Gurmukhi

The Gurmukhi (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) script, derived from the Lahnda alphabet and standardised by Guru Angad Dev in the 16th century, was designed to write the Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ) language. The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib's 1430 pages are written in this script. The word Gurmukhi literally means "from the Mouth of the Guru".

Gurmukhi is a form of alphabet called an abugida, as each consonant has an inherent vowel (a), that can be changed using vowel signs.

Modern Gurmukhi has forty-one consonants (Vianjans), nine vowel symbols (Laga Matra), two symbols for nasal sounds (Bindi and Tippi) and one symbol which duplicates the sound of any consonant (Addak). In addition, four conjuncts are used: three subjoined forms of the consonants Rara, Haha and Vava, and one half-form of Yaiyya. Use of the conjunct forms of Vava and Yaiyya in increasingly scarce in modern contexts.

Gurmukhi has been adapted to write other languages, such as Sanskrit.

Alphabet

The Gurmukhi alphabet contains thirty-five distinct letters. The first three letters are unique because they form the basis for vowels and are not consonants. Except for Aira, the first three characters are never used on their own. See the section on vowels for further details.

In addition to these, there are six consonants created by placing a dot (bindi) at the foot (pair) of the consonant:

Lulla paireen bindi was only recently added to the Gurmukhi alphabet. Some sources may not consider it a separate letter.

Vowels

Gurmukhi follows similar concepts to other Brahmi scripts and as such, all consonants are followed by an inherent‘a’sound (unless at the end of a word when the ‘a’ is usually dropped). This inherent vowel sound can be changed by using dependent vowel signs which attach to a bearing consonant. In some cases, dependent vowel signs cannot be used – at the beginning of a word or syllable for instance – and so an independent vowel character is used instead.

Independent vowels are constructed using three bearer characters: Ura (ੳ), Aira (ਅ) and Iri (ੲ). With the exception of Aira (which represents the vowel 'a') they are never used without additional vowel signs.

Dotted circles represent the bearer consonant. Vowels are always pronounced after the consonant they are attached to. Thus, Sihari is always written to the left, but pronounced after the character on the right.

Vowel Examples

Halant

The Halant (੍) character is not used when writing Punjabi in Gurmukhi. However, it may occasionally be used in Sanskritised text or in dictionaries for extra phonetic information. When it is used, it represents the suppression of the inherent vowel.

The affect of this is shown below:

ਕ – Ka

ਕ੍ – K

Numerals

Gurmukhi has its own set of numerals that behave exactly as Arabic numerals do. These are used extensively in older texts. In modern contexts, they are being replaced by standard Latin numerals although they are still in widespread use.

0 – ੦

1 – ੧

2 – ੨

3 – ੩

4 – ੪

5 – ੫

6 – ੬

7 – ੭

8 – ੮

9 – ੯

Other Signs

Bindi (ਂ) and Tippi (ੰ) are used for nasalisation (similar to the ‘n’ sound in words ending in ‘ing’). In general, Onkar (u) and Dulankar (uu) take Bindi in their initial forms and Tippi when used after a consonant. All other short vowels take Tippi and all other long vowels take Bindi. Older texts may not follow these conventions.

The use of Addak (ੱ) indicates that the following consonant is geminate. This means that the subsequent consonant is doubled or reinforced.

Visarg

The Visarg symbol (ਃ) is used very occassionally in Gurmukhi. It can either represent an abbreviation (like period is used in English) or it can act like a Sanskrit Visarg where a voiceless ‘h’ sound is pronounced after the vowel.

Ek Onkar

Ek Onkar (ੴ) is a Gurmukhi symbol that is often used in Sikh literature. It literally means ‘one God’.

Gurmukhi in Unicode

The Unicode range for Gurmukhi is U+0A00 to U+0A7F. Using Unicode for Gurmukhi has only recently started to become widespread. Many sites still use proprietary fonts that convert Latin ASCII codes to Gurmukhi glyphs.

External Links

• Punjabi Computing Resource Centre
• Saab – A free Unicode 4.0 OpenType Gurmukhi font
• Gurmukhi pseudo text generator
• Free online Punjabi (Gurmukhi) lessons
• Learn Gurmukhi
• Omniglot's guide to Gurmukhi
• Test for Unicode support in Web browsers
• Unicode script chart for Gurmukhi (PDF file)
• Introduction to Gurmukhi