Gurmukhī script

Station sign in the Latin and Gurmukhī alphabets

The Gurmukhī (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) script is derived from the Later Sharada script and was standardized by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad Dev, in the sixteenth century for writing the Punjabi language. The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib's 1430 pages are written in this script. The name Gurmukhi is derived from the Old Punjabi term "guramukhī," meaning "from the mouth of the Guru."

Gurmukhī is a system of writing called an abugida, where each consonant has an inherent vowel that can be changed using vowel signs. It has been adapted to write other languages, such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli (and other Hindustani dialects), Sanskrit and Sindhi.

Modern Gurmukhī has forty-one consonants (vianjan), nine vowel symbols (lāga mātrā), two symbols for nasal sounds (bindī and ṭippī), 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 Yayya. Use of the conjunct forms of Vava and Yayya is increasingly scarce in modern contexts.

As the script of the Sikh scriptures, Gurmukhī is deemed to be one of the sacred languages of the world.

Etymology

The word Gurmukhi is commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru." The opinion given by traditional scholars is that, as the Sikh holy writings, before they were scribed, were uttered by the Gurus, they came to be known as Gurmukhi or the "Utterance of the Guru." Consequently, the script that was used for scribing the utterance was also given the same name.

Origins

Gurmukhi Script was standardized by Guru Angad Dev Ji, the Second Sikh guru during the 16th century. It was modelled on the Landa alphabet. The name Gurmukhi means "from the mouth of the Guru."

Some notable features of the Gurmukhī script are as follows:

• It is a syllabic alphabet in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before, or after the consonant, are used to change the inherent vowel.
• When vowels appear at the beginning of a syllable, they are written as independent letters.
• When certain consonants occur together, special conjunct symbols are used which combine the essential parts of each letter.
• Punjabi is a tonal language with three tones. These are indicated in writing by using the voiced aspirates consonants (gh, dh, bh, etc) and the intervocal h.

There are two major theories on how the Proto-Gurmukhi script emerged in the fifteenth century. According to Abu Raihan Al-Biruni's Ta'rikh al-Hind (1030 C.E.), the script evolved from Ardhanagari. Al-Biruni writes that the Ardhanagari script was used in Bathinda, including Sindh and western parts of the Punjab in the tenth century. For some time, Bhatinda remained the capital of the kingdom of Bhatti Rajputs of the Pal clan, who ruled North India before the Muslims occupied the country. Resulting from its connection with the Bhattis, the Ardhanagari script was also called Bhatachhari. According to Al-Biruni, Ardhanagari was a mixture of Nagari, used in Ujjain and Malwa, and Siddha Matrika or the Siddham script, a variant of the Sharada script used in Kashmir.

Pritam Singh has also traced the origins of Gurmukhi to the Siddha Matrika.

Others, such as Tarlochan Singh Bedi, have suggested that the Gurmukhi script developed during the tenth-fourteenth centuries from the Devasesha stage of the Sharada script. His argument suggests that regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States (partly Himachal Pradesh), and Kashmir from the tenth century. The regional Sharada script evolved from this stage untill the 14th century, when it started to appear in the form of Gurmukhi. Indian epigraphists call this stage Devasesha, while Bedi prefers the name Pritham Gurmukhi or Proto-Gurmukhi.

The Sikh Gurus adopted the "Proto-Gurmukhi script" to write the Guru Granth Sahib, the primary religious scripture of the Sikhs. Other contemporary scripts used in the Punjab were Takri and the Laṇḍā alphabets. Takri was a script that developed through the Devasesha stage of the Sharada script, and is found mainly in the Hill States, such as Chamba, where it is called Chambyali, and in Jammu, where it is known as Dogri. The local Takri variants attained the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the nineteenth century. Following 1948, when Himachal Pradesh was established as an administrative unit, the local Takri variants were replaced by Devanagari.

Meanwhile, the mercantile scripts of Punjab known as the Laṇḍā were normally not used for literary purposes. Landa means alphabet "without tail," applying that the script did not have vowel symbols. In Punjab, there were at least ten different scripts classified as Laṇḍā, Mahajani being the most popular. The Laṇḍā alphabets were used for household and trade purposes. Compared to the Laṇḍā, Sikh Gurus favoured the use of Proto-Gurmukhi, because of the difficulties involved in pronouncing words without vowel signs.

The usage of Gurmukhi letters in Guru Granth Sahib meant that the script developed its own orthographical rules. In the following epochs, Gurmukhi became the prime script applied for literary writings by the Sikhs. Later in the twentieth century, the script was given the authority as the official script of the Eastern Punjabi language. Meanwhile, in Western Punjab a form of the Urdu script, known as Shahmukhi is still in use.

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.)

