Transcribe Sinhala audio with WhisperAI
WhisperAI transcribes Sinhala (සිංහල) audio for the around 17 million speakers who use the language across Sri Lanka. Built on OpenAI Whisper and tuned for the realities of Sinhala speech, the service produces publication-grade transcripts in Sinhala script (a Brahmic abugida).
How Sinhala speakers actually use WhisperAI
- Sri Lankan media and broadcastingColombo-based Sinhala broadcasters transcribe interviews for publication.
- Sri Lankan government documentationGovernment offices transcribe Sinhala-language meetings for record-keeping.
- Colombo BPO and techSri Lankan outsourcing centres transcribe Sinhala internal meetings.
- Sinhala academic and cultural workUniversities document Sinhala oral histories and qualitative research.
Sinhala's diglossia — written and spoken forms differ structurally
Sinhala has marked diglossia — the literary form (used in newspapers, formal speech and broadcasts) and the spoken form differ in vocabulary, grammar and even verb conjugation. A transcript that flattens these distinctions misses the register of every utterance. Whisper preserves the distinction.
Standard Colombo Sinhala in both literary and spoken registers is supported with native Sinhala script.
Who actually needs Sinhala transcription
Sinhala demand comes from Sri Lankan media, Sri Lankan government documentation, BPO and tech work in Colombo, and academic South-Asian-studies.
Dialects and varieties handled
- Standard Sinhala (Colombo)
- Spoken Sinhala
- Literary Sinhala (significantly different from spoken)
How to transcribe Sinhala audio
Upload your Sinhala recording
Drop in MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4 or similar — files up to 5GB. Long-form Sinhala interviews, lectures and meetings work without splitting.
Whisper transcribes the audio
The model recognises Sinhala speech across the dialects above and outputs Sinhala script (a Brahmic abugida). Code-switched English and other languages in the same recording are handled inline.
Edit, label and export
Open the transcript in the editor, fix any names or terms, label speakers, and export to PDF, DOCX, TXT or SRT. Optional AI summary surfaces the key points and decisions.
What Sinhala transcripts include
Native Sinhala script (a Brahmic abugida)
Output in Sinhala script (a Brahmic abugida) with all diacritics, tone marks, special characters and script-specific conventions preserved — never transliteration.
Speaker labels
Diarisation that separates and labels speakers in Sinhala interviews, panels and multi-party meetings.
Timestamps and SRT
Word-level timestamps and SRT subtitle export for Sinhala video captioning, with proper line-breaking for the script.
Editor and exports
In-browser editor with PDF, DOCX, TXT and SRT exports. Edit the transcript without leaving the browser, then download the format your downstream workflow expects.
Transcription guides and best practices
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Start transcribing Sinhala today
Sign up free, drop in your first Sinhala file, and have a usable transcript in minutes.