Shahmukhi

Shahmukhi 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 originated in the 12th century medieval Punjab through Sufi literature. 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 Gurmukhi used mainly in Punjab, India.
Shahmukhi is written from right to left, while Gurmukhi is written from left to right. Shahmukhi 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.
The earliest form of Shahmukhi was introduced by the Sufi poets of the 12th century medieval Punjab. It eventually became the standard and conventional writing style amongst the Punjabi Muslims, while Gurmukhi was adopted by the Sikhs in the 16th century.
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
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.
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 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 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: 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.
Pronunciation
The letter is pronounced 'j' in French or as vion in English and the letter is often transliterated in many ways due to its changing sound in various Arabic and Persian words.
Gallery
See also
Gurmukhī alphabet
Saraiki alphabet
References
Further reading
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
Arabic alphabets
Orthographies by language
Punjabi language
Arabic alphabets for South Asian languages