Talk:Shahmukhi

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I thought shahmukhi's primary use was for Punjabi in Pakistan but I'm not expert. In any case I think this page should mention that that language also uses the gurmukhi and devanagari scripts. — Hippietrail 01:18, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Yeah, you're right. Shahmukhi is used specifically to write Punjabi, not Urdu. The only difference between Shahmukhi and the Nastaleeq script (used to write Urdu) is that Shahmukhi has a few additional characters for consonants only found in Punjabi. --Katangoori 23:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Hi, I just thought I'd mention I've always thought of Shahmukhi script and Urdu as identicle. I can't for the life of me think of a letter that one uses in Shahmukhi that one doesn't use in Urdu. But I could be wrong.

I'm no expert, but I think it uses a couple of extra characters. Whether Unicode has these characters is another thing altogether. See: [1]. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 12:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there are multiple orthographies used for Punjabi in Shahmukhi. The orthography that I have always noticed used in Lahore in play billboards (for Punjabi plays) and in Punjabi books is exactly like Urdu with 36 characters. I've never noticed the extra characters like jje and the nne. But I don't doubt that it probably isn't standardized. I'll try to find out from the Punjab Textbook Board what the official provincial orthography for Punjabi is.

That's excellent! If you could find out more about the relation between Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi that'd be cool too. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 12:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Report from Lahore

Right I have been looking like mad for a Punjabi book that uses any letters beyond the 36 of Urdu and I have not found one. I have found the official texts used by Punbaj Textbook Board and they too do not use these extra letters. Furthermore I spoke to my Father's Sister's Husband who is a Punjabi literature buff (both in Shahmukhi and Gurumukhi) and he says he has never seen these extra letters in anything he has come across. If anyone knows where these extra letters might be used I'd be much obliged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ahassan05 (talk • contribs)

I've found the following two listed under Lahnda in the Unicode charts:

ڰ Arabic Letter Gaf with Ring [06B0]

ڋ Arabic Letter Dal with Dot below and Small Tah [068B]

And these under Siraiki:

0759 – Arabic letter dal with two dots vertically below and small tah (Siraiki)

0768 – Arabic letter noon with small tah (Siraiki)

Could any of these be the 'missing characters'? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 01:08, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Just a side note, there is a unique Punjabi sound Rra (ੜ) which isn't present in Hindi (and therefore probaby not Urdu either) so maybe that is one of the letters? Also the other marks could be tonal identifiers? Whether or not they are used on printed material is another matter though. All that may be available are Urdu typesetting tools, and that could be the reason why all the signs use the standard Urdu alphabet. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 01:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

No, the rra is written with ڑ, and is present in Urdu.

اَيُّوْبْ وَزيْرْ 03:30, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I’m inclined to take down these “phantom characters” that no one can find, but the Asian Language Resource Center at the University of Chicago says that Punjabi has some letters Urdu doesn’t… so though it doesn’t say which, I’m hesistant to just rip ’em down. APNA, too, says there are “minor modifications” to the Urdu alphabet. Though it doesn’t state what, exactly, those modifications are, I think we can assume it’s those extra three letters listed, until someone comes out with evidence to the contrary. Maybe it should be mentioned on the page that these Punjabi-specific letters are rarely used…? —Wiki Wikardo 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is th Seraiki alphabet

1. The tabulated Alphabet is that of Seraiki (Laihndii or Multani). That is what the very first footnote says. It is written by Christopher Shackle, a well known Linguist from London School of Oriental and African Studies.

2. Apparently, the name Seraiki is derived from a word for North (direction) in Sindhi. Just as Punjabis call Seraiki (language) as ‘Laihndii’ (Punjabi word for ‘from West’) – ‘Laihnde waale paaseoN’!

3. The subject is not my area of expertise, but I can contribute some confusion, though. Hanif seems to have some difficulty with Letters – numbered 15, 31 and 36, with which Hanif had some difficulty:

    Letter No. 15: ‘ddaal’ should sound like our (Urdu) ‘daal-Shadd’ ڈّ)    ).        it is equivalent to ‘repeated d’ and should have the sound of ‘dd’ as in ‘Gaddi’ (train) or ‘Guddi’ (doll or kite). 

    Letter No. 31: Is our Urdu ‘Gaaf’! 

    Letter No. 36: From the Gurmukhi equivalent which Shackle has given, this      letter ‘Tuun’ has the sound of ‘Hard’ N. That is where N is a dental sound (produced with the tip of the tongue pressing against the teeth), ‘Hard’ N is a Retroflex sound; that is, it is produced by the tip of the tongue pressing against the backend of the top-of-palate – “taaluu”! I can’t remember any equivalent Urdu sound!

