ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਸਿਖਸ਼ਾ/ Punjabi Lessons

This page is the beginning of a set of articles that will teach you how to write and speak Gurmukhi/Punjabi. *** Contruction of these articles in progress now! ****

As you progress through the articles you will be able to recognise more and more of the features of this language. The Gurmukhi Alphabet consists of two types of characters – The Letters and the Modifiers. Gurmukhi is written from left to right as is English. The characters are normally aligned below the line of writing. Gurmukhi script like most of other Indian language scripts is written in a nonlinear fashion. The width of the characters is also not constant. The vowels getting attached to the consonant are not only in one (or horizontal) directions, they can be placed either on the top or the bottom of consonant. The Gurmukhi writing system is one of the simplest and most consistent writing systems in the world. Most letters and modifiers in the Punjabi script have a fixed pronunciation. Only a few have variable pronunciation depending on their position in the word. Gurmukhi script is syllabic in nature. The 30 Primary or Basic Gurmukhi character set is:

Gurmukhi Primary Letters

#	1	2	3	4	5
1	ੳ	ਅ	ੲ	ਸ	ਹ
2	ਕ	ਖ	ਗ	ਘ	ਙ
3	ਚ	ਛ	ਜ	ਝ	ਞ
4	ਟ	ਠ	ਡ	ਢ	ਣ
5	ਪ	ਫ	ਬ	ਭ	ਮ
6	ਯ	ਰ	ਲ	ਵ	ੜ

The following 6 letters are secondary letters that form the complete character set of Gurmukhi. These are modified primary letters:

Gurmukhi Secondary Letters

#	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	ਸ਼	ਖ਼	ਗ਼	ਜ਼	ਫ਼	ਲ਼