Gurmukhi - The Sikh Alphabet

The word 'Gurmukhi' literally means from the mouth of the Guru. Gurmukhi has some similarities to older Indian scripts of the times, but it's thirty five characters and vowel modifiers were standardized by Guru Angad. Rather than use the Hindu scripts such as Sanskrit, Guru Angad Dev chose to make a new script the standard for the Sikhs. Sanskrit was only restricted to the priestly Hindu class, but the Gurus did not believe in this elitism. Guru Angad Dev spent his lifetime teaching the Gurmukhi script to the common people of Punjab. Gurmukhi is not only used by Sikhs but by Hindus as well as Muslims living in Punjab to represet their common spoken language, Punjabi. Sikhs are expected to make an effort at learning the Gurmukhi script and teaching it to their children in order to read the Guru Granth Sahib in its original written form.

Gurmukhi has 35 letters as well as nine vowel modifiers. In addition there are five special sound modifiers symbols. A vertical bar is used to indicate the end of a sentences. Two vertical bars indicate a longer pause between sentences or paragraphs. The table below presents the letters, numbers and vowel modifiers. The vowel modifiers are presented with english words, the sounds that they make being emphasized in capital letters.


The Gurmukhi Alphabet

Sound Modifying Symbols.

Sound Effect: reinforces the following letter.
Sound Effect: partial NUNNA character sound.
Sound Effect: nasal sound of the vowel modifier is appears with.
Sound Effect: produces partial RARA sound following the letter.
Sound Effect: produces partial HAHA sound following the letter.

Practice Paragraph

Pronunciation
Aih mera ghar hae. Es vich mere mata pita bhain taae bhra rhendaae hun. Ghar ittaan taae lukarh da baniaa hae. Es vich chaar sawn valaae kumraae hun. Ik baethk hae. Ghar vich ik rsoiee aetaae doow guslkhanaae hun. Ghar daae aghaae bgheecha hae. Ous vich sundr phul hun. Phul lal peelaae taae chitaae rung daae hun.

Translation
This is my house. My mother, father, sister and brother live in it. The house is made of bricks and wood. It has four bedrooms. It has one drawing room. The house has one kitchen and two bathrooms. In front of the house is a small garden. In it are beautiful flowers. The flowers are red, yellow and white colored.

For information about instructional Punjabi readers or Gurmukhi computer fonts please see the Other Related Resources category.

To further practice reading Gurmukhi try reading the Japji Sahib which appears in both Gurmukhi and English and can be found under the Selected Translations category.


 


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