Saraiki alphabet

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There are three writing systems for Saraiki:

Multani script

Multani is a Brahmic script originating in the Multan region of Punjab. The script was used for routine writing and commercial activities. Multani is one of four Landa scripts whose usage was extended beyond the mercantile domain and formalized for literary activity and printing; the others being Gurmukhi, Khojki and Khudabadi. Although Multani is now obsolete, it is a historical script in which written and printed records exist.

Contents

Traders or bookkeepers wrote in a script known as Langdi, although use of this script has been significantly reduced in recent times. Preliminary Proposal to Encode the Multani Script in ISO/IEC 10646 was submitted by Anshuman Pandey, on 26-04-2011. [1] Saraiki Unicode has been approved in 2005. [2]

Perso-Arabic script

The most common writing system for Saraiki today is Shahmukhi, based on the Perso-Arabic script. It is non-standardized and is generally written with an extension to the standard Shahmukhi alphabet. Saraiki has a 43-letter alphabet which include four letters that are not used in standard Shahmukhi. [3] Another difference the Saraiki alphabet has with standard Shahmukhi is the disuse of the already uncommon Lam with tah above which is present in the standard form.

Alphabet Table

Saraiki Shahmukhi alphabet
LetterName of LetterTranscription IPA
اalifā, a, e, ē, o, i, u/a/, /ə/, /e/, /ɛ/, /o/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/
بbeb/b/
ٻɓeɓ/bb/ɓ/
پpep/p/
تtet/t/
ٹṭe/ʈ/
ثse(s)/s/
جjīmj/d͡ʒ/
ڄʄeʄ/jj/ʄ/
چcec/t͡ʃ/
حbaṛī he(h)/ɦ/
خxex/x/
دdāld/d/
ڈḍāl/ɖ/
ݙɗālɗ/dd/ᶑ/
ذzāl(z)/z/
رrer/r/
ڑṛe/ɽ/
زzez/z/
ژžež/(š)/ʒ/
سsīns/s/
شšīnš/ʃ/
صsvād(s)/s/
ضzvād(z)/z/
طto'e(t)/t/
ظzo'e(z)/z/
ع‘ain(‘/'), (a), (e), (ē), (o), (i), (u)/∅/, /ə/, /e/, /ɛ/, /o/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/
غǧainǧ/ɣ/
فfef/f/
قqāfq/q/
کkāfk/k/
گgāfg/g/
ڳɠāfɠ/gg/ɠ/
لlāml/l/
مmīmm/m/
نnūnn/n/
ںnūn ǧunnā/◌̃/
ݨṇūn/ɳ/
وvāvv/v/
ہcoṭī heh/ɦ/
ھdo cašmī he_h/◌ʰ/, /◌ʱ/
یcoṭī yey, ī/j/, /i/
ےbaṛī yee, ē/e/, /ɛ/

Notes

Saraiki has 4 additional glyphs that are not present in its parent alphabet of standard Shahmukhi. ٻ represents the Voiced bilabial implosive, ڄ represents the Voiced palatal implosive, ڳ represents the Voiced velar implosive, and ݙ represents the Voiced retroflex implosive. 3 out of the 4 implosive consonants (ٻ,ڄ,ڳ) are shared with the Sindhi alphabet, and ݙ was proposed in 2002 [4] to differentiate from ڏ of Sindhi.

Saraiki also lacks the phoneme /ʒ/, and therefore, employs other phonemes such as /ʃ/ to represent the letter ژ. Due to this, ژ is only used in loanwords.

Diacritics

ـٌ  ـٍ  ـً

Numerals

Like Standard Punjabi in Shahmukhi, Saraiki also uses the Eastern Arabic numerals:

Hindu–Arabic 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Saraiki۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹

Romanization

The romanization is often termed "transliteration" but that is not strictly correct, as transliteration is the direct representation of letters by using foreign symbols, but most systems for romanizing Arabic are actually transcription systems that represent the sound of the language. For example, the above rendering munāẓaratu l-ḥurūfi l-ʻarabīyah of the Arabic : مناظرة الحروف العربية is a transcription, indicating the pronunciation; an example of transliteration would be mnaẓrḧ alḥrwf alʻrbyḧ.

For Saraiki, all letters and symbols are used in Saraiki in Latin script. [5]

Modern Indic scripts

The Devanagari and Gurmukhi scripts, written from left to right, were used by Hindus and Sikhs respectively around southern Punjab. Though not used in present-day Pakistan, there are still emigrant speakers in India who know the Devanagari or Gurmukhi scripts for Saraiki. [6]

Devanagari has support for all the 4 Saraiki implosive consonants: ॻ (ڳ), ॼ (ڄ), ॾ (ݙ) and ॿ (ٻ), which were actually introduced to write Sindhi. In Gurmukhi, these are approximated by gemination ligatures.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gurmukhi</span> Script used to write Punjabi language

Gurmukhī is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). Commonly regarded as a Sikh script, Gurmukhi is used in Punjab, India as the official script of the Punjabi language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brahmic scripts</span> Family of abugida writing systems

The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South, East and Southeast Asia: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian, and Tai. They were also the source of the dictionary order (gojūon) of Japanese kana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sindhi language</span> Indo-Aryan language native to Sindh

Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 30 million people in the Pakistani province of Sindh, where it has official status. It is also spoken by a further 1.7 million people in India, where it is a scheduled language, without any state-level official status. The main writing system is the Perso-Arabic script, which accounts for the majority of the Sindhi literature and is the only one currently used in Pakistan. In India, both the Perso-Arabic script and Devanagari are used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saraiki language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in Pakistan

Saraiki is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by around 28 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shahmukhi</span> Script used to write Punjabi language

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.

