Sequence of Urdu Letters

alif s kh zh z r zwd t ba h zl swd p c l shn te ghain qf gf vo nn ba y mm ch y b jm dl sn ze ain f kf lm ch h

Vowels

he long vowels in rdu are indicated by alif alif-mad vo cho y and ba y he superscript mad written over alif e g denotes long // at the beginning of a word However in medial and final position alif by itself stands for a long // and vo when occurring initially stand for semi-vowel /y/ and /v/ respectively such as /yah/

/vah/ rehto ni y ab y ohc oV environments denote long vowels, the detail of which follows.
Vao and Ye

In rdu vo serves the purpose of four sounds as indicated below:

vah jo ju jau

Initially vo like y always stands for semi-vowels as in /vah/ However in the medial and final positions vo stands for three different long vowel sounds i e // // or /au/ he vo for // sound is shown with ult psh ; the vo for /au/ sound is shown with a proceeding zabar ; whereas the unmarked vo stands for the sound // as it is shown in the examples above Similarly / below: y in rdu serves the purpose of four sounds as indicated

vah

mera

mira

maina

Initially y like vo always stands for a semi-vowel as in /yah/ However in the medial and final positions y stands for three different long vowel sounds i e // // /ai/ he y for /i/ sound is shown with a khaa zr ; the y for /i/ sound is shown with a preceding zabar ; whereas the unmarked y evoba selpmaxe eht ni nwohs si sa // dnuos eht rof sdnats
Short Vowels

The short vowels in Urdu are indicated by superscript or subscript as indicated below: bove a consonant is called zabar It denotes a following /a/: Below a consonant is called zr It denotes a following /i/:

bove a consonant is called psh It denotes a following /u/: lif at the beginning of a word or a syllable denotes that the word or syllable begins with a vowel. The particular short vowels can be indicated by use of zr zabar of psh e g . However, short vowel signs are used only when necessary, the general practice being that Urdu readers read their language without short vowel marks.
ununn d c s m nd mz

The following three letters, though traditionally not listed in the Urdu alphabet, are very important to learn: i. nun-ghunna ;lewov a fo noitazilasan rof sdnats tod tuohtiw nn e i however, medial nasalization is indicated with full nn i e with the dot above such as in /j/ // d cashm h is a distinctive feature of rdu and represents aspiration such as in /gh/ /th/ hamza is a glottal stop in rabic but in rdu generally, it is an orthographic mark used as a superscript denoting the occurrence of two vowels in a word. Except for the vocalics with which it occurs, it has no phonetic value in Urdu.

ii. iii.

Duplicators etc.

The following groups of letters stand for the same sound in Urdu: i. ii. iii. iv. t and te both represent /t/ s sn and swd all represent /s/ cho h and ba h both represent /h/ zl z zwad and ze all represent /z/

in ( )

The Consonant ain which in rabic is a glottal fricative in rdu generally is pronounced as a vowel combined with other vowels in the word. It normally merges with the sound of a vowel character or vowel marker, such as: a. Initially: aurat izzat b. Medially: malm bd shla

c. Finally: jama
e()

mauz

He stands for /h/ but in many cases in the final position it is pronounced softly and denotes a short vowel, e.g.,
na pata balke

But where a final /h/ is to be pronounced, it is shown with a hook, e.g.,

kah sah bah

Silent vo ( )

Vo following kh occurs only in a few Persian and rabic loan words where vo is not pronounced It is marked with a subscript below the vo thus:
khush khud khurshd khab

Particular Conventions

i.

Initially cho h + alif is written with a double hook e g

hth

ii.

kf or gf + alif are written with a small loop, e.g.,

kl gl

iii.

kf or gf before lm are also written similarly e g

kl gl

iv.

In the environment /i/ + semi-vowel /y/ + vowel hamza is not written and instead two dots of medial /y/ are indicated:

chi + y dji + y

v.

hamza is also not indicated in the environment /u/ + // e g

hu chu

Numerals
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0