Gurmukhi
Gurmukhī is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad. Commonly regarded as a Sikh script, Gurmukhi is used in Punjab, India as the official script of the Punjabi language.
The primary scripture of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib, is written in Gurmukhī, in various dialects and languages often subsumed under the generic title Sant Bhasha or saint language, in addition to other languages like Persian and various phases of Indo-Aryan languages.
Modern Gurmukhī has thirty-five original letters, hence its common alternative term pentī or "the thirty-five," plus six additional consonants, nine vowel diacritics, two diacritics for nasal sounds, one diacritic that geminates consonants and three subscript characters.
History and development
The Gurmukhī script is generally believed to have roots in the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet by way of the Brahmi script, which developed further into the Northwestern group, the Central group and the Eastern group, as well as several prominent writing systems of Southeast Asia and Sinhala in Sri Lanka, in addition to scripts used historically in Central Asia for extinct languages like Saka and Tocharian. Gurmukhi is derived from Sharada in the Northwestern group, of which it is the only major surviving member, with full modern currency.Notable features:
- It is an abugida in which all consonants have an inherent vowel, /ə/. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they are applied to, are used to change the inherent vowel.
- When they appear at the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.
- To form consonant clusters, Gurmukhi uniquely affixes subscript letters at the bottom of standard characters, rather than using the true conjunct symbols used by other scripts, which merge parts of each letter into a distinct character of its own.
- Punjabi is a tonal language with three tones. These are indicated in writing using the formerly voiced aspirated consonants and the intervocalic h.
- Three basic carrier vowels, integrated into the traditional Gurmukhi character set, using the vowel markers to write independent vowels, instead of distinctly separate characters for each of these vowels as in other scripts;
- a drastic reduction in the number and importance of conjunct characters ;
- a unique standard ordering of characters that somewhat diverges from the traditional vargiya, or Sanskritic, ordering of characters;
- the recognition of Indo-Aryan phonological history through the omission of characters representing the sibilants and. These sibilants were naturally lost in most modern Indo-Aryan languages, though such characters were often retained in their respective consonant inventories as placeholders and archaisms while being mispronounced, though the three sibilants were frequently reintroduced through later circumstances, as was to Gurmukhi through loanwords, necessitating a new glyph;
- the development of distinct new letters for sounds better reflecting the vernacular language spoken during the time of its development ;
- a gemination diacritic, a unique feature among native subcontinental scripts, which help to illustrate the preserved Middle Indo-Aryan geminates distinctive of Punjabi;
From the 10th century onwards, regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States and Kashmir. Sharada proper was eventually restricted to very limited ceremonial use in Kashmir, as it grew increasingly unsuitable for writing the Kashmiri language. With the last known inscription dating to 1204 C.E., the early 13th century marks a milestone in the development of Sharada. The regional variety in Punjab continued to evolve from this stage through the 14th century; during this period it starts to appear in forms closely resembling Gurmukhī and other Landa scripts. By the 15th century, Sharada had evolved so considerably that epigraphists denote the script at this point by a special name, Devāśeṣa. Tarlochan Singh Bedi prefers the name Pritham Gurmukhī, or Proto-Gurmukhī.
The Sikh gurus adopted proto-Gurmukhī to write the Guru Granth Sahib, the religious scriptures of the Sikhs. The Takri alphabet developed through the Devāśeṣa stage of the Sharada script from the 14th-18th centuries and is found mainly in the Hill States such as Chamba, Himachal Pradesh and surrounding areas, where it is called Chambyali, and in Jammu Division, where it is known as Dogri. The local Takri variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century. After 1948, when Himachal Pradesh was established as an administrative unit, the local Takri variants were replaced by Devanagari.
Meanwhile, the mercantile scripts of Punjab known as the Laṇḍā scripts were normally not used for literary purposes. Landa means alphabet "without tail", implying that the script did not have vowel symbols. In Punjab, there were at least ten different scripts classified as Laṇḍā, Mahajani being the most popular. The Laṇḍā scripts were used for household and trade purposes. Compared to the Laṇḍā, Sikh Gurus favored the use of Proto-Gurmukhī, because of the difficulties involved in pronouncing words without vowel signs.
