The Urdu alphabet () is the right-to-left alphabet used for writing Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which itself is derived from the Arabic script. It has official and national status in Pakistan, and is official in certain regions in India. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter cases and is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly written in the Naskh style.
Usually, transliterations of Urdu into the Latin alphabet (called Roman Urdu) have many phonemic elements or sounds that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin script.
History
The standard Urdu script is a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script and has its origins in 13th-century Iran. It is also related to Shahmukhi, used for the Punjabi language varieties in Punjab, Pakistan. It is closely related to the development of the Nastaliq style of Perso-Arabic script. During the Mughal era, Nasta'liq became the common script for writing the Hindustani language, especially Urdu.
Despite the invention of the Urdu typewriter in 1911, Urdu newspapers continued to publish prints of handwritten scripts by calligraphers known as katibs or khush-navees until the late 1980s. The Pakistani national newspaper Daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper to use Nastaʿlīq computer-based composition. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers with Urdu software programs.
Other than the Indian subcontinent, the Urdu script is also used by Pakistan's large diaspora, including in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and other places.
Nastaliq
Urdu is written in the Nastaliq style ( Nastaʿlīq). The Nastaliq calligraphic writing style began as a Persian mixture of the Naskh and Ta'liq scripts. After the Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent, Nastaliq became the preferred writing style for Urdu. It is the dominant style in Pakistan, and many Urdu writers elsewhere in the world use it. Nastaʿlīq is more cursive and flowing than its Naskh counterpart.
In the Arabic alphabet, and many others derived from it, letters are regarded as having two or three general forms each, based on their position in the word (though Arabic calligraphy can add a great deal of complexity). But the Nastaliq style in which Urdu is written uses more than three general forms for many letters, even in simple non-decorative documents.
Alphabet The Urdu script is an Abjad script derived from the modern Persian script, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic script. As an Abjad, the Urdu script only shows consonants and long vowels; short vowels can only be inferred by the consonants' relation to each other. While this type of script is convenient in Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew, whose consonant roots are the key of the sentence, Urdu is an Indo-European language, which requires more precision towards vowel sound pronunciation, hence necessitating somewhat more memorization. The number of letters in the Urdu alphabet is somewhat ambiguous and debated.
Letter names and phonemes Name Forms IPA Romanization Unicode Order UrduRoman Urdu Isolated Final Medial Initial ALA-LC HunterianGeographical Names Romanization in Pakistan. UNGEGN, 18th Session. Geneva, 12–23 August 1996. Working Papers No. 85 and No. 85 Add. 1. alif ā, – U+0627 1 bē b U+0628 2 pē p U+067E 3 tē t U+062A 4 ṭē ṭ t U+0679 5 s̱ē s̱ s U+062B 6 jīm j U+062C 7 cē c ch U+0686 8 baṛī ḥē ḥ h U+062D 9 ḥā'e huttī ḥā'e muhmala ḥē k͟hē k͟h kh U+062E 10 dāl d U+062F 11 ḍāl ḍ d U+0688 12 ẕāl ẕ z U+0630 13 rē r U+0631 14 ṛē ṛ r U+0691 15 zē z U+0632 16 zhē zh U+0698 17 sīn s U+0633 18 shīn sh U+0634 19 ṣwād ṣ s U+0635 20 ẓwād ẓ z U+0636 21 t̤oē t̤ t U+0637 22 z̤oē z̤ z U+0638 23 ain U+0639 24 g͟hain g͟h gh U+063A 25 fē f U+0641 26 qāf q U+0642 27 kāf k U+06A9 28 gāf g U+06AF 29 lām l U+0644 30 mīm m U+0645 31 nūn n U+0646 32 nūn g͟hunnā ṉ n U+06BA U+0658 32a 33 wāo v, ū, u, o, au w, ū, u, o, au U+0648 33 34 hē h, ā, e U+06C1 34 34 35 choṭī hē 34a do-cashmī hē or h U+06BE 35 34b 36 yē y, ī, á U+06CC 36 35 38 baṛī yē ai, e U+06D2 37 35b 39 hamzah or silent , –, yi U+0626 35a 37 U+0621 0 Footnotes:
Additional characters and variations
Arabic Tāʼ marbūṭah Tāʼ marbūṭah is also sometimes considered the 40th letter of the Urdu alphabet, though it is rarely used except for in certain loan words from Arabic. Tāʼ marbūṭah is regarded as a form of tā, the Arabic version of Urdu tē, but it is not pronounced as such, and when replaced with an Urdu letter in naturalised loan words it is usually replaced with Gol hē.
Table + Table of additional characters and variations Group Letter Name (see: Glossary of key words) Unicode Nastaliq Naskh with diacritics Roman Urdu or English Alif alif maddah U+0622 alef with madda above Hamza hamzah U+0621 hamza hamza on the line hamza diacritic U+0654 Hamza Above hamzah U+0626 yeh with hamza above yē hamza / alif hamza baṛī yē hamza U+06D3 yeh barree with hamza above vāv-e mahmūz U+0624 waw with hamza above U+06C2 heh goal with hamza above or U+06C1 + U+0654 Arabic tāʼ marbūṭah "bound ta" U+06C3 teh marbuta goal U+0629 teh marbuta tāʼ maftūḥah "open ta" U+062A Teh
Footnotes:
Hamza in Nastaliq Hamza can be difficult to recognise in Urdu handwriting and fonts designed to replicate it, closely resembling two dots above as featured in Té and Qaf, whereas in Arabic and Geometric fonts it is more distinct and closely resembles the western form of the numeral 2 (two).
