modern Standard Indic transliteration had not been considered. Standard Indic is a consistent script system that is well adapted to writing practically all languages of South Asia.[2]
The Tāna script was reinstated by the Maldivian government shortly after President Maumoon took power in 1978. There was widespread relief in certain places, especially rural areas, where the introduction of Latin had been regarded with suspicion. However, the substandard Latin transcription of 1976 continues to be widely used.

Dhivehi

Spoken in:     Maldives (official)
Minicoy Island (India)
Total speakers:    300,000+
Language family:    Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Insular Indo-Aryan
Dhivehi
Official status
Official language in:    The Maldives
Regulated by:    http://www.qaumiyyath.gov.mv/
Language codes
ISO 639-1:    dv
ISO 639-2:    div
ISO 639-3:    div