Name		Pron.	Name		Pron.	Name		Pron.	Name		Pron.	Name		Pron.
ੳ	Ura		ਅ	Aira		ੲ	Iri		ਸ	Sussa	Sa	ਹ	Haha	Ha
ਕ	Kakka	Ka	ਖ	Khukha	Kha	ਗ	Gugga	Ga	ਘ	Ghugga	Gha	ਙ	Ungga	Nga
ਚ	Chuchaa	Ca	ਛ	Chhuchha	Cha	ਜ	Jujja	Ja	ਝ	Jhujja	Jha	ਞ	Neya	Nya
ਟ	Tainka	Tta	ਠ	Thutha	Ttha	ਡ	Dudda	Dda	ਢ	Dhudda	Ddha	ਣ	Nahnha	Nna
ਤ	Tutta	Ta	ਥ	Thutha	Tha	ਦ	Duda	Da	ਧ	Dhuda	Dha	ਨ	Nunna	Na
ਪ	Puppa	Pa	ਫ	Phupha	Pha	ਬ	Bubba	Ba	ਭ	Bhubba	Bha	ਮ	Mumma	Ma
ਯ	Yaiyya	Ya	ਰ	Rara	Ra	ਲ	Lulla	La	ਵ	Vava	Va	ੜ	Rharha	Rha

In addition to these, there are six consonants created by placing a dot (bindi) at the foot (pair) of the consonant (these are not present in Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji):

Name		Pron.
ਸ਼	Sussa pair bindi	Sha
ਖ਼	Khukha pair bindi	Khha
ਗ਼	Gugga pair bindi	Ghha
ਜ਼	Jujja pair bindi	Za
ਫ਼	Phupha pair bindi	Fa
ਲ਼	Lulla pair bindi	Lla

Lulla pair 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.

Vowel			Name		IPA
Ind.	Dep.	with /k/	Letter	Unicode
ਅ	(none)	ਕ	Mukta	A	[ə]
ਆ	ਾ	ਕਾ	Kanna	AA	[ɑ]
ਇ	ਿ	ਕਿ	Sihari	I	[ɪ]
ਈ	ੀ	ਕੀ	Bihari	EE	[i]
ਉ	ੁ	ਕੁ	Onkar	U	[ʊ]
ਊ	ੂ	ਕੂ	Dulankar	OO	[u]
ਏ	ੇ	ਕੇ	Lavan	[e]
ਐ	ੈ	ਕੈ	Dulavan	AIR	[æ]
ਓ	ੋ	ਕੋ	Hora	O	[o]
ਔ	ੌ	ਕੌ	Kanora	OA	[ɔ]

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

Word	Transcription	Meaning
ਆਲੂ	ālū	potato
ਦਿਲ	dil	heart
ਗਾਂ	gã	cow

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 Hindu-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 (ੁ) and Dulankar (ੂ) 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 (ਃ U+0A03) is used very occasionally in Gurmukhi. It can either represent an abbreviation (like period is used in English) or it can act like a Sanskrit Visarga 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.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

A00

ਁ

ਂ

ਃ

ਅ

ਆ

ਇ

ਈ

ਉ

ਊ

ਏ

A10

ਐ

ਓ

ਔ

ਕ

ਖ

ਗ

ਘ

ਙ

ਚ

ਛ

ਜ

ਝ

ਞ

ਟ

A20

ਠ

ਡ

ਢ

ਣ

ਤ

ਥ

ਦ

ਧ

ਨ

ਪ

ਫ

ਬ

ਭ

ਮ

ਯ

A30

ਰ

ਲ

ਲ਼

ਵ

ਸ਼

ਸ

ਹ

਼

ਾ

ਿ

A40

ੀ

ੁ

ੂ

ੇ

ੈ

ੋ

ੌ

੍

A50

ਖ਼

ਗ਼

ਜ਼

ੜ

ਫ਼

A60

੦

੧

੨

੩

੪

੫

੬

੭

੮

੯

A70

ੰ

ੱ

ੲ

ੳ

ੴ

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Balwant, S. and Jasbir Atwal. English-Punjabi (Roman Script) Gurmukhi Dictionary. Asian Educational Services, 2002. ISBN 978-8120204461
• Bedi, Tarlochan S. Gurmukhi Lipi da Janam te Vikas. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1999.
• Duggal, Parambir S. Jap Ji in Gurmukhi and Roman Scripts with English Translations. B. Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh, 2000. ISBN 8176013625
• Gurbaksh, (G.B.) Singh. Gurmukhi Lipi da Janam te Vikas. Chandigarh: Punjab University, 1950.
• Ishar Singh T. Gurmukhi Lipi da Vigyamulak Adhiyan. Patiala: Jodh Singh Karamjit Singh.
• Kala Singh B. Lipi da Vikas. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1995.
• Kartar Singh D. Gurmukhi te Hindi da Takra. 1948.
• Katzner, Kenneth. The Languages of the World. Routledge; 3rd ed., 2002. ISBN 978-0415250047
• Pritam Singh. "Gurmukhi Lipi." Khoj Patrika. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1992.

External links

All links retrieved June 21, 2024.

• Saab - A free Unicode 4.0 OpenType Gurmukhi font.
• Free online Punjabi (Gurmukhi) lessons.
• Omniglot's guide to Gurmukhi.
• Test for Unicode support in Web browsers.
• Unicode script chart for Gurmukhi (PDF file).

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