Shahmukhi script

Shahmukhi (, ) is a Perso-Arabic alphabet script used historically by Punjabi Muslims (primarily in present-day Pakistani Punjab) to write the Punjabi language. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used for Urdu. Shahmukhi script is used in Pakistani Punjab as the official script for writing Punjabi. Perso-Arabic is one of two scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhi, used by Sikhs and Hindus in Indian Punjab.

Shahmukhi is written from right to left, while Gurmukhi is written from left to right. It is also used as the main alphabet to write Pahari–Pothwari in Azad Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir.

The Shahmukhi alphabet was first used by the Sufi poets of Punjab, and became the conventional writing style for the Muslim populace of the Pakistani province of Punjab following the Partition of India, while the largely Hindu and Sikh modern-day state of Punjab, India adopted the Gurmukhi or seldom, the Devanagari scripts to record the Punjabi language.

Shahmukhi script is a modified version of the Arabic script. It was introduced by the Muslim Sufi poets in the 12th century for Punjabi language. While it is virtually identical to the Urdu alphabet, it is sometimes considered as a superset when additional letters are attempted to be included, representing Punjabi phonology; hence all Urdu readers can naturally read Shahmukhi (and vice versa) without any practical difficulty. For writing Saraiki, an extended Shahmukhi is used that includes 4 additional letters for the implosive consonants ().

History

The name 'Shahmukhi' is a recent coinage, imitating its counterpart 'Gurmukhi'. However, the writing of Punjabi in the Perso-Arabic script is well-attested from the 12th century onwards. According to Dhavan, Punjabi began to adopt the script as a "side effect" of educational practices in Mughal-era Punjab, when Punjabi Muslims learned the Persian language in order to participate in Mughal society. Educational materials taught Persian to Punjabi speakers by using Punjabi written in Persian's alphabet, which was a novel innovation. This was one of the first attempts in writing and standardising the Punjabi language; prior to this, Punjabi was primarily a spoken language, not formally taught in schools.

Shackle suggests that the Gurmukhi script was not favoured by Punjabi Muslims due to its religious (Sikh) connotations.

Alphabet

Vowel diacritics

Though only implied, like Urdu, Shahmukhi also has diacritics, which are implied - a convention retained from the original Arabic script, to express short vowels.

Consonants

No Punjabi words begin with , , or . Words which begin with are exceedingly rare, but some have been documented in Shahmukhi dictionaries such as Iqbal Salahuddin's ''Waddi Punjabi Lughat''.
The digraphs of aspirated consonants are as follows. In addition, and form ligatures with : () and ().

Aspirates

* (waddi ye) is only found in the final position, when writing the sounds e (ਏ) or æ (ਐ), and in initial and medial positions, it takes the form of .
* Vowels are expressed as follows:

Difference from Persian and Urdu

Shahmukhi has more letters added to the Urdu base to represent sounds not present in Urdu, which already has additional letters added to the Arabic and Persian base itself to represent sounds not present in Arabic. Characters added which differ from Persian but not Urdu include: to represent /ʈ/, to represent /ɖ/, to represent /ɽ/, to represent /◌̃/, and to represent /ɛ:/ or /e:/. Furthermore, a separate do-cashmi- he letter, , exists to denote a /ʰ/ or a /ʱ/, this letter is mainly used as part of the multitude of digraphs, detailed below. Characters added which differ from Urdu include: ࣇ to represent /ɭ/ and ݨ to represent /ɳ/. These characters, however are rarely used.

Loanwords

In Punjabi, there are many Arabic and Persian loanwords. These words contain some sounds which were alien to South Asian languages before the influence of Arabic and Persian, and are therefore represented by introducing dots beneath specific Gurmukhi characters. Since the Gurmukhi alphabet is phonetic, any loanwords which contained pre-existing sounds were more easily transliterated without the need for characters modified with subscript dots.

is pronounced 'j' in French or as vion in English

is often transliterated in many ways due to its changing sound in various Arabic and Persian words.

Gallery

File:Bulleh Shah poetry example.png, An example of poetry in Shahmukhi by Bulleh Shah, a prominent Sufi-poet
File:Bhulay Shah.jpg, Another example of poetry by Bulleh Shah in Shahmukhi

See also

*Gurmukhī alphabet
* Saraiki alphabet

References

Further reading

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External links

Shahmukhi to Gurmukhi Transliteration System: A Corpus based Approach




Learn Shahmukhi



Kalam-e-Baba Nanak

Punjabi and Punjab

E-Book on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi

PDF on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi

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Arabic alphabets
Orthographies by language
Punjabi language
Arabic alphabets for South Asian languages