The usage of Gurmukhī letters in the Guru Granth Sahib meant that the script developed its own orthographical rules. In the following epochs, Gurmukhī became the prime script applied for the literary writings of the Sikhs. The Singh Sabha Movement of the late 1800s, a movement to revitalize Sikh institutions which had declined during colonial rule after the fall of the Sikh Empire, also advocated for the usage of the Gurmukhi script for mass media, with print media publications and Punjabi-language newspapers established in the 1880s. Later in the 20th century, after the struggle of the Punjabi Suba movement, from the founding of modern India in the 1940s to the 1960s, the script was given the authority as the official script of the Punjab, India.
The term ''Gurmukhī''
The prevalent view among Punjabi linguists is that as in the early stages the Gurmukhī letters were primarily used by the Guru's followers, Gurmukhs ; the script thus came to be known as Gurmukhī, "the script of those guided by the Guru." Guru Angad is credited in the Sikh tradition with the creation and standardization of Gurmukhi script from earlier Śāradā-descended scripts native to the region. It is now the standard writing script for the Punjabi language in India. The original Sikh scriptures and most of the historic Sikh literature have been written in the Gurmukhi script.Although the word Gurmukhī has been commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru," the term used for the Punjabi script has somewhat different connotations. The opinion traditional scholars for this is that as the Sikh holy writings, before they were written down, were uttered by the Gurus, they came to be known as Gurmukhī or the "Utterance of the Guru". Consequently, the script that was used for scribing the utterance was also given the same name. The term that would mean "by the Guru's mouth" would be "Gurmū̃hī̃," which sounds considerably different but looks similar in Latin script.
The name for the Perso-Arabic alphabet for the Punjabi language, Shahmukhi, was modeled on the term Gurmukhi.
Characters
Letters
The Gurmukhī alphabet contains thirty-five base letters, traditionally arranged in seven rows of five letters each. The first three letters, or mātarā vāhak, are distinct because they form the basis for vowels and are not consonants, or vianjan, like the remaining letters are, and except for the second letter aiṛā are never used on their own; see for further details. The pair of fricatives, or mūl varag, share the row, which is followed by the next five sets of consonants, with the consonants in each row arranged by manner of articulation, and the rows by place of articulation, from the back to the front of the mouth. The arrangement, or varaṇmālā, is completed with the antim ṭolī, literally "ending group."The nasal letters ਙ /ŋəŋːaː/ and ਞ /ɲəɲːaː/ are not used in modern Gurmukhi. They cannot begin a syllable or be placed between two consonants, and the sounds they represent occur most often as allophones of before specific consonant phonemes.
The pronunciation of ਵ can vary allophonically between // preceding front vowels, and // elsewhere.
The most characteristic feature of the Punjabi language is its tone system. The script has no separate symbol for tones, but they correspond to the tonal consonants that once represented voiced aspirates as well as older *h. To differentiate between consonants, the Punjabi tonal consonants of the fourth column, ਘ kà, ਝ chà, ਢ ṭà, ਧ tà, and ਭ pà, are often transliterated in the way of the voiced aspirate consonants gha, jha, ḍha, dha, and bha respectively, although Punjabi lacks these sounds. Tones in Punjabi can be either rising, neutral, or falling; in the pronunciation of the names of the Gurmukhī letters, they are at the beginning of the word and as such produce the falling tone, hence the grave accent as opposed to the acute. The tone changes to a rising one and precedes the letter when it is in syllabic coda positions, and falling when in stem-medial positions after a short vowel and before a long vowel. The letters now always represent unaspirated consonants, and are unvoiced in initial positions and voiced elsewhere.
Supplementary letters
In addition to the 35 original letters, there are six supplementary consonants in official usage, referred to as the navīn ṭolī or navīn varag, meaning "new group," created by placing a dot at the foot of the consonant to create pair bindī consonants. These are not present in the Guru Granth Sahib or old texts. These are used most often for loanwords, though not exclusively, and their usage is not always obligatory:The character ਲ਼ /ɭ/, the only character not representing a fricative consonant, was only recently added to the Gurmukhī alphabet. It was not a part of the traditional orthography, as the distinctive phonological difference between 'l' and 'ɭ', while both native sounds, was not reflected in the script, and its usage is currently not universal. Other characters, like //, are also on rare occasion used unofficially, chiefly for transliterating old writings in Persian and Urdu, the knowledge of which is less relevant in modern times.
