Shahmukhi alphabet

Shahmukhi (Punjabi: شاہ مکھی, Gurmukhi: ਸ਼ਾਹਮੁਖੀ, meaning literally "from the King's mouth") is a Perso-Arabic alphabet used by Muslims in Punjab to write the Punjabi language. It is generally written in Nastaʿlīq hand. Perso-Arabic is one of two scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurumukhi.

The Shahmukhi alphabet was first used by the Sufi poets of the Punjab; it became the conventional writing style for the Muslim populace of the Pakistani province of Punjab following the independence of Pakistan in 1947, while the largely Hindu and Sikh modern-day state of Punjab, India adopted the Gurmukhi script to record the Punjabi language.

It is used as the main alphabet in Indian Punjab and is also used as the main alphabet to write the Pothohari dialect in Indian Jammu and Kashmir.

Shahmukhi is written from right to left, while Gurmukhi is written from left to right. Below is the comparison of the two scripts.

Top left: International Phonetic Alphabet, dash, top right: Gurmukhi, bottom: Shahmukhi.

Features

• Consonants are doubled with ّ (ੱ). Ex: ﷲ (ਅੱਲਾਹ) "Allāh", كَچَّا (ਕੱਚਾ) Kachchā "unripe".
• The Gurumukhi sounds ñ (ਞ), ng (ਙ), ṇ (ਣ), nh (ੰ/ં) are all written with ں nun ghunna (nun without dot). In initial and medial positions, the dot is retained.
• ے (Bari 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 ی.
• There are three signs used when indicating a short vowel: َ (ਅ), ُ (ਉ), ِ (ਇ): a, u, i. Examples: قَلَم (ਕ਼ਲਮ) qalam "pen", گھُپ (ਘੁਪ) ghup "dense", لِحاظ (ਲਿਹਾਜ਼) lihāż "consideration"
• At the beginning of a word, short vowels are written with the help of ا (alif) as follows: اِ, اُ, اَ.
• Long vowels are expressed with ے, ی, ا and و as follows:

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 Gurumukhi 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.

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

See also

• Gurmukhī alphabet
• Saraiki alphabet

References

External links

• Shahmukhi to Gurmukhi Transliteration System: A Corpus based Approach
• The Western Panjabi Alphabet
• Learn Shahmukhi
• Likhari in Shahmukhi
• Kalam-e-Baba Nanak
• Punjabi and Punjab
• E-Book on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi
• PDF on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi