Gurmukhi: history, structure and everyday use
A short guide to Gurmukhi, its historical attribution, its structure and the difference between readable letters and digital encoding.
Indian Punjab and wider reading communities
Language · A guide to the archive
Punjabi scripts
Meet Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi through history, comparison, transliteration guidance and the first checked lessons.
How to approach this subject
Begin by distinguishing the language from its writing systems. The history and comparison articles provide context; the script orientations lead to checked examples and exercises. Use a named transliteration convention when moving between scripts and Latin letters, and retain the source beside a native form rather than assuming that every conversion is interchangeable.
An intentional selection
Begin with these entries
Shahmukhi: reading Punjabi in a Perso-Arabic script
Understand the script’s direction, its relationship to Punjabi and why converting text between scripts needs careful checking.
Pakistani Punjab and wider reading communities
Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi: comparing writing systems
Compare characters, reading direction and romanization without mistaking a change of script for a translation.
Punjab and Punjabi publishing
Punjabi transliteration: choose and name a convention
Understand what romanization preserves, why catalogues use diacritics, and why a familiar name may have more than one useful spelling.
Punjabi research across scripts
Gurmukhi lesson 1: recognise a letter and its direction
Begin with three source-checked letters, understand the headline and practise identifying a character without assuming English and Punjabi sounds are identical.
Gurmukhi reading pathway
Shahmukhi lesson 1: direction and connected writing
Meet right-to-left reading, contextual letter shapes and two named characters before attempting full words.
Shahmukhi reading pathway