Urdu Alphabet (اردو حروفِ تہجی)
All letters of the Urdu alphabet with pronunciation, vowel marks, joining forms and numerals. Tap any letter to hear it.
Urdu is written in a Perso-Arabic script that runs from right to left. The Urdu alphabet is called haroof-e-tahaji (حروفِ تہجی), and it grew out of the Persian alphabet, which in turn was adapted from Arabic. Urdu keeps the Persian letters and adds a few of its own, such as ٹ ڈ ڑ for the retroflex sounds of South Asian languages, and the letter ھ that marks aspirated sounds.
The number of letters depends on how you count. Many modern books list 38 letters (from ا to ے, including ھ and ء), while older or stricter lists give 35, 36, 37 or 39. If every aspirated pair such as بھ, پھ and کھ is counted as a separate letter, some lists reach the high 50s. All of these lists use the same underlying characters.
Urdu has no separate vowel letters in the way Hindi does. Vowel sounds are shown by the letters ا (alif), و (wao), ی (choti ye) and ے (bari ye), and by optional small marks called aerab (اعراب) placed above or below a letter. In everyday writing the aerab are usually left out, and the reader supplies the short vowels from knowing the word. Most letters also change shape depending on whether they sit at the start, middle or end of a word, which is explained in the joining section below.
Urdu Vowels (حروفِ علت)
Urdu Consonants (حروفِ صحیح)
Alif: ا
Ba family: ب پ ت ٹ ث
Jim family: ج چ ح خ
Dal family: د ڈ ذ
Re family: ر ڑ ز ژ
Sin family: س ش
Suad family: ص ض
Toe family: ط ظ
Ain family: ع غ
Fe family: ف ق
Kaf family: ک گ
Lam, Mim, Nun: ل م ن
Wao, He, Hamza, Ye: و ہ ھ ء ی ے
Vowel Marks (Aerab) and Long Vowels
Urdu has three short vowel marks, called aerab: zabar (a short "a", written as a small stroke above the letter), zer (a short "i", a stroke below) and pesh (a short "u", a small curl above). The long vowels are written with full letters: alif (aa), choti ye (ee), wao (oo) and bari ye (e). The table shows each vowel with ب. Aerab are usually left out in everyday writing and kept in children's books and the Quran. The vowel "o" is written with wao too, so it looks the same as "oo" and is read from context.
| Vowel | Sign | With ب | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| اَ | ◌َ | بَ | ba |
| آ | ◌ا | با | baa |
| اِ | ◌ِ | بِ | bi |
| اِی | ◌ی | بی | bee |
| اُ | ◌ُ | بُ | bu |
| اُو | ◌و | بو | boo |
| اے | ◌ے | بے | be |
| اَے | ◌َے | بَے | bai |
| اَو | ◌َو | بَو | bau |
Urdu Barakhadi (Letters with Vowel Marks)
Common consonants combined with each vowel mark or long vowel, read from right to left. Urdu schools do not use the word barakhadi, but this chart works the same way as the Hindi one and is a good way to practise syllables. Tap any syllable to hear it.
Urdu Numerals
How Urdu Letters Join
Urdu is cursive, so letters in a word are joined together, and most letters have up to four shapes: isolated (alone), initial (start of a word), medial (middle) and final (end). For example ب becomes بـ at the start, ـبـ in the middle and ـب at the end, as in بلی (cat), کبوتر (pigeon) and کتاب (book). The core shape stays recognisable, and the dots stay in the same place.
Nine letters join only to the letter before them and never to the one after: ا د ڈ ذ ر ڑ ز ژ و. After one of these the next letter starts a fresh shape, which leaves a small gap inside the word. You can see it in درخت (tree), where د does not connect to ر, and in دروازہ (door).
Aspirated Letters (Do Chashmi He)
Urdu marks aspirated sounds, which are released with a puff of breath, by adding the letter ھ (do chashmi he, meaning two-eyed he) after a consonant. So ب becomes بھ (bha), پ becomes پھ (pha), and so on. These are written as two letters but each pair is one sound, as in the English k in kite compared with the plain k in skate. They exist because Urdu shares its sound system with Hindi and Punjabi, where aspirated sounds are common.
The ten pairs used most are shown below. Do not confuse ھ (do chashmi he, used only in these pairs) with ہ (gol he, the ordinary h in words like ہاتھی). Rarer pairs such as رھ, لھ, مھ and نھ also exist.
Jazm, Tashdeed and Other Marks
Besides the three short vowel marks, a few more marks appear in careful or religious writing. Jazm ( ْ ) is a small circle above a letter and shows that no vowel follows it, as in مَکْتَب (school). Tashdeed ( ّ ) is a small w-shaped mark that doubles a consonant, as in اَبّا (father) and اُلّو (owl). Tanween ( ً ) adds an n sound at the end of some Arabic-origin words, as in شُکْرًا. Like zabar, zer and pesh, these marks are normally omitted in newspapers and everyday text.
Nastaliq and Naskh Styles
Urdu is traditionally written in Nastaliq, a flowing, slanted calligraphic style in which words seem to sit on a diagonal and letters drop below the baseline. Arabic and many other languages use the more upright Naskh style. The letters are the same in both, only their shape and spacing differ. Print and digital Urdu use either style, and this page is shown in whatever Urdu font your browser or device provides, so it may look more Naskh-like or more Nastaliq-like depending on your system.
Urdu and Hindi
Spoken Urdu and Hindi share the same grammar and most everyday words, and speakers understand each other easily. Linguists often call this common base Hindustani. The main difference is the script and the vocabulary at the formal end: Urdu is written right to left in the Perso-Arabic script and draws its formal words from Persian and Arabic, while Hindi is written left to right in Devanagari and draws its formal words from Sanskrit. A word like पानी and پانی, for example, is the same word in two scripts.
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