Languages of Pakistan - Writing Systems

Writing Systems

All languages of Pakistan are written in Nastaʿlīq, a modified Perso-Arabic script. The Mughal Empire used Persian as the court language during their rule over South Asia. During this time, Nastaʿlīq came into widespread use in South Asia. The influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world.

After the Islamic conquest of Persia, Iranians adopted the Perso-Arabic script and the art of Persian calligraphy flourished in Iran alongside other Islamic countries. Apparently, Mir Ali Tabrizi (14th century) developed Nastaʿlīq by combining two existing scripts of Nasḫ and Taʿlīq. Hence, it was originally called Nasḫ-Taʿlīq. Another theory holds that the name means "that which abrogated (naskh) Taʿlīq".

Taʿlīq script, in Arabic calligraphy, cursive style of lettering developed in Iran in the 10th century. It is thought to have been the creation of Ḥasan ibn Ḥusayn ʿAlī of Fars, but, because Khwājah ʿAbd al-Malik Buk made such vast improvements, the invention is often attributed to him. The rounded forms and exaggerated horizontal strokes that characterize the taʿlīq letters were derived primarily from the Riqāʿ script. The ornateness and sloping quality of the written line had roots in the Tawqīʿ script of Ibn Muqlah (died 940).

Sindhi adopted a variant of the Persian alphabet as well, in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan today. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Persian with digraphs and eighteen new letters (ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian are homophones in Sindhi.

The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Urdu language. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet. With 38 letters, the Urdu alphabet is typically written in the calligraphic Nasta'liq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly in the Naskh style.

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdū into Roman letters, Roman Urdu, omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin script. The National Language Authority of Pakistan has developed a number of systems with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but these can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdū, Persian or Arabic for letters such as ژ خ غ ط ص or ق and Hindi for letters such as ڑ.

Balochi and Pashto are written in Perso-Arabic script.

The Shahmukhī script is a local variant of the Urdu alphabet, a modified Perso-Arabic script, which has been used by the Punjabi Muslims of Punjab to write Punjabi language.