Kundaliya ෴ කුණ්ඩලිය

  

Sinhala “Kundaliya” which is a punctuation mark or a full stop unique to the Sinhala Script {Sinhala Language} has been used in ancient ola-leaf writings to conclude a long paragraph. The Sinhala Script or the Sinhala Akshara Malava is a writing system used in Sri Lanka and is one of the Brahmic Scripts which has descended from Ancient Indian Brahmi Script.

The Sinhala Script is an abugida which is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written in units. Usually written from left to right, Sinhala letters are classified under two sets – Pure Sinhala and Mixed Sinhala.

Sinhala Letters are round shaped and is known to be the most circular shaped script found in the Indic scripts. However, the evolution of these scripts to the present shapes and writing styles may have changed due to the ola leaf writings. The theory is that unlike chiseling on a rock, writing on ola leaves {palm leaves used for writing traditional manuscripts} had to be more round shaped to avoid ripping the leaf. When writing straight lines, chances were that the leaves were ripped and may have influenced people not to have a full stop and instead have a stylistic stop which was known as the Kundaliya. Period and Commas were later used in Sinhala Script once paper was introduced.