Sincerely: Sukhbir Singh, Indianapolis, USA.

Image

The image is informative but messy. I'm sure that it can be put into a nice tidy table. I might do it myself (although I'd have trouble finding all the characters). Once it's done, the image should be deleted from Wikipedia. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, a Unicode chart would be lovely. -- Beland (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Shahmukhi numerals

Hi! a) I am puzzled what numerals (using what UTF-8 values) are used with the Shahmukhi script. There might be more then one (Arab, Latn etc.)..
Please see also user talk:לערי ריינהארט#Shahmukhi numerals about some work at https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most-perfect_magic_square where transliterations for a dozen of ISO 15924 scripts as Latn including Roman numerals and binary, Deva, Guru, Arab, Armn, Beng, Grek, Gujr, Hans · Hant · Jpan, Hebr, Knda, Kore, Mlym, Taml, Telu, Tibt and maybe some more. b) What scrip from ISO 15924#List of codes: is used for the Shahmukhi alphabet? Thanks in advance for your support! lɛʁi ʁɑjnhɑʁt (Leri Reinhart)
‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 17:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

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Uninastaliq

@User:نعم البدل Template:Uninastaliq is simply a version of the Nastaliq template with better font fallbacks - it puts fonts which are included as system defaults first and prioritizes those with better character support. Unless you wanted me to explain something else? عُثمان (talk) 19:51, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, my objection was not simply due to your use of Template:Uninastaliq. You have added unreferenced IPA symbols, for the diacritics for instance /ɐ/ and /ɔ/ for zabar, and also /ɛ/ for zer, and then /ɲ/ for the noon ghunna (as well as the ltter). In the letters section, alif apparently representing /ɐ/, خ representing /kʰ/, which is not correct at all, same for zaal and the many perso-arab variants to be /d͡ʒ/, same for ghain to be /g/ and fe as /pʰ/. And then for vao, this : '/v/, /b/, /ʊ/'.

I really don't where you've referenced these from, because it just seems that you're trying to add the phonology/pronunciation of these letters from the Indian dialects - which is not necessary - this script isn't used in India and is completely different to Gurmukhi. You cannot mix up ز and ج in Shahmukhi, like you can in Gurmukhi, nor are the letters used interchangeably with those sounds.

Also, I will revert your edit, please do not revert it, until we can reach a conclusion - thanks. نعم البدل (talk) 23:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

See Bhardwaj (2016)'s Panjabi: A Reference Grammar for more detailed explanations, I can work on citing this more thoroughly if it is not clear.

In Shahmukhi, zabar is used to represent ɔ in causative verb stems. You can see this in Salahuddin's Shahmukhi dictionary, the vocalised spelling of پاون is پاوَن. We could write this as پاؤن but this use of wau hamza is not a pronunciation spelling as you are likely well aware this is not pronounced with a dipthong in this form as in پاؤ.

Zer represents ɛ in the vocalised spellings of tonal Punjabi words. شہِر is pronounced with ɛ not ɪ. See also محِفل.

ə and ɐ are not word distinguishing phonemes in Punjabi (they rarely are in any language) but rather they are two different manifestations of the inherent vowel (مکتا). The former is the first vowel which occurs in پنجاںی and the latter is the vowel in چڑھ. This is conditioned by context and occurs automatically in pronunciation. Alef also represents word initial ɐ as it is the marker of all word initial vowels in Punjabi.

The sound of nun ghunna is also conditionally determined and not the same in every word. If it helps to think of it, homorganic nasals are not a feature of English orthography, but most English speakers find it impossible to pronounce the word "sink" without making the same sound as one of those represented by nun ghunna, because of the subsequent consonant.

There are several Sanskrit origin (not Persian) spelled with feh in Shahmukhi which have the ph sound, which is in free association with f in Punjabi. See for example بھاف / بھاپھ ("steam") which is still even pronounced as "bhap" باپ by many speakers. We know this is not a Farsi loan though because بھ is not a sound in Persian. In other common words پھ and ف are interchangeable, فیر / پھیر being the most notable example.

The correct Punjabi pronunciation of خ is homophonous with kh کھ. The fact that some خ words have become tonal is clear evidence for this (the fact that tone changes the sound of the consonant may be the cause of some confusion). Pronouncing it like Arabic/Persian /x/ is an affectation of learned Urdu speakers.

