Divehi Keyboard Onlineދިވެހި ކީބޯޑު

All 24 Thaana letters on the Divehi Phonetic layout, with every fili vowel mark and the sukun one tap away.

24 Letters
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Thaana Script
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# Special Characters
😊 Emoji
✨ Special
🔢 Numbers
Western
Symbols

Works with every app you love

Ready-Made Divehi Combos

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How To Use

Three steps. Ten seconds.

Type

Type

Type a consonant, then its fili: on your own keyboard s then a gives ސަ, and Shift+S, Shift+L or Shift+D give ށ, ޅ and ޑ. W is alifu for words that start with a vowel.

1
Copy

Copy

Close a syllable with the sukun from Q or the Special popup, as in ބަސް, then press Copy.

2
Paste

Paste

Paste into WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or email; the text keeps its right-to-left order.

3

Divehi Keyboard for Any App

Thaana stays Thaana when you paste it: fili, sukun and right-to-left order intact.

Snapchat

Snapchat

Snapchat: caption a beach or reef snap with ރީތި ރަށް instead of a Latin spelling.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp

WhatsApp: send ބާއްޖަވެރި ހެނދުނެއް to family on another island with every fili in place.

Instagram

Instagram

Instagram: write a bio in Thaana, with the sukun on ބަސް where it belongs.

TikTok

TikTok

TikTok: caption a boduberu clip or a Malé street video in Dhivehi letters.

Free Divehi Keyboard Online.
Type from any device — no download, no install.

100% free · ~505K speakers · All devices

Thaana is one of the few alphabets whose letters began as numbers. Its first nine letters, haa to vaavu, were shaped from the Arabic numerals one to nine, and the next nine, meemu to daviyani, from the digits of Dhives Akuru, the older Maldivian script. Dhives Akuru came from Brahmi and was written left to right; it survived in the southern atolls, and the last known official document using it dates from 1927. Thaana runs right to left. Its exact origin is debated. Some accounts trace an early form called Gabulhi Thaana, written without spaces between words, to the reign of Sultan Nasir al-Din (1409–1411) and a gravestone from 1479, while other sources place the earliest securely attested Thaana in the late 16th century. The door posts of the Friday mosque on Kanditheemu island carry Thaana dated 1599 and 1611. The modern script was in place before 1705. The letter naviyani was dropped from official documents around 1953, which left the 24 letters of today. In 1976 the government adopted a Latin spelling for telex machines; Thaana returned in 1978, shortly after Maumoon Abdul Gayoom took office. Thaana joined Unicode 3.0 in September 1999.

In Thaana every letter must carry a mark. The vowels are not letters but signs called fili, written above or below the consonant: five short vowels (a, i, u, e, o) and five long ones (aa, ee, oo, ey, oa). A consonant with no vowel takes the sukun, as in ބަސް (bas, language). A word that starts with a vowel puts the fili on alifu, a silent carrier letter: އަހަރެން (aharen, I). Alifu with a sukun doubles the next consonant, as in ބައްޕަ (bappa, father), while a bare noonu with no mark at all signals a nasal before a stop, as in ރަނގަޅު (rangalhu, good). Spelling is close to phonemic: you write what you hear.

Typing Dhivehi means typing consonant, then mark. Windows has shipped two Thaana layouts since XP, Divehi Phonetic and Divehi Typewriter, plus the MV Boli font designed for Thaana. This page follows the Phonetic layout: s gives seenu and Shift+S shaviyani, l gives laamu and Shift+L lhaviyani, d gives dhaalu and Shift+D the retroflex daviyani, t gives thaa and Shift+T taviyani. The vowel keys type the fili (A for a, Shift+A for aa, and so on), W types alifu and Q the sukun. Phones caught up late: Dhivehi became a built-in iPhone keyboard only with iOS 13 in 2019, after years of third-party apps, and Gboard offers it on Android. The Latin spelling of 1976 never fully left either. It is the form used for place names such as Malé, and it is why the language is written Dhivehi, with dh for the dental d. The 2022 census counted 382,639 resident Maldivians, and a dialect of the language is also spoken on Minicoy in India. This keyboard shows the 24 letters on screen and keeps every fili, the sukun and the quotation marks in the Special popup.

An Alphabet Built From Numbers

Most Thaana letters began life as digits, and every one of them has to carry a vowel mark or a sukun.

