Shahmukhi
Shahmukhi (شاہ مکھی, Gurmukhi : ਸ਼ਾਹਮੁਖੀ, literally “from the mouth of the king ” ) is a regional variant of the Arabic alphabet , which is used for the written representation of Punjabi , a language that is mainly used in Punjab in Pakistan and northern India .
history
Shahmukhi is based on the Nastaliq style of the Persian alphabet , is written from right to left like this one and was traditionally written by the Panjab Muslims in Pakistan and India. It has been used mainly in the Panjab region of Pakistan since the middle of the 20th century. It is the official writing system of the Punjabi language in Pakistan. In India, Punjabi is written in the Gurmukhi script.
properties
- The Gurmukhi sounds ñ (ਞ), ng (ਙ) and nh (ੰ / ં) are all written with ں ( Nun-e ghunna , dotless nun). The point is retained in the initial and middle position.
- ے (Bari ye) only occurs in the final position when the sounds e (ਏ) or æ (ਐ) are written, and in the initial and middle positions it takes the form ي.
- There are three characters for marking a short vowel: َ (ਅ), ُ (ਉ) and ِ (ਇ): a, u and i. Examples: قَلَم (ਕ਼ਲਮ) qalam ( pen ), گھُپ (ਘੁਪ) ghup ( dense ), لِحاظ (ਲਿਹਾਜ਼) lihāż ( recital )
- At the beginning of a word, short vowels are written as follows: اَ, اُ, اِ
- Long vowels are represented with ا, ي, ے and و as follows:
| vocal | ā (ਆ) | e, æ (ਏ, ਐ) | ū (ਊ) | ī (ਈ) | au, o (ਔ, ਓ) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial | آ | اَے | اُو | اِي | اَو |
| Medial | َﺎ | َﯧ | ُﻮ | ِﯧ | َﻮ |
| Final | َﺎ | َﮯ | ُﻮ | ِﻲ | َﻮ |
- Consonants are doubled with ّ (ੱ). Examples: ﷲ (ਅੱਲਾਹ): Allāh ( God ), كَچَّا (ਕੱਚਾ): Kachchā ( immature )
Additional letters
There are some additional letters that are used occasionally:
Loanwords
In Punjabi there are many Arabic and Persian loan words , especially in the western dialects .
Since many of the Arabic sounds cannot be represented in the Devanagari- based Gurmukhi script , which is more optimized for the sounds of Indo-Iranian languages , the Shahmukhi script is much more suitable for this.
Arabic letters
ﺫ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ ﻍ ﺡ ﺙ
Persian letters
گ چ پ ژ
Arabic-Persian letters
ﺥ ﺯ ﻑ ﻕ
