Shahmukhi

Shahmukhi (Shahmukhi: شاہ مُکھی, pronounced [ʃäː(ɦ)˦.mʊ.kʰiː], lit.'from the Shah's or King's mouth', Gurmukhī: ਸ਼ਾਹਮੁਖੀ) is the right-to-left abjad-based script developed from the Perso-Arabic alphabet used for the Punjabi language varieties, predominantly in Punjab, Pakistan. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used for Persian and Urdu. Shahmukhi is one of the two standard scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhī used mainly in Punjab, India. Shahmukhi is written from right to left and has 36 primary letters with some other additional letters.

History

Before the advent of Shahmukhi, writing systems were not popular for the Old Punjabi varieties.[citation needed]

The name 'Shahmukhi' is a recent coinage, imitating its counterpart 'Gurmukhī'. However, the writing of Punjabi in the Perso-Arabic script is well-attested from the 17th 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 at standardising the Punjabi language; prior to this, Punjabi was primarily a spoken language, not formally taught in schools.

Shackle suggests that the Gurmukhī script was not favoured by Punjabi Muslims due to its religious (Sikh) connotations. Shahmukhi Punjabi was added to Google Translate in 2024.

Alphabet

Shahmukhi script is a modified version of the Arabic script's Persian alphabet. It is identical to the Urdu alphabet, but contains additional letters representing the Punjabi phonology. For writing Saraiki, an extended Shahmukhi is used that includes 4 additional letters for the implosive consonants (ٻ, ڄ, ݙ, ڳ).

Vowel diacritics

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 ں, ھ, or ے. Words which begin with ڑ 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, ل and لؕ form ligatures with ا: لا (ـلا) and لؕا (ـلؕا).

Aspirates

• ے (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 ی.
• Vowels are expressed as follows:

Difference from Persian and Urdu

Shahmukhi has more letters than its Persian base and related Urdu alphabet, to represent the special sounds that are only in Punjabi, which already have additional letters added to the Arabic base itself to represent sounds not present in Arabic. Characters added which differ from Persian but not Urdu include: ٹ to represent /ʈ/, ڈ to represent /ɖ/, ڑ to represent /ɽ/, ں to represent /◌̃/, and ے to represent /ɛ:/ or /e:/. Furthermore, a separate do-cashmi-he letter, ھ, exists to denote a /ʰ/ or a /ʱ/, this letter is mainly used as part of the multitude of digraphs, detailed above. Characters added which differ from Urdu include: لؕ to represent /ɭ/ and ݨ to represent /ɳ/. These characters, however are seldom used.

Pronunciation

The letter ژ is pronounced 'j' in French or as vision in English and the letter ع is often transliterated in many ways due to its changing sound in various Arabic and Persian words.

Gallery

• Modern Shahmukhi alphabet table in Mehr Nastaliq Saraiki font
• Standard Shahmukhi alphabets
• "Shahmukhi" written in Shahmukhi script
• Another example of poetry by Bulleh Shah in Shahmukhi

See also

• Gurmukhī alphabet
• Saraiki alphabet

Further reading

• Mumtaz Ahmad (1 April 1992), Punjabi Reader: in the Arabic Script (in Punjabi), Kensington: Dunwoody Publishing & Press, OL , Wikidata Q113235868
• Muhammad Iqbal Salahuddin (2002). (in Punjabi). Lahore: Aziz Publishers. ISBN 978-969-455-042-8. LCCN . OCLC . OL . Wikidata Q113450202.
• Rehman Akhter (2019), Gulshan-e-Urdu (in Punjabi and Urdu) (2nd ed.), Malerkotla: Brar Sons, Wikidata Q113270613
• پلاک ڈکشنری (in Punjabi), Lahore: Punjab Institute of Language, Art, and Culture, 2018, OL , Wikidata Q113301763
• Gurpreet Singh Lehal; Tejinder Singh Asani (2012), (PDF) (in English and Punjabi), Wikidata Q112672112

External links

• 2017-11-30 at the Wayback Machine