Special ligature #1

Kaaf connecting with alif

Shape

Example

Special ligature #2

Kaaf connecting with laam

Shape

Example

Special Ligature #3

Gaaf connecting with alif

Shape

Example

Special ligature #4

Gaaf connecting with laam

Shape

Example

Special ligature #5

Laam connecting with alif

Shape

Example

Special ligature(s) #6

bay, pay, tay, Tay, say, noon connecting with final

small yai
Shape

Example

To Main Urdu Alphabet Page

To Vowels Page
To Special Signs page

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Commercial use however is prohibited! If you use it, just send an e-mail to hugo dot coolens
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Instructions

In the names sections I have written the name of each character in different ways. The
name mentioned under "Roman transliteration" is the name in Roman script with
diacritic dots as used e.g. in Ferozsons Urdu-English dictionary. I have also given an
approximation of the pronunciation for an English speaker, when you see however
capital letters in this approximation the corresponding sound has no near equivalent in
English.
There are up to four shapes for each character: detached, initial, medial and final. This
may seem a bit overwhelming at first sight, but it just makes writing faster and the
logic of the different shapes will soon be obvious to you.
The shapes shown in the boxes "medial" and "final" should only be used when the
characters are connected to the previous character, otherwise you should use the
initial or detached shape respectively.
If you move your mouse cursor over the examples in Perso-Arabic script, you will see
the example word written in Devanagari, Itrans and English.
Itrans code is normally used to produce correctly spelled Asian scripts like
Devanagari. I have used it here also to help you pronounce correctly the example
words, the only addition I made are the brackets which are used to indicate that
certain syllables are not pronounced. I have used here Itrans code for Hindi. For more
info concerning the Itrans code have a look at the Itrans homepage.

ArabTeX is a system developped by Klaus Lagally to produce texts with Arabic based
scripts. A great advantage of it is that it can produce the diacritic accents zabar, zer
and pesh, which for beginners is a very important help, unfortunately support for
"pure" Nastaleeq is not available at this moment. If you think you can make the giffiles on these pages with a Nastaleeq font and the diacritic accents, you're very
welcome to do so, it may take an hour or two .

The complete Urdu alphabet

You can use this table to navigate directly to a character by clicking on it. Read from top to
bottom and from right to left.

The 1st letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: alif

In Itrans: alif
In ArabTeX: alif

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:
see also previous example (alif between n and r), notice the difference in
pronunciation between the two alifs, the one in the middle of the word is a
"long a", the initial one is a "short a". For more information have a look at the
vowels section.
o Final position:
o

Notes
Alif is a breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following alif is never
connected to it.
o When a word starts with a "long a" sound, alif madda (madd) should be used.
Notice that words with alif madda precede those with mere alif in a dictionary.
Look at the tilde like sign above the alif -to make alif madda- in the following
example:
o

More uses of alif are explained in the vowels section.

The 2nd letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: bay

In Itrans: be
In ArabTeX: bE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This letter should be pronounced without any breathiness.

The 3rd letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: pay

In Itrans: pe
In ArabTeX: pE

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This letter should be pronounced without any breathiness.

The 4th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: tay

In Itrans: te
In ArabTeX: tE

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:
See also previous example (2nd te).

Final position:

Notes
This t is a so called dental t, it should be pronounced with the tip of your
tongue to your teeth.
o Some people call this a soft t.
o This t is "the most common letter" to represent a dental t in Urdu.
o

The 5th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: Tay

In Itrans: Te
In ArabTeX: ,tE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This t is a so called retroflex t, it should be pronounced with the tip of your
tongue curled up.
o Some people call this a hard t.
o

Notice the retroflex sign, which is a small version of the 22th letter of the
alphabet.

The 6th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: say

In Itrans: se
In ArabTeX: _tE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:
See final s in the example for the initial position

Notes
o

In Urdu there are remarkably few words with this s, all of which are of Arabic
origin.

The 7th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: jeem

In Itrans: jiim
In ArabTeX: jIm

Shapes
o

Nastaleeq style:

Naskh style:

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 8th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

English approximation: chay

o
o

In Itrans: che
In ArabTeX: ^cE

Shapes
o

Nastaleeq style:

Naskh style:

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 9th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: big hay

In Itrans: ba.Dii he
In ArabTeX: ba,rI .hE

Shapes
o

Nastaleeq style:

Naskh style:

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This letter occurs only in words of Arabic origin.

The 10th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: KHay

In Itrans: Ke
In ArabTeX: _hE

Shapes
o

Nastaleeq style:

Naskh style:

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This letter is pronounced back in the throat, a bit like the Scottish ch in the
word "loch".

The 11th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: daal

In Itrans: daal
In ArabTeX: dAl

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following daal
is never connected to it.
o This is the dental d.
o Some people call this a soft d.
o

The 12th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: Daal

In Itrans: Daal
In ArabTeX: ,dAl

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following Daal
is never connected to it.
o This is the retroflex d, it should be pronounced with the tip of your tongue
curled up.
o Some people call this a hard d.
o

The 13th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: zaal

In Itrans: zaal
In ArabTeX: _dAl

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following zaal
is never connected to it.

