Gurmukhi
ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ
Abugida · 57 letters
Each consonant carries an implied vowel — ka, not k — and marks hung above, below or around it change that vowel. You learn the consonants, then the vowel marks, then the combinations: three steps instead of one. Every script of India, plus Thai and Khmer.
What pays off on the road
- A bar and plain letters: Gurmukhi, used only for Punjabi and only on the Indian side of the border. Telling it from Devanagari and Bengali places the Punjab.
- ਪੰਜਾਬ, the state's name, then ਸ਼ਹਿਰ city, ਸੜਕ road and ਪਿੰਡ village: four words that cut up a sign.
- Reading a name: the nine vowel signs first — ਾ is the commonest sign of our names.
How it works
The Sikhs' script, and Indian Punjab
Gurmukhi means "from the guru's mouth": the script was fixed in the sixteenth century to write the Sikh scriptures. It carries the top bar like Devanagari, but its shapes are more angular and its loops fewer.
It serves one language only, Punjabi, and one side of the border only: Pakistani Punjab writes the same language in Arabic. Seeing it means India, and the north-west.
A consonant carries its vowel
This is what separates these scripts from an alphabet. ਕ does not read "k" but "ka": the consonant arrives with an "a", and a sign is needed to change it or silence it.
The vowel signs sit around the consonant — above, below, after, and some to the left — and replace the "a". The virama silences it without putting anything in its place: that is how two consonants in a row get written.
The final "a" is not pronounced: ਪੰਜਾਬ reads "panjab", not "panjaba". The rule has mid-word exceptions no table renders, and that is why this section has no place-name quiz.
The consonant order is a classification, not an alphabet
The thirty-three consonants are not arranged at random but by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips: velars, palatals, retroflexes, dentals, labials, then semivowels and sibilants.
It is a phonetic classification two and a half thousand years old, and it holds for every script of India. Learning the first makes the next ones twice as fast: you already know where you are going, only the shapes remain.
Retroflexes, a sound Europe does not have
A whole series is pronounced with the tongue curled back to the palate. A European does not hear the difference from the dental series, and that is fine: both transliterate the same way on signs and maps.
What matters is knowing they exist — otherwise you wonder why two different signs give the same sound.
Cheat sheet
The consonants
Thirty-three signs arranged by place of articulation, from the back of the throat to the lips. Each carries an "a" that only a vowel sign or the virama replaces.
| ਕ | ka | k | the sound k, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਖ | kha | kh | the sound kh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਗ | ga | g | the sound g, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਘ | gha | gh | the sound gh, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਙ | nga | ng | the sound ng, velar, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਚ | cha | ch | the sound ch, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਛ | chha | chh | the sound chh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਜ | ja | j | the sound j, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਝ | jha | jh | the sound jh, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਞ | nya | ny | the sound ny, palatal, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਟ | ta | t | the sound t, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਠ | tha | th | the sound th, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਡ | da | d | the sound d, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਢ | dha | dh | the sound dh, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਣ | na | n | the sound n, retroflex, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਤ | ta | t | the sound t, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਥ | tha | th | the sound th, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਦ | da | d | the sound d, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਧ | dha | dh | the sound dh, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਨ | na | n | the sound n, dental, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਪ | pa | p | the sound p, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਫ | pha | ph | the sound ph, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਬ | ba | b | the sound b, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਭ | bha | bh | the sound bh, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਮ | ma | m | the sound m, labial, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਯ | ya | y | the sound y, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਰ | ra | r | the sound r, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਲ | la | l | the sound l, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਵ | va | v | the sound v, semivowel, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਸ਼ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਖ਼ | sha | sh | the sound sh, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਸ | sa | s | the sound s, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ਹ | ha | h | the sound h, sibilant, with an "a" if nothing follows |
| ੜ | ra | r | a retroflex r, flapped against the palate |
The full vowels
Ten signs, used when the vowel has no consonant to carry it — at the start of a word, most often. Everywhere else the vowel sign does the work.
| ਅ | a plein | a | the sound a, when no consonant carries it |
| ਆ | a plein longue | a | the sound a long, when no consonant carries it |
| ਇ | i plein | i | the sound i, when no consonant carries it |
| ਈ | i plein longue | i | the sound i long, when no consonant carries it |
| ਉ | u plein | u | the sound u, when no consonant carries it |
| ਊ | u plein longue | u | the sound u long, when no consonant carries it |
| ਏ | e plein | e | the sound e, when no consonant carries it |
| ਐ | ai plein | ai | the sound ai, when no consonant carries it |
| ਓ | o plein | o | the sound o, when no consonant carries it |
| ਔ | au plein | au | the sound au, when no consonant carries it |
The vowel signs
Nine signs that sit around the consonant and replace its "a". Some are drawn to its left but read after it: it is the rendering that moves them, not the reading.
| ਾ | signe a long | a | the sound a long, set on the consonant |
| ਿ | signe i | i | the sound i, set on the consonant |
| ੀ | signe i long | i | the sound i long, set on the consonant |
| ੁ | signe u | u | the sound u, set on the consonant |
| ੂ | signe u long | u | the sound u long, set on the consonant |
| ੇ | signe e | e | the sound e, set on the consonant |
| ੈ | signe ai | ai | the sound ai, set on the consonant |
| ੋ | signe o | o | the sound o, set on the consonant |
| ੌ | signe au | au | the sound au, set on the consonant |
The marks
Three, and the last is the most useful: the virama silences the inherent vowel, which is how a lone consonant or two consonants in a row get written.
| ੰ | tippi | n | nasalises the vowel before it |
| ਂ | bindi | n | nasalises, on long vowels |
| ੱ | addak | doubles the consonant after it: ਦੱਖਣ reads "dakkhan" | |
| ੍ | virama | silences the inherent vowel: ਕ੍ is "k", not "ka" |
The words on signs
| ਪੰਜਾਬ | panjab | Punjab |
| ਭਾਰਤ | bharat | India |
| ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤਸਰ | amritsar | Amritsar |
| ਸ਼ਹਿਰ | shahir | city |
| ਸੜਕ | sarak | road |
| ਸਟੇਸ਼ਨ | steshan | station |
| ਪਿੰਡ | pind | village |
| ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ | gurduara | gurdwara |
| ਉੱਤਰ | uttar | north |
| ਦੱਖਣ | dakkhan | south |
| ਪੂਰਬ | purab | east |
| ਪੱਛਮ | pachham | west |