Chhoṭī he

Small or chhoṭī he sounds like h or ह. (There’s also a less common letter, large or baṛī he, which appears in Chapter 6.) The various forms of chhoṭī he differ more from each other than in other letters. The initial and medial forms dip down to make a small divot, and below there’s a mark shaped somewhat like a number 6 (occasionally omitted in the medial form). Meanwhile, the independent form looks like an oval or a teardrop, and the final form looks simply like a small curve or squiggle going up and then down:

Note the different forms in these words:

آہ

āh ‘sigh’

ہم

ham ‘us’

مہاتْما

mahātmā ‘mahatma, great soul’

A final chhoṭī he will often be pronounced as a short a or long ā, and transliterated in Hindi as ā आ or sometimes simply as h ह:

بچّہ

bachcha बच्चा ‘child’

پتہ

pata / patā पता ‘address, knowledge’

جگہ

jaga जगह ‘place’

Chhoṭī he often influences the short vowels before and after it. A pesh will often be pronounced as o (or au); in Hindi script, these vowels may be written as either u उ or o ओ:

بہُت

bahut / bahot बहुत ‘much’

مُہلت

mohlat मोहलत ‘delay’

Similarly, chhoṭī he often turns a zer or zabar into a short ě sound (as in “meh”). In Hindi, these vowels are usually written as either a अ or e ए:

پہلا

pěhlā पहला ‘first’

مہتا

Měhtā मेहता ‘Mehta’

A few words end with a double chhoṭī he, which indicates that the final h sound is pronounced:

Aspiration with do-chashmī he

In Hindi script, aspirated sounds like bh भ, th थ, and kh ख are considered unique consonants and are written with different letters than their unaspirated counterparts like b ब, t त, and k क. In Urdu script, by contrast, these sounds are written by combining the unaspirated consonant with an aspirating letter called do-chashmī he. It’s called that because it has two “eyes” (chashm):

Notice that your pen stops and reverses direction when writing the medial and final forms.

To aspirate any consonant, you just write a do-chashmī he after it:

ہاتھ

hāth ‘hand’

Although there are two separate letters involved, a consonant combined with a do-chashmī he is often interpreted (and alphabetized) as a single unit. Diacritics are normally written over the consonant, rather than the do-chashmī he:

کُھلا

khulā ‘open’

اچّھا

achchhā ‘good’

Chhoṭī ye and baṛī ye

The letter ye is a bit of a trickster. It can represent the consonant y, as well as the vowels ī, e, and ai. In the initial and medial forms, it looks like a be-series letter with two dots below the line:

In the independent and final forms, ye has two different shapes. Chhoṭī ye makes an ī sound and curves in an S shape:

Baṛī ye makes the remaining sounds and folds backward underneath the preceding letters:

Marking the previous letter with a zer forces the ye to sound like ī, while a zabar forces it to sound like ai. There’s no way to specify an e vowel:

مِیل

mīl ‘mile’

میلہ

mela ‘fair’

مَیلا

mailā ‘dirty’

As always, these diacritics are usually left out.

A chhoṭī ye at the end of the word will always make an ī sound, while a baṛī ye can be an e or, less commonly, an ai:

ہی

hī ‘only’

ہے

he ‘hey’

ہَے

hai ‘is’

If a ye occurs at the beginning of a word or is followed by a vowel, then it must be the consonant y:

یا

yā ‘or’

پیالہ

pyāla ‘cup’

یہ

yě ‘this, these’

The vowel following ye can even be another ye. We use two yes instead of a tashdīd because one ye is a consonant but the other is a vowel:

ملیے

miliye ‘please meet’

As we discussed in Chapter 2, an alif at the beginning of a word signals that the word starts with a vowel, but it doesn’t specify which one. If the alif is followed by a ye, then it can sound like any ye vowel:

ایک

ek ‘one’

اِیکھ

īkh ‘sugarcane’

اَیپل

aipal ‘apple’

It’s also possible (though rare) for a ye to be a consonant following an initial alif:

اَیّام

ayyām ‘days’

Punctuation

Now that we can read and write words like ہے and تھی, we’re ready for full sentences. Because Urdu script is already full of dots, we don’t use a period, but rather a short horizontal line along the baseline. This mark is called a ḳhatma, but often simply referred to as a “full stop.” It is somewhat more versatile than the English period, and is often used where a colon, dash, or other marks might be used in English. The other punctuation marks resemble their English counterparts, but are rotated or reversed to match Urdu’s right-to-left reading direction:

Now we can put these punctuation marks to work for us:

یہ کیا ہے؟ یہ آپ کا پہلا جُملہ ہے۔ بہُت اچّھا!

Yě kyā hai? Yě āp kā pěhlā jumla hai. Bahot achchhā!

What’s this? This is your first sentence. Very good!

Review

Exercises