To be continued. The visual editor cut off the end of my comment, I have to retype it. عُثمان (talk) 06:27, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@نعم البدل

To further elaborate, it is incorrect to say that Gurmukhi is completely different to Shahmukhi or that there is a such thing as different Indian pronunciations. Every dialect of Punjabi is spoken in Pakistan. The dialects I am familiar with are Doabi and Majhi because these are the dialects of the Faisalabad/Toba Tek Singh region where my family is from - they moved there from east Punjab generations ago in the 19th century (due to the history of the canal colonies) and these dialects are still the predominant dialects of the region. Further, Gurmukhi actually has letters in it which have been dropped from most speakers' pronunciation but are preserved in a minority of dialects which are almost exclusively spoken today in Pakistan. This is why Saraiki Shahmukhi has letters for these sounds. (Bear in mind also that Gurmukhi became widespread in the 19th century after Perso-Arabic script predominated for a long time and that much of Gurmukhi literature was transcribed directly from Shahmukhi and conserves spellings from it. فعل is ਫ਼ਿਅਲ in Gurmukhi, with ਅ representing the ع even though this is pronounced as ਫੇਲ / فیل by all Punjabi speakers who are not purposely trying to change the pronunciation because it is written differently. Hindi has this word, but they spell it how it is pronounced. Also, Gurmukhi consider that was developed and refined in West Punjab in what is now Pakistan, and that the numerals used in the Perso-Arabic system ۱۲۳۴ etc. are based on the Gurmukhi ones. ۲ rotated 90 degrees looks like 2 because they are both from ਦੋ, literally the word دو "two" spelled in Punjabi, where the "Western" and "Arabic" numbers both really originated.)

The script also is actively used in India, I have copies of Rehman Akhter's Shahmukhi books published in Malerkotla (predominantly Muslim part of Indian Punjab).

> You cannot mix up ز and ج in Shahmukhi, like you can in Gurmukhi, nor are the letters used interchangeably with those sounds.

Many Pakistani speakers do in fact interchangeably pronounce ج and ز as the same - they are closely related sounds. This is more common in elderly speakers than younger generations but if you listen for it you will hear it from some. Something that is less obvious is that ش and چھ sound the same to the ears of some Punjabi speakers for similar reasons, also particularly in the older generations. The word چھی چھی ("filth" but I'm familiar with it as "pee"/"urine") may be pronounced as شی شی and be understood by many even though these letters are not often swapped.

> same for zaal and the many perso-arab variants to be /d͡ʒ/

All of these may be pronounced the same as ز or ج and still be understood in typical Punjabi pronunciation. I have never heard them any other way.

> same for ghain to be /g/

If you call a Pakistani Punjabi man named Ghazi غازی with the actual Arabic sound غ they would literally not know who you are referring to, they would only recognise it with /g/. I have heard some people claim that they pronounce غ differently, along with ط it seems to be a popular letter for Pakistanis to have imagined a different sound for, but to be frank I think people who claim this are confusing the tendency for consonant sounds to be conditioned by the following vowel, and they have not actually heard how wrong words sounds when غ and ط are not pronounced with /g/ and dental /t/ respectively.

> then for vao, this : '/v/, /b/, /ʊ/'.

vau is /ʊ/ in Shahmukhi spelling of ذرا کُو ("a little bit") for example. You can also see these spellings in Salahuddin's dictionary. This is a prominent feature of Shahmukhi (mater lectionis) in order to preserve word final short vowels in the orthography. (These were not common in Persian or Arabic, but are an essential feature of Punjabi.)

/v/ and /b/ are in free association for many speakers, not just in one dialect. People from Faisalabad and thereabouts often say وڈا as "baDDa" (in fact this is how half my family pronounces this word), and Potohari Punjabi speakers from Pakistan often pronounce /b/ in this position as well. Many people even say وچ as "bich." If you have never heard anybody pronounce words like this, keep an ear out for it in Punjabi songs and you will notice it. عُثمان (talk) 07:05, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