24 letters9 from digits 1–99 from Dhives Akuru digits10 fili + sukun
Letters 1 to 9

ހ ށ ނ ރ ބ — once the digits one to five

ހށނރބޅކއވ

The first nine letters, haa to vaavu, were shaped from the Arabic numerals one to nine. That is why the alphabet starts with h, sh, n, r, b and not with a.

ހ haa = 1 · ވ vaavu = 9
Letters 10 to 18

The local digits came next

މފދތލގ

The next nine, meemu to daviyani, come from the digits of Dhives Akuru, the older Maldivian script. One of them, naviyani, was dropped from official writing around 1953.

މ meemu = 1 · ގ gaafu = 6
No bare letters

Every letter wears a mark

ބަސްދިވެހި

Each letter must carry a fili (vowel mark) or the sukun, which means no vowel. The only exception is a bare noonu before a stop, which marks a nasal sound.

ބަސް — bas, language · ރަނގަޅު — rangalhu, good
Doubling

Alifu with sukun doubles

އްބައްޕަމަންމަ

Alifu + sukun before a consonant doubles it. For m and n the doubling is written with noonu + sukun instead.

ބައްޕަ — bappa, father · މަންމަ — mamma, mother
FAQ

Frequently Asked
Questions

24 basic letters. A further 14 letters made by adding dots to existing ones, called thikijehi thaana, were created to spell Arabic loanwords, though their use is becoming less frequent.
From numbers. The first nine letters, haa to vaavu, come from the Arabic numerals 1 to 9, and the next nine, meemu to daviyani, from the digits of Dhives Akuru, the older Maldivian script. The rest were made by adding marks to those letters.
Thaana writes vowels as marks called fili, and each letter must carry either a fili or the sukun (no vowel). The one exception is a bare noonu before a stop consonant, which marks a nasal sound.
Put the fili on alifu (އ), the silent carrier letter. On the Phonetic layout that is W followed by the vowel key: W then A gives އަ, as at the start of އަހަރެން (aharen, I).
It marks a consonant with no vowel after it, as on the last letter of ބަސް (bas, language). On the Phonetic layout the sukun is on the Q key, and it is also in the Special popup.
With alifu plus sukun before the consonant: ބައްޕަ (bappa, father). Doubled nasals use noonu plus sukun instead: މަންމަ (mamma, mother).
A noonu written without any fili or sukun means the next stop is pronounced with a nasal before it. ރަނގަޅު (rangalhu, good) has this bare noonu before gaafu.
The Latin spelling adopted in 1976 writes the dental d (ދ) as dh and the dental t (ތ) as th, keeping plain d and t for the retroflex ޑ and ޓ. The h was added to the language name at that time.
A retroflex l, written lh in Latin spelling. It keeps words apart: އަލި (ali) means light, while އަޅި (alhi) means ash. On the Phonetic layout it is Shift+L.
On the Divehi Phonetic layout the retroflex and extra letters sit on Shift: Shift+S for shaviyani (ށ), Shift+D for daviyani (ޑ), Shift+T for taviyani (ޓ), Shift+L for lhaviyani (ޅ) and Shift+N for gnaviyani (ޏ).
Yes. In 1976 the government approved a Latin transliteration because the new telex machines could only send Latin letters. Thaana was reinstated in 1978, but the Latin spelling is still used for place names.
Dhives Akuru, a Brahmi-based script written left to right. It survived in some southern atolls into the 19th century, and the last known official document in it dates from 1927.
Because those letters were once the digits 1, 2 and 3. The order follows neither Indic nor Arabic alphabets, and one view is that it was scrambled to keep the script secret; it was first used for magical incantations.
Naviyani (ޱ), a retroflex n, was dropped from official documents around 1953 and gnaviyani took its place as the 16th letter. People of Addu Atoll and Fuvahmulah still use it for songs and poems in their dialects.
Atoll and dhoni. Atoll comes from atholhu (ateḷu in older spelling), and dhoni from the Maldivian word for the traditional boat, ދޯނި.
Yes. Both descend from the Elu Prakrit of ancient Sri Lanka and form the Insular Indo-Aryan group, but speakers of the two cannot understand each other. Dhivehi was the southernmost Indo-Aryan language before European colonisation.
The southern atolls differ most. The Mulaku dialect of Fuvahmulah ends words in an l written ލް, which other dialects lack, and says fanno where Malé says fannu. The Huvadhu dialect keeps the most archaic forms.
On Minicoy island in Lakshadweep, India, where the Maliku dialect (Mahl) is spoken. It has fewer differences from standard Dhivehi than the southern dialects, plus some Malayalam loanwords.

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