Contents

Shahmukhi

Perso-Arabic script used to write the Punjabi language

Shahmukhi شاہ مُکھی
Poetry by Bulleh Shah in Shahmukhi (Nastaliq)[a]
Script type	Abjad
Time period	17th century–present
Direction	Right-to-left script
Region	Punjab, Hazara, Azad Kashmir
Languages	Punjabi (incl. dialects and varieties)
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi
Unicode
Unicode range	U+0600 to U+06FF U+0750 to U+077F U+08A0 to U+08FF U+FB50 to U+FDFF U+FE70 to U+FEFF
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Shahmukhi (Punjabi: شاہ مُکھی, pronounced [ʃäː(ɦ)˦.mʊ.kʰiː], lit. 'from the Shah's or king's mouth'; Gurmukhi: 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. ^[1][2][3][4] It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand,^[3][4] which is also used for Persian and Urdu.^[5] Shahmukhi is one of the two standard scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhi used mainly in Punjab, India.^[3][6][4]

Shahmukhi is written from right to left, while Gurmukhi is written from left to right.^[7] Shahmukhi has 36 primary letters with some other additional letters.^[8][4]

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

The name 'Shahmukhi' is a recent coinage, imitating its counterpart 'Gurmukhi'.^[9] However, the writing of Punjabi in the Perso-Arabic script is well-attested from the 17th century onwards.^[10] 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.^[11]

Shackle suggests that the Gurmukhi script was not favoured by Punjabi Muslims due to its religious (Sikh) connotations.^[10]

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).^[12]

Like Urdu, Shahmukhi also has diacritics, which are implied - a convention retained from the original Arabic script, to express short vowels.^[4][13]

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.^[16] The digraphsofaspirated consonants are as follows. In addition, ل and لؕ form ligatures with ا: لا (ـلا) and لؕا (ـلؕا).

• 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:

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 below. Characters added which differ from Urdu include: ࣇ to represent /ɭ/ and ݨ to represent /ɳ/. These characters, however are rarely used.

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.

• 
  "Shahmukhi" written in Shahmukhi script
• 
  Another example of poetry by Bulleh Shah in Shahmukhi

• Gurmukhī alphabet
• Saraiki alphabet

• Mumtaz Ahmad (1 April 1992), Punjabi Reader: in the Arabic Script (in Punjabi), Kensington: Dunwoody Publishing & Press, Wikidata Q113235868
• Muhammad Iqbal Salahuddin (2002). وڈی پنجابی لغت: پنجابی توں پنجابی (in Punjabi). Lahore: Aziz Publishers. ISBN 978-969-455-042-8. LCCN 2010341553. OCLC 629702100. OL 31212991M. 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, Wikidata Q113301763
• Gurpreet Singh Lehal; Tejinder Singh; Joga Singh; Suman Preet (2009), Punjabi-English Dictionary (in English and Punjabi), Patiala: Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, OCLC 1036828588, Wikidata Q112690336
• Gurpreet Singh Lehal; Tejinder Singh Asani (2012), Conversion between Scripts of Punjabi: Beyond Simple Transliteration (PDF) (in English and Punjabi), Wikidata Q112672112

• Shahmukhi to Gurmukhi Transliteration System: A Corpus based Approach
• The Western Panjabi Alphabet Archived 2017-11-30 at the Wayback Machine
• Learn Shahmukhi
• Likhari in Shahmukhi
• Kalam-e-Baba Nanak
• Punjabi and Punjab
• E-Book on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi
• PDF on Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi Archived 2018-09-03 at the Wayback Machine