علاوہ، ایس لئی دوویں شاہ‌مکھی وِکیپیڈیا تے گرمکھی وِکیپیڈیا دیاں تفصیلاں دے حوالے نہیں اے۔ انگریزی توں پہلاں کہ میں ایسنوں بدلدا، مینوں اُتھے کجھ حوالے پاوݨا چاہیدا اے۔ عُثمان (talk) 07:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I stand corrected about غ and خ and ز in an unexpected way after discussing with a Pothohari speaker these letters have a double use for some sounds which only exist in some Punjabi dialects. غ in most words like غازی that are loaned from Persian is just /g/. But in the word بغڑ (Shahmukhi) ਪੱਕੜ (Gurmukhi) this is a real different sound, an aspirated consonant related to کھ and گھ which is sometimes tonal. In Gurmukhi it is just represented with addhak before ਕ. This word can be found in both Salahuddin's Shahmukhi dictionary and the Gurmukhi Pothohari Shabd Kosh (1960). You can tell it is a native Punjabi word because ڑ is a very Punjabi sound which doesn't occur in loan words (unless they've been corrupted with one of the productive suffixes using ڑ, but that پغڑنا exists as a verb, a class of words generally quite closed to loan words, further supports this).

ز and خ only exist as independent sounds in word medial positions in some Western dialects related to Hindko. I need to do some reading further to investigate good example words for this. عُثمان (talk) 10:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I'm acknowledging your long reply, please give me some time to read and understand it. Will get back to you soon. نعم البدل (talk) 21:40, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

That's alright, no rush.

I found out more information about خ by the way - in Hindko certain words which are spelled with کھ in "standard" Punjabi are pronounced as /x/. So I think for speakers who use both these sounds they can be considered interchangeable. (As it pertains to its presence in native words as opposed to loaned ones.) There are details about this in Elena Bashir's Punjabi grammar; I can send you a copy of this if you like. عُثمان (talk) 15:31, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh and I added two specific (sourced) Punjabi examples to Near-open_central_vowel which may help illustrate where the manifestation of the inherent vowel is different. In the second example, it actually occurs because of stressed wau. This isn't very common, but it speaks to the semi-vowel nature of the "v/w" sound and how it is conditioned by context in Punjabi.

In some contexts ʌ is apparently present as a manifestation of the inherent vowel, but I haven't investigated this properly. Bashir's book makes the distinction between a phonetic and phonemic transcription, and only uses different representations of the inherent "a" in phonetic transcriptions. There are also some interesting remarks on the nature of word-final alef and choti he.

As an aside, the book's analysis of Punjabi verbs is completely wrong. The phonology analysis is quite insightful though. I haven't come across a book yet which correctly analyses all aspects of the language, so I think these need to be compared against each other and taken with a grain of salt. They say word-final short vowels only exist in "marginal particles" but words like کو are hardly marginal and a better framing would be that word-final short vowels are concentrated in the most frequently used words. عُثمان (talk) 15:46, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Gurmukhi Equivalents removed from tables?

For some reason, Gurmukhi equivalents of letters don’t appear in the character tables anymore, making the tables much more confusing for people who are only familiar with the Gurmukhi script.

furthermore, the table for vowels has no ipa or Gurmukhi equivalents at all, making the table completely useless for anyone who doesn’t already know Shahmukhi.

I’m just completely baffled at why these changes were made since it just makes this article unnecessarily confusing for people who know Gurmukhi, and even unusable when it comes to the vowels table Sp1699 (talk) 10:01, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I just checked and saw that it was @نعم البدل: who did the edits. They should be reversed as they make the article a way worse resource for Punjabis familiar with the Gurmukhi script, and just completely ruined the vowel chart entirely. Sp1699 (talk) 10:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Punjabi isn't merely a language for Indian Punjabis or solely written in Gurmukhi. The Gurmukhi page doesn't explain the Shahmukhi equivalent of the Gurmukhi characters and it doesn't really need to be explained here either. The transliteration suffices.

I'm not sure what the issue with the vowels are but I don't think I changed anything there, apart from removing the Gurmukhi.

The differences between the two Punjabi scripts can be read here on Wiktionary نعم البدل (talk) 10:49, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the wiktionary link, but the vowel chart literally has no ipa or Gurmukhi transliteration so it’s useless unless you already know the script, so that needs to be rectified with at least ipa symbols added. And I was using the article to learn the Shahmukhi script so I felt that the article essentially became a worse resource due to those edits.

I think adding a separate portion of the article that compares the two scripts on both of the articles regarding the respective writing systems would be helpful, or adding that information to the main Punjabi language article. Sp1699 (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, could you elaborate, please? The Wiktionary article has the IPA, and the Gurmukhi – for both the consonants and the vowels under the Shahmukhi section.

If you let me know, I'll expand the Wiktionary article :) نعم البدل (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I meant the Wikipedia article for shahmukhi, my bad. On my screen, it has no IPA explanations for the vowels on the vowel chart Sp1699 (talk) 21:31, 8 July 2023 (UTC)