The Arabic alphabet, or Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most have contextual letterforms. The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad, with only consonants required to be written; due to its optional use of diacritics to notate vowels, it is considered an impure abjad.
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot refers to the glyphs "combining dot above", and "combining dot below" which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in a variety of languages. Similar marks are used with other scripts.
Shahmukhi is the right-to-left abjad-based script developed from the Perso-Arabic alphabet used for the Punjabi language varieties, predominantly in Punjab, Pakistan. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used for Persian and Urdu. Shahmukhi is one of the two standard scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhi used mainly in Punjab, India.
Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan, and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and Western China.
ݙ is an additional letter of the Arabic script, not used in the Arabic alphabet itself but used in Saraiki to represent a voiced alveolar implosive, . Its other form is also found in Saraiki Spoken in Jhang in the form of voiced retroflex implosive,.
The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a version of the Perso-Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish until 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.
The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for writing Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which itself is derived from the Arabic script. It has official status in the republics of Pakistan, India and South Africa. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter cases and is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly written in the Naskh style.
Hindustani has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script of Ancient India. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years, the Latin script has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons. Historically, Kaithi script has also been used.
Ṭ is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed from T with the addition of a dot below the letter.
Hindustani is the lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan, and through its two standardized registers, Hindi and Urdu, a co-official language of India and co-official and national language of Pakistan respectively. Phonological differences between the two standards are minimal.
Baṛī ye is a letter in the Urdu alphabet directly based on the alternative "returned" variant of the final form of the Arabic letter ye/yāʾ found in the Hijazi, Kufic, Thuluth, Naskh, and Nastaliq scripts. It functions as the word-final yā-'e-majhūl ([]) and yā-'e-sākin ([]). It is distinguished from the "choṭī ye ", which is the regular Perso-Arabic yāʾ (ی) used elsewhere. In Punjabi, where it is a part of the Shahmukhi alphabet, it is called waḍḍī ye with the Gurmukhi equivalent ਏ.
The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method developed by William Jones (1746–1794). Upon its establishment, the Sahitya Akademi also adopted the Hunterian method, with additional adaptations, as its standard method of maintaining its bibliography of Indian-language works.
The Khowar alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Khowar language. It is a modification of the Urdu alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Persian alphabet and Arabic alphabet and uses the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script.
Bharati braille, or Bharatiya Braille, is a largely unified braille script for writing the languages of India. When India gained independence, eleven braille scripts were in use, in different parts of the country and for different languages. By 1951, a single national standard had been settled on, Bharati braille, which has since been adopted by Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh. There are slight differences in the orthographies for Nepali in India and Nepal, and for Tamil in India and Sri Lanka. There are significant differences in Bengali Braille between India and Bangladesh, with several letters differing. Pakistan has not adopted Bharati braille, so the Urdu Braille of Pakistan is an entirely different alphabet than the Urdu Braille of India, with their commonalities largely due to their common inheritance from English or International Braille. Sinhala Braille largely conforms to other Bharati, but differs significantly toward the end of the alphabet, and is covered in its own article.
ݨ,, is an additional letter of the Arabic script, not used in the Arabic alphabet itself but used in Saraiki, Shina and Shahmukhi Punjabi to represent a retroflex nasal consonant,.
Ḍal or ḍāl is a letter of the extended Arabic alphabet, derived from dāl (د) by placing a small t̤oʾe on top. It is not used in the Arabic alphabet itself, but is used to represent a voiced retroflex plosive [ɖ] in Urdu, Punjabi written in the Shahmukhi script, and Kashmiri as well as Balochi. The small t̤oʾe diacritic is used to indicate a retroflex consonant in Urdu. It is the twelfth letter of the Urdu alphabet. Its Abjad value is considered to be 4. In Urdu, this letter may also be called dāl-e-musaqqalā or dāl-e-hindiyā. In Devanagari, this consonant is rendered using ‘ड’.
Ṛe, also Aṛ, is a letter of the extended Arabic alphabet, based on rāʾ (ر) with the addition of a diacritical ṭāʾ on top. It is not used in the Arabic alphabet itself, but is used to represent the word-medial and word-final retroflex flap [ɽ] in Urdu, Punjabi written in the Shahmukhi script, and Kashmiri. The small t̤oʾe diacritic is used to indicate a retroflex consonant in Urdu. Its Abjad value is considered to be 200. In Urdu, this letter may also be called rā-ye-musaqqalā or rā-ye-hindiyā. In Devanagari, this consonant is rendered using ‘ड़’.
Lām with tah above is a character used in the Shahmukhi alphabet for the Punjabi language to represent a voiced retroflex lateral approximant and is also used in the Kalasha language.
Hindi–Urdu is the lingua franca of modern-day Northern India and Pakistan. Modern Standard Hindi is officially registered in India as a standard written using the Devanagari script, and Standard Urdu is officially registered in Pakistan as a standard written using an extended Perso-Arabic script.
Swahili Ajami script refers to the alphabet derived from Arabic script that is used for the writing of Swahili language.