Subscript letters
Three "subscript" letters, called pairī̃ akkhar, or "letters at the foot" are utilised in Gurmukhī: forms of ਹ, ਰ, and ਵ.The subscript ਰ and ਵ are used to make consonant clusters and behave similarly; subjoined ਹ raises tone.
In addition to the three subscript letters, there is a half-form of the letter Yayya, /j/ ਯ→੍ਯ, also used exclusively for Sanskrit borrowings, and even then rarely. Only the subjoined /ɾ/ and /h/ are commonly used; use of the subjoined /ʋ/ and conjunct /j/, already rare, is increasingly scarce in modern contexts.
Vowel diacritics
To express vowels, Gurmukhī, as an abugida, makes use of obligatory diacritics called lagā mātarā. Gurmukhī is similar to Brahmi scripts in that all consonants are followed by an inherent 'a' sound. This inherent vowel sound can be changed by using dependent vowel signs which attach to a bearing consonant. In some cases, dependent vowel signs cannot be used – at the beginning of a word or syllable for instance – and so an independent vowel character is used instead.Independent vowels are constructed using three bearer characters: ūṛā, aiṛā and īṛī. With the exception of aiṛā (which represents the vowel the bearer consonants are never used without additional vowel signs.
Dotted circles represent the bearer consonant. Vowels are always pronounced after the consonant they are attached to. Thus, sihārī is always written to the left, but pronounced after the character on the right.
Orthography
Gurmukhi orthography prefers vowel sequences over the use of semivowels intervocally and in syllable nuclei, as in the words ਦਿਸਾਇਆ disāiā "caused to be visible" rather than disāyā, ਦਿਆਰ diār "cedar" rather than dyār, and ਸੁਆਦ suād "taste" rather than swad, permitting vowels in hiatus.In terms of tone orthography, the short vowels and , when paired with to yield /ɪh/ and /ʊh/, represent and with high tones respectively, e.g. ਕਿਹੜਾ kihṛā 'which,' ਦੁਹਰਾ duhrā 'repeat, reiterate, double.' The sequence of + or yield and respectively, e.g. ਮਹਿੰਗਾ mahingā 'expensive,' ਵਹੁਟੀ vahuṭī 'bride.'
Other signs
Nasalisation
Ṭippī and bindī are used for producing a nasal phoneme depending on the following obstruent or a nasal vowel at the end of a word. All short vowels are nasalized using ṭippī and all long vowels are nasalized using bindī except for dulenkaṛ, which uses ṭippi instead.Older texts may follow other conventions.
Gemination
The use of addhak indicates that the following consonant is geminate, meaning that the subsequent consonant is doubled or reinforced. Consonant length is distinctive in the Punjabi language and the use of this diacritic can change the meaning of a word, for example:Vowel suppression
The halant character is not used when writing Punjabi in Gurmukhī. However, it may occasionally be used in Sanskritised text or in dictionaries for extra phonetic information. When it is used, it represents the suppression of the inherent vowel.The effect of this is shown below:
Punctuation
The danda is used in Gurmukhi to mark the end of a sentence. A doubled danda marks the end of a verse.The visarg symbol is used very occasionally in Gurmukhī. It can represent an abbreviation, as the period is used in English, though the period for abbreviation, like commas, exclamation points, and other Western punctuation, is freely used in modern Gurmukhi.
Numerals
Gurmukhī has its own set of digits, used exactly as in other versions of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. These are used extensively in older texts. In modern contexts, they are sometimes replaced by standard Western Arabic numerals.Unicode
Gurmukhī script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.Many sites still use proprietary fonts that convert Latin ASCII codes to Gurmukhī glyphs.
The Unicode block for Gurmukhī is U+0A00–U+0A7F: