The Maldivian language has had its own script since very ancient times, most likely over two millennia, when Maldivian Buddhist monks translated and copied the Buddhist scriptures. It used to be written in the earlier form (Evēla) of the
Dhives Akuru ("Dhivehi/Maldivian letters") which are written from left to right. Dhives Akuru were used in all of the islands between the conversion to Islam and until the 18th century. These ancient Maldivian letters were also used in official correspondence with Addu Atoll until the early 20th century. Perhaps they were used in some isolated islands and rural communities until the 1960s, but the last remaining native user died in the 1990s. Today Maldivians rarely learn the Dhives Akuru alphabet, for Arabic is favoured as the second script. Maldivian is now written using a different script, called Taana or Thaana, written from right to left. This script is relatively recent. The literacy rate of the Maldives is very high (98%) compared to other South Asian countries. Since the 1960s English has become the medium of education in most schools although they still have Maldivian language classes, but Maldivian is still the language used for the overall administration. Maldivian uses mainly the Thaana script for writing. It is an
alphabet, with obligatory vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the
Arabic abjad. It is a largely
phonemic script: With a few minor exceptions, spelling can be predicted from pronunciation, and pronunciation from spelling. The origins of Thaana are unique among the world's alphabets: The first nine letters (h–v) are derived from the Arabic numerals, whereas the next nine (m–d) were the local Indic numerals. (See
Hindu–Arabic numerals.) The remaining letters for loanwords (t–z) and Arabic transliteration are derived from phonetically similar native consonants by means of diacritics, with the exception of y (), which is derived from combining an () and a (). This means that Thaana is one of the few alphabets not derived graphically from the
original Semitic alphabet – unless the Indic numerals were (see
Brahmi numerals). The Thaana alphabet (, ...) does not follow the ancient order of the other Indic scripts (like Tamil) or the order of the Arabic alphabet. Thaana, like Arabic, is written
right to left. It indicates vowels with diacritic marks derived from Arabic. Each letter must carry either a vowel or a
sukun, which indicates "no vowel". The only exception to this rule is which, when written without a diacritic, indicates
prenasalisation of a following
stop. The
vowels are written with diacritical signs called . There are five for short vowels (a, i, u, e, o), with the first three being identical to the
Arabic vowel signs ( and ). Long vowels (aa, ee, oo, ey, oa) are denoted by doubled , except oa, which is a modification of the short . The letter represents the
glottal stop. It has three different purposes: It can act as a carrier for a vowel, that is, a word-initial vowel or the second part of a
diphthong; when it carries a , it indicates
gemination of the following consonant; and if + occurs at the end of a word, it indicates that the word ends in a glottal stop. Gemination of nasals, however, is indicated by + preceding the nasal to be geminated. Maldivian is also written in "
Malé Latin" (most commonly used, such as when romanising place names).
IAST transliteration is also sometimes used, and also the
Devanāgarī script (almost never used in Maldives, but used in
Minicoy) == Latin transliteration ==