The Punjabi Alphabet

Punjabi in India is written in the Gurmukhi script (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) — a left-to-right Brahmic abugida with 35 consonants, 10 independent vowels, and 9 vowel signs (laga matra). Gurmukhi was standardised in the 16th century by Guru Angad Dev Ji, the second Sikh Guru, primarily for writing the sacred Gurbani scriptures of Sikhism.

In Pakistan, the same Punjabi language is written in the Shahmukhi script — a right-to-left Perso-Arabic script derived from the Nastaʿlīq style. The two writing systems are mutually unintelligible in written form despite representing the same spoken language.

The Gurmukhi alphabet used for Punjabi has 35 consonants and 10 independent vowels, plus 3 vowel carrier letters (ura ੳ, aira ਅ, iri ੲ) that serve as bases for the independent vowels. There are also 9 vowel signs (laga matra) used when vowels follow consonants inside words.

Six additional consonants — ਖ਼, ਗ਼, ਜ਼, ਫ਼, ਲ਼, ਸ਼ — are formed by adding the Nukta dot (਼) to existing consonants to represent sounds borrowed from Persian and Arabic. The Gurmukhi digit set (੦–੯) completes the script.

Yes — Punjabi is one of the very few tonal Indo-Aryan languages. It has three lexical tones: a level tone (mid-level pitch), a rising tone (low-to-high), and a falling tone (high-to-low). Different tones can change the meaning of a word — for example, kóṛā (whip) vs kòṛā (leper) differ only in tone.

These tones historically developed from voiced aspirated consonants (gh, jh, dh, etc.) that lost their aspiration but transferred their breathy quality into a pitch change on the surrounding vowel. Tones are not marked in standard Gurmukhi orthography but are understood from context by native speakers.

Ek Onkar (ੴ) is the most sacred symbol of Sikhism, composed of the Gurmukhi numeral ੧ (one) and the Gurmukhi word ਓਅ (Oa) meaning "God". It appears at the beginning of the Mul Mantar — the opening invocation of the Guru Granth Sahib Ji — and by extension at the start of all Gurbani compositions.

The symbol means "God is One" or "There is one God" — the foundational theological statement of Sikhism. It is one of the most recognisable symbols in Punjabi culture and religious life worldwide.

Punjabi is spoken by approximately 113 million people, making it the 10th most spoken language in the world by native speaker count. The largest concentrations of Punjabi speakers are in the Indian state of Punjab, where it is the official language, and in the Pakistani province of Punjab, which has the largest Punjabi-speaking population.

Significant Punjabi diaspora communities exist in the United Kingdom (particularly in Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, and London), Canada (especially in Brampton, Surrey, and Vancouver), the United States, Australia, and East Africa. Canada has recognised Punjabi as a designated language for government services in regions with significant Sikh communities.

Punjabi and Panjabi are two spellings of the same language. "Punjabi" is the more common English spelling, derived from the Persian/Urdu word "Panjab" (land of five rivers — panj = five, ab = water). "Panjabi" is an alternate transliteration that more closely reflects the original Persian/Urdu pronunciation of the name.

Both spellings refer to the same Indo-Aryan language, the same Gurmukhi script, and the same community of speakers. In India, "Punjabi" is the standard spelling used in official documents. The ISO code for both is the same: pa (ISO 639-1) and pan (ISO 639-3).