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Shahmukhi

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shahmukhi is a set of letters used to write the Punjabi language by Punjabi speakers in Pakistan. Like all Arabic-derived alphabets, it is written from right to left.

Shahmukhi alphabet table in Mehr Nastaliq Saraiki font.

The Shahmukhi script is based on the Perso-Arabic script, which is used to write Urdu. Shahmukhi can be called an alphabet; it is really an abjad. An abjad is a script that has letters to represent consonants with vowels. Of course, Shahmukhi, and other scripts relating to it, are impure abjads. This means that there are ways to represent vowels in the writing but they are used in a very bare method.

There are 38 letters in the Shahmukhi abjad.