The 14th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: ray

In Itrans: re
In ArabTeX: rE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following ray
is never connected to it.
o This r is pronounced like the Spanish r.
o

The 15th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: Ray

In Itrans: .De
In ArabTeX: ,rE

Shapes

Examples
Initial position:
This letter does not occur as the first letter of a word.
o Medial position:
o

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following Ray
is never connected to it.
o This pronunciation of this r resembles a bit the English r in the word "worry".
o

The 16th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: zay

In Itrans: ze
In ArabTeX: zE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following zay
is never connected to it.
o This z is "the most common letter" to represent a z in Urdu.
o

The 17th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: ZHay

In Itrans: not available
In ArabTeX: ^zE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is a so called breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following
ZHay is never connected to it.
o This letter is rarely used in Urdu, occuring mostly in Persian loan words.
o Pronounce this letter like the s in the English word "pleasure".
o The "double dotted" z in Devanagari is a representation of this letter I found in
the book "Urdu through Hindi" by Afroz Taj.
o

The 18th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: seen

In Itrans: siin
In ArabTeX: sIn

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This is the "most common letter" to represent an s-sound in Urdu.

The 19th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: sheen

In Itrans: shiin
In ArabTeX: ^sIn

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 20th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: suaad

In Itrans: suaad
In ArabTeX: .suAd

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 21th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o

English approximation: zuaad

In Itrans: zuaad

In ArabTeX: .duAd

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 22th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: toy

In Itrans: toe
In ArabTeX: .tOE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

This is also a dental t.

The 23th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: zoy

In Itrans: zoe
In ArabTeX: .zOE

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 24th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: ain

In Itrans: ain
In ArabTeX: `ain

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 25th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: GHain

In Itrans: Gain
In ArabTeX: .gain

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 26th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: fay

In Itrans: fe
In ArabTeX: fE

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 27th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: Qaaf

In Itrans: qaaf
In ArabTeX: qAf

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

Pronounce this letter further back in the throat than an ordinary k.

The 28th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: kaaf

In Itrans: kaaf
In ArabTeX: kAf

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 29th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: gaaf

In Itrans: gaaf
In ArabTeX: gAf

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 30th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

English approximation: laam

o
o

In Itrans: laam
In ArabTeX: lAm

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 31th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: meem

In Itrans: miim
In ArabTeX: mIm

Shapes
o

Nastaleeq style:

Naskh style:

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

The 32th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: noon

In Itrans: nuun
In ArabTeX: nUn

Shapes

Examples
o

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
o

When this letter is used for nasalization and in the final position, no dot should
be written as you see in the following example:

The 33th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: waw / wao / vao

In Itrans: vaao
In ArabTeX: wAw

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes

This letter sometimes is a consonant (see examples for initial and medial
position) and sometimes is a vowel or makes a so called diphtong, for more
information concerning that see vowels section .
o Waw is a breaker or non connector, i.e. the letter following waw is never
connected to it.
o

The 34th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: small hay

In Itrans: chhoTii he
In ArabTeX: ^chO,tI ,hE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position:

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
You'll sometimes see the initial shape of letter 35 used instead of the initial
shape shown here.
o There is an alternative version for the final shape called "hanging hay" as
shown in the following example:
o

Hanging hay is coded as H in ArabTeX.

Hanging hay is typically used in Naskh, not Nastaleeq.

The 35th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: two eyed hay

In Itrans: do chashmii he
In ArabTeX: dO ^ca^smI ,hE

Shapes

Examples

Medial position:

Final position:

Notes
This letter is used to indicate aspiration.
You'll sometimes see the initial shape of this letter used instead of the initial
shape of the small hay (letter 34).
o To encode the "two eyed hay" in ArabTeX you have to use h without comma.
o The technical name used by linguists for this letter is:
o
o

The 36th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: hamza

In Itrans: ham(a)zaa
In ArabTeX: ,hamza,h

Shapes

Examples

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Notes
In Urdu hamza is used as a vowel separator, you can look at it as something
between a real letter and a diacritic sign. Because of this reason I don't have
used the terms "initial", "medial" ... as I have for real letters.
o As you see in the examples, hamza sometimes needs a "chair", a silent
consonantional letter which "carries" it, other times it's just put above a vowel.
Hamza never needs a "chair" when the second vowel is expressed by waw.
o The correct use of hamza goes beyond the scope of an introductory text like
this one. Look in a good dictionary if you are in doubt. Don't be surprised if
you find inconsistent rules concerning the use of hamza .
o

The 37th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o
o

English approximation: small yai

In Itrans: chhoTii ye
In ArabTeX: ^chO,tI yE

Shapes

Examples

Initial position (consonantial):

Medial position (consonantial):

Final position (as vowel):

Notes
o

This letter sometimes is a consonant (see examples for initial and medial
position) and sometimes is a vowel, for more information concerning that see
vowels section.

