Shahmukhi

Shahmukhi is a special way of writing used for the Punjabi language, mainly in Punjab, Pakistan. Its name means "from the Shah's or King's mouth" and it comes from the Perso-Arabic alphabet. People write Shahmukhi from right to left, just like they do in Persian and Urdu, using a beautiful style called Nastaʿlīq.

Punjabi can be written in two main ways: Shahmukhi and Gurmukhī. Gurmukhī is mostly used in Punjab, India. Shahmukhi has 36 main letters, with a few extra letters too. This writing helps people in Pakistan read and write their language in a special and historic way.

History

Before Shahmukhi was created, people did not often write the old forms of the Punjabi language.

The name 'Shahmukhi' was made recently to match the name 'Gurmukhī'. But writing Punjabi using the Perso-Arabic script has been known since the 1600s. One idea is that Punjabi people started using this writing style because they were learning Persian language during the time of the Mughal rulers. They used Punjabi words written with Persian letters to help teach Persian. This was one of the first ways people tried to make Punjabi a written language, because before that, Punjabi was mostly spoken and not taught in schools.

Some think the Gurmukhī script was not liked by Punjabi Muslims because it had religious links to the Sikh faith. In 2024, Shahmukhi Punjabi was added to Google Translate.

Alphabet

Shahmukhi script is a changed version of the Arabic script used for Persian. It looks the same as the Urdu alphabet, but it has extra letters to show sounds special to the Punjabi language. When writing Saraiki, an expanded Shahmukhi is used with four more letters for certain sounds.

Like Urdu, Shahmukhi uses small marks to show short vowel sounds, a way to write vowels that comes from the original Arabic script.

No Punjabi words start with ں, ھ, or ے. Words that start with ڑ are very rare. The letters ل and لؕ can join together with ا in special ways.

• ے (called waddi ye) is only used at the end of words for certain sounds, and in the middle or beginning of words, it looks like ی.
• Vowels are shown in the following ways:

Shahmukhi has more letters than Persian and Urdu to show sounds only found in Punjabi. Some extra letters include ٹ for a special sound, ڈ, ڑ, ں, and ے. There is also a special letter ھ for certain sounds used in many word pairs. Other extra letters not in Urdu are لؕ and ݨ, but these are used rarely.

The letter ژ sounds like the “j” in the French word or “si” in English words like vision. The letter ع can sound different depending on the word it is used in.