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Introduction

Urdu is read from right-to-left, and the Urdu alphabet has 38 letters. It is based on the Persian alphabet, which is in turn derived from the Arabic alphabet.

Here are all 38 alphabets. Give the picture a quick look-over to familiarise yourself with the letters, before proceeding onwards to learn to read and write each letter in turn.


Note that many of the alphabets have the same basic shape, such as:


By changing the number of dots above or below the line, a new alphabet is formed. For example, writing one dot below the horizontal line produces the Urdu letter for "b". Writing three dots below the line makes the Urdu letter for "p".

If you look at the Urdu alphabet in terms of the shape of the letters, this means you only really have to learn how to recognise and write 20 letters (you can see this for yourself if you group the letters together based on their similar shapes).

Urdu, like Arabic and Persian, is cursive, so the letters are joined together when writing words. This means each letter has up to four forms: a beginning, middle and end form (depending on their position in the word), and an individual form. In the picture above, you can see all 38 letters in their individual forms.

If you would like to trying typing in Urdu, you can use the link below. It's best to start using it only after you have learnt at least a few letters.

Google transliteration

Unicode Urdu letters appear as follows:

ا ب پ ت ٹ ث ج چ ح خ د ڈ ذ ر ڑ ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن و ہ ھ ی ے

They are extremely small and may be difficult for beginners to read. Use the zoom option of your web browser to increase the text size of the page until you are able to see and decipher each of them clearly (ctrl++ for Windows users).

A Note on Roman Urdu

The majority of Urdu speakers tend to "romanise" or phonetically transcribe Urdu words in the English alphabet when they type, e.g. if two Pakistani friends are talking to each other on Facebook, they would write "Assalamalaikum" instead of السلام علیکم ("Hello" in Urdu). However, there is no standard method of romanising Urdu, i.e. both "Assalamalaikum" and "Ass-saalaa-ma-aaleykum" are correct. This is why it is better to learn how to read and pronounce each of the Urdu letters without relying too much on roman Urdu, as it can be confusing and misleading. Once you have learnt the alphabet, reading and writing in roman Urdu will not be a problem for you.

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The Alphabet

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ا - "Alif"

ا is the first letter of the Urdu alphabet, called "Alif" (pronounced "a-" as the 'a' in "balloon", and "-lif" as in the 'i' in "hip" or "lip"). It is a simple vertical line drawn with a single downward stroke. Its sound is like that of the English 'a' sound in words like "father", "call, "hard", etc.

When it appears at the beginning of a word, it is a very short "a" sound. This is best represented in English as the article "a" (i.e. the "a" used when naming objects, as in "a girl", or "a car"). When it appears in the middle or at the end of a word, it's sound is slightly longer, as in "far" or "tar". (If this is confusing, don't worry about it. Just remember it's basically the letter "A" and that its a long vertical line for now.)

When ا appears before another letter, its appearance stays the same. When it appears after another letter, its form changes slightly. You will see this when you move on to the next alphabet, ب .



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ب - "Bey"

ب is the second letter of the Urdu alphabet, called "Bey" (the "b-" is not aspirated, and the "-ey" is pronounced like the "-ay" in the English word "stay"). Its name can also be romanised as "Be". It is written like a shallow, wide 'U', from right to left, beginning with a short downward stroke, a long horizontal line, and ending with a short upward stroke. Note that overall it is made in one continuous stroke. Finally, a single dot is made underneath the horizontal line, half-way between its two ends. It sounds like the English "b" in "box", "basket", "ball", etc.




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Writing ا and ب together

As mentioned earlier, Urdu is written from right-to-left, unlike English which is left-to-right. When ب comes after ا, they appear together in their normal forms:

(Read from right to left) "ab" ا + ب = اب


This is easy to remember. However, when ب comes BEFORE ا , the word looks like this:

"ba" ب + ا = با


This is because when ب comes at the beginning of a word, it's from changes from

ب

to

بـ‎

which is basically just a ب with its right end cut off.


The ا is then joined to the end of بـ‎ to form: با ("ba"). It looks like a fancy "L" in English with a dot underneath.

Now you can read and write the words اب - "ab", which means "now" in Urdu, and بابا - "baba", which means "father" in Urdu. Hooray!

More to be added soon, please check for updates now and then ^_^