This chapter introduces an assortment of letters that are primarily used in words derived from Arabic and Persian.

To’e

Like te, the letter to’e corresponds to the dental t or त sound. This moderately uncommon letter primarily appears in words of Arabic origin.

To’e has a distinctive shape that looks the same in every position. There are two ways to write this letter. Using the first method, we first write the loop of the letter swād, and then add a vertical staff to the end of the loop. As with the slash that appears in the letter kāf, this vertical line is added once you have written the main body of the word. Alternatively, the staff can be written before the loop, and the whole letter can be drawn without lifting the pen:

Here are some commonly used words with the letter to’e:

طور

taur ‘way, manner’

طریقہ

tarīqa ‘way, manner’

طرح

tarah ‘kind’

طرف

taraf ‘direction’

مطلب

matlab ‘meaning’

شرط

shart ‘bet, condition’

خط

ḳhat ‘letter’

Zo’e

So far we have discussed three letters that correspond to the sound z or ज़. The fourth and final letter used to represent this sound is the letter zo’e. This letter belongs to the to’e series, and it is written by placing a single dot above the letter to’e:

Here are some words spelled with zo’e:

ظلم

zulm ‘tyranny’

خدا حافظ

Ḳhudā hāfiz ‘goodbye’

انتظام

intizām ‘arrangement’

نظر

nazar ‘sight, vision’

Se

The letter se corresponds to the sound s or स, and it is pronounced in the same way as both sīn and swād. The letter se is quite uncommon, and only appears in words of Arabic origin. It belongs to the be series and is written by placing three dots above the letter in the typical pattern:

Here are some words with the letter se:

ثابت

sābit ‘fixed, proven’

ثبوت

subūt ‘evidence’

بحث

běhěs ‘argument, discussion’

حادثہ

hādisa ‘accident’

ثواب

sawāb ‘religious merit (Islamic)’

حیثیت

haisiyat ‘status’

مثال

misāl ‘example’

اکثر

aksar ‘often’

Zhe

Zhe is the least commonly used letter in the entire Urdu alphabet. This letter represents the sound zh, as in the English word “treasure.” This sound is uncommon in Urdu and the letter zhe only appears in loanwords, almost exclusively from Persian and English. In Hindi script, zhe can be written as ॹ (and occasionally as .झ), but generally is simply left as ज.

A member of the re series, zhe is written by placing three dots above the letter re:

Here are some words with the letter zhe:

اژدہا

azhdahā ‘dragon’

ٹیلی ویژن

ṭelī-vīzhan ‘television’

ژولیدہ

zholīda ‘entangled’

پژمردہ

pazhmurda ‘withered, dejected’

Ġhain

The letter ġhain is used to represent ġh, a voiced guttural sound that is produced at the back of the throat. In Devanagari, the sound is represented by the dotted letter ग़. In Urdu, this sound has its own letter entirely.

Ġhain looks somewhat different in each position, though in all of them it carries a single dot above. An independent ġhain looks like a small curve stacked on top of a larger one. In the initial position, ġhain is a small, open curve above the line. In the medial position, it is written as a triangle or knot above the line (never a circle, which would make it look like a fe). In the final position, this triangle or knot has a long tail that curves backward underneath the word. It resembles a ḳhe, but the pen enters the final ḳhe from above and the final ġhain from below:

Here are some words with the letter ġhain:

غریب

ġharīb ‘poor’

غلط

ġhalat ‘wrong’

مرغی

murġhī ‘chicken’

دماغ

dimāġh ‘brain, mind’

باغ

bāġh ‘garden’

کاغذ

kāġhaz ‘paper’

بلغم

balġham ‘phlegm’

گرو تیغ بہادر

Gurū Teġh Bahādur (one of the founding gurus of Sikhism)

Review

Exercises