Digraphs
+ The digraphs of aspirated consonants are as follows. Digraph Transcription IPA Examples bh ph th ṭh jh chh dh ḍh rh ṛh kh gh lh (alternative of ) mh nh
A separate do-chashmi-he letter, , exists to denote a /ʰ/ or a /ʱ/. This letter is mainly used as part of the multitude of digraphs, detailed in above.
Differences from the Persian alphabet
Urdu has more letters added to the Perso-Arabic base to represent sounds not present in Persian, which already has additional letters added to the Arabic base itself to represent sounds not present in Arabic. The letters added are shown in the table below:
Letter IPA /ʈ/ /ɖ/ /ɽ/ /◌̃/ /ɛ:/ or /e:/.
Retroflex letters
Old Hindustani used four dots over three Arabic letters to represent retroflex consonants. In handwriting those dots were often written as a small vertical line attached to a small triangle. Subsequently, this shape became identical to a small letter t̤oʼē. It is commonly and erroneously assumed that ṭāʾ itself was used to indicate retroflex consonants because of it being an emphatic alveolar consonant that Arabic scribes thought approximated the Hindustani retroflexes. In modern Urdu, called to'e is always pronounced as a dental, not a retroflex.
Vowels The Urdu language has ten vowels and ten nasalized vowels. Each vowel has four forms depending on its position: initial, middle, final and isolated. Like in its parent Arabic alphabet, Urdu vowels are represented using a combination of digraphs and diacritics. Alif, Waw, Ye, He and their variants are used to represent vowels.
Vowel chart
Urdu does not have standalone vowel letters. Short vowels (a, i, u, o) are represented by optional diacritics (zabar, zer, pesh, ulta pesh) upon the preceding consonant or a placeholder consonant (alif, ain, or hamzah) if the syllable begins with the vowel, and long vowels by consonants alif, ain, ye, and wa'o as matres lectionis, with disambiguating diacritics, some of which are optional (zabar, zer, pesh, ulta pesh), whereas some are not (madd, hamzah). Urdu does not have short vowels at the end of words. This is a table of Urdu vowels:
RomanizationPronunciationFinalMiddleInitiala N/Aā i N/Aī e ai u N/Aū o au
Alif
Alif is the first letter of the Urdu alphabet, and it is used exclusively as a vowel. At the beginning of a word, alif can be used to represent any of the short vowels: ab, ism, Urdū. For long ā at the beginning of words alif-mad is used: āp, but a plain alif in the middle and at the end: bhāgnā.
Wāʾo
Wāʾo is used to render the vowels "ū", "o", "u" and "ō" ([uː], [oː], [ʊ] and [ɔː] respectively), and it is also used to render the labiodental approximant, [ʋ]. Only when preceded by the consonant k͟hē (), can wāʾo render the "u" ([ʊ]) sound (such as in , "k͟hud" - myself), or not pronounced at all (such as in , "k͟haab" - dream). This is known as the silent wāʾo, and is only present in words loaned from Persian. When written with pesh ( / ), it is usually pronounced with "u" and "ū", for example "umeed" () and "khushbū" (). In the case of wāʾo being written with an ulta pesh ( / ), it would be pronounced with an "o" and "ō", such as the likes of "mohtāj" () and "jāgō" ()
Ye
Ye is divided into two variants: choṭī ye ("little ye") and baṛī ye ("big ye").
Choṭī ye () is written in all forms exactly as in Persian. It is used for the long vowel "ī" and the consonant "y".
Baṛī ye () is used to render the vowels "e" and "ai" ( and respectively). Baṛī ye is distinguishable in writing from choṭī ye only when it comes at the end of a word/ligature. Additionally, Baṛī ye is never used to begin a word/ligature, unlike choṭī ye.
Letter's nameFinal FormMiddle FormInitial FormIsolated FormChoṭī yeBaṛī ye
The 2 hes He is divided into two variants: gol he ("round he") and do-cašmi he ("two-eyed he").
Gol he () is written round and zigzagged, and can impart the "h" () sound anywhere in a word. Additionally, at the end of a word, it can be used to render the long "a" or the "e" vowels ( or ), which also alters its form slightly (on modern digital writing systems, this final form is achieved by writing two he's consecutively).
Do-cašmi he () is written as in Arabic Naskh style script (as a loop), in order to create the aspirate consonants and write Arabic words.
Letter's nameFinal FormMiddle FormInitial FormIsolated FormGol he Do-cašmi he
Ayn Ayn in its initial and final position is silent in pronunciation and is replaced by the sound of its preceding or succeeding vowel.
Nun Ghunnah Vowel nasalization is represented by nun ghunna written after their non-nasalized versions, for example: when nasalized would become . In middle form nun ghunna is written just like nun and is differentiated by a diacritic called or ulta jazm which is a superscript V symbol above the .
Examples: Form Urdu TranscriptionOrthography End form Middle form
Diacritics Urdu uses the same subset of diacritics used in Arabic based on Persian conventions. Urdu also uses Persian names of the diacritics instead of Arabic names. Commonly used diacritics are zabar (Arabic fatḥah ــَ ), zer (Arabic kasrah ـِـ ), pesh (Arabic dammah ـُـ ) and ulta pesh which are used to clarify the pronunciation of vowels, as shown above. Jazam (, Arabic sukun) is used to indicate a consonant cluster and tashdid (, Arabic shaddah ـّـ ) is used to indicate a gemination, although it is never used for verbs, which require double consonants to be spelled out separately. Other diacritics include khari zabar (Arabic dagger alif ـٰـ ), do zabar (Arabic fathatan ـًـ ) which are found in some common Arabic loan words. Other Arabic diacritics are also sometimes used though very rarely in loan words from Arabic. Zer-e-izafat and hamzah-e-izafat are described in the next section.