The 38th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Name
o

In Perso-Arabic script:

In Devanagari script:

In Roman transliteration:

o
o

English approximation: big yai

In Itrans: ba.Dii ye

In ArabTeX: ba,rI yE

Shapes

Examples
Initial position (consonantial):
see initial position example of letter 37
o Medial position (as vowel):
o

Final position (as vowel):

Notes
o

This letter sometimes is a consonant and sometimes is a vowel, for more

information concerning that see vowels section. As for consonantional use
there is no difference with small yai (letter 37).

Thanks To
Stefaan Willems, Mohammad Jahangeer Warsi, Anshuman Pandey, Mazhar and last but not
least Christina Oesterheld.

Things to do

Add sound samples

Back to Home Page

Go to Vowels Page
Go to Special Signs Page
Go to Special Ligatures Page

Preliminary notes

The opposition "long" and "short" vowels is very much disputed as far as modern
Indo-Aryan languages are concerned because between both varities there is a
difference in quality and in quantity. I have therefore put the terms between quotes to
indicate that they are somewhat spurious.

"Short" vowel a

Notes
o
o

"Short" a sounds like the "a" in the English word "majority".

It is indicated by the diacritic superscript mark zabar. The shape of zabar looks
a bit like the French "accent aigue". It is normally written above the consonant
bearing the sound, however when appearing word initially, zabar should be
carried by an alif.

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

"Short" vowel i

Notes
o
o

"Short" i sounds like the "i" in the English word "it".

It is indicated by the diacritic subscript mark zer. The shape of zer is a bit like
the French "accent aigue". It is normally written under the consonant bearing
the sound, however when appearing word initially, zer should be written
below alif. The same mark is also used to indicate izafat, have a look at the
special signs page for more concerning this.

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

"Short" vowel u

Notes
o
o

"Short" u sounds like the "oo" in the English word "book".

It is indicated by the diacritic superscript mark pesh. It is normally written
above the consonant bearing the sound, however when appearing word
initially, pesh should be written above an alif.

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

"Long" vowel a

Notes
"Long" a sounds like the "a" in the German word "bahn".
When used word initially it is represented by alif madda, which is an alif with
a tilde like sign above it. When not used word initially an alif without extra
signs is used to represent this sound.
o If you use ArabTeX, you'll see that it will put an extra zabar on the letter
preceding the alif when encoding a long medial or final a, this however is
unnecessary, you shouldn't follow this practice.
o
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

"Long" vowel i

Notes
"Long" i sounds like the "ee" in the English word "see".
When used word initially it is represented by zer under alif followed by small
yai. When medial it is represented by the medial shape of small yai and a zer
under the preceding consonant. When final it is represented by the final shape
of small yai.
o If you use ArabTeX, you'll see that it will put an extra zer under the consonant
preceding a final long i, this however is unnecessary, you shouldn't follow this
practice.
o
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

"Long" vowel u

Notes
"Long" u sounds like the "oo" in the English word "soon".
When used word initially it is represented by pesh above alif followed by
waw, another representation is alif followed by a waw which carries an
inverted pesh called "ulTaa pesh". When used medial or final it is represented
by waw and a pesh above the preceding consonant, another representation for
this case also exists: a waw carrying an inverted pesh.
o ArabTeX does not have support for ulTaa pesh at this moment.
o
o

Examples

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

"Long" vowel e

Notes
"Long" e sounds like the "ay" in the English word "way", pronounced
however without any diphtongal off glide.
o When used word initially it is represented by alif without any vowel sign
followed by a big yai. When medial it is represented by the medial shape of
yai without any vowel sign. When final it is represented by the final shape of
big yai.
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

"Long" vowel o

Notes
"Long" o sounds like the "o" in the English word "home", however
pronounced as a pure vowel not as a diphtong.
o When used word initially it is represented by alif followed by waw, both
without any vowel sign. When medial or final it is represented by the shape of
waw also without any vowel sign.
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

Vowel ae

Notes
Vowel ae sounds like the "e" in the English word "hen".
When used word initially it is represented by alif with a zabar, followed by big
yai. When medial or final it is represented by the corresponding shape of yai
and a zabar on the preceding consonant.
o People with a Hindi background would rather transliterate this vowel as "ai" as
is done in the Itrans for Hindi system. ArabTeX (for Urdu) uses of course
"ae".
o "ae" is not articulated as a diphtong in Urdu.
o
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

Vowel ao

Notes
Vowel ao sounds like a very open "o" similar to thhe vowel in the English
word "caught".
o When used word initially it is represented by alif with a zabar, followed by
waw. When medial or final it is represented by the corresponding shape of
waw and a zabar on the preceding consonant.
o People with a Hindi background would rather transliterate this vowel as "au"
as is done in the Itrans for Hindi system, however ArabTeX for Urdu uses also
"ao".
o "ao" is not articulated as a diphtong in Urdu.
o

Examples
o

Initial:

Medial:

Final:

Final Medial Initial Isolated Devanagari Transliteration

bh

ph

th

h
jh
ch
dh
h
h
kh
gh