The Laṇḍā scripts, from the term laṇḍā meaning "without a tail", is a Punjabi word used to refer to writing systems used in Punjab and adjoining areas. In Sindhi, it was known as 'Wāṇiko' or 'Baniyañ'.

Saraiki literature is the literature of the Saraiki language of Pakistani Punjab.

The nuqta, is a diacritic mark that was introduced in Devanagari and some other Indic scripts to represent sounds not present in the original scripts. It takes the form of a dot placed below a character. This idea is inspired from the Arabic script; for example, there are some letters in Urdu that share the same basic shape but differ in the placement of dots(s) or nuqta(s) in the Perso-Arabic script: the letter ع ayn, with the addition of a nuqta on top, becomes the letter غ g͟hayn.

B̤ē is an additional letter of the Arabic script, derived from bāʼ with an additional dot. It is not used in the Arabic alphabet itself, but is used to represent the sound when writing Hausa, Saraiki, and Sindhi in the Arabic script. The same sound may also be written simply as bāʾ in Hausa, undifferentiated from.

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,.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khudabadi script</span> Abugida

Khudabadi was a script used to write the Sindhi language, generally used by some Sindhi Hindus even in the present-day. The script originates from Khudabad, a city in Sindh, and is named after it. It is also known as Hathvanki script. Khudabadi is one of the four scripts used for writing Sindhi, the others being Perso-Arabic, Khojki and Devanagari script. It was used by traders and merchants to record their information and rose to importance as the script began to be used to record information kept secret from other non-Sindhi groups.

ڄ, Arabic letter dyeh (U+0684), is an additional letter of the Arabic script, not used in the Arabic alphabet itself but used in Sindhi and Saraiki to represent a voiced palatal implosive,. For ڄ example is used in ڄموں، ڄلم۔ It is written as ॼ in Saraiki and Sindhi's Devanagari orthography.

ڱ, Arabic letter ngoeh (U+06B1), is an additional letter of the Arabic script, not used in the Arabic alphabet itself but used in Sindhi to represent a voiced velar nasal,. For example, it is used in آڱُر meaning 'finger'. It is written as ङ in Sindhi's Devanagari script.

Gueh is an additional letter of the Arabic script, used in Sindhi and Saraiki to represent a voiced velar implosive. It is derived from gāf, with the addition of two dots. It is equivalent to ॻ in Saraiki and Sindhi's Devanagari orthography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multani script</span> Abugida

Multani is a Brahmic script originating in the Multan region of Punjab and in northern Sindh, Pakistan. It was used to write Saraiki, often considered a dialect of Lahnda group of languages. The script was used for routine writing and commercial activities. Multani is one of four Landa scripts whose usage was extended beyond the mercantile domain and formalized for literary activity and printing; the others being Gurmukhi, Khojki, and Khudabadi. Although Multani is now obsolete, it is a historical script in which written and printed records exist. It was also known as Karikki and as Sarai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ݨ</span> Additional letter of the Arabic script

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,.

Sindhi romanisation or Latinization of Sindhi is a system for representing the Sindhi language using the Latin script.

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.

Sindhi is a language broadly spoken by the people of the historical Sindh region in the Indo subcontinent. Modern Sindhi is written in an extended Perso-Arabic script in Sindh province of Pakistan and (formally) in extended-Devanagari by Sindhis in partitioned India. Historically, Sindhi was written in various forms of Landa scripts and various other Indic scripts.

Kashmiri Transliteration refers to the conversion of the Kashmiri language between different scripts that is used to write the language in the Kashmir region of the Indo subcontinent. The official script to write Kashmiri is extended-Perso-Arabic script in both Jammu-Kashmir and Azad-Kashmir cutting across religious boundaries. Some sections of the Kashmiri Hindu community use an extended-Devanagari script to write the language. Transliteration is hence essential to cross this script-barrier imposed by religious affiliations and convert texts to cater all the Kashmiri people.

References

  1. "Preliminary Proposal to Encode the Multani Script in ISO/IEC 10646" (PDF).
  2. "Unicode 4.1.0 (March 2005)". www.fileformat.info.
  3. Bashir, Elena; Conners, Thomas J.; Hefright, Brook (2019). A descriptive grammar of Hindko, Panjabi, and Saraiki. Hefright, Brook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 62, 77. ISBN   978-1-61451-296-7. OCLC   1062344143.
  4. "Proposal for extensions to the Arabic block" (PDF).
  5. قادر, پرویز (20 November 2015). "سرائیکی ساݙی قومی زبان ہے : Latin Saraiki".
  6. "Multani poets relive memories of struggle". Indian Express. Retrieved 2007-12-08.