Urdu alphabet
The Urdu alphabet is the Urdu script: 38 letters. 38 letters — an abjad: short vowels are not written, words run right to left, and six letters are its own invention (ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ ے). The characters are grouped: ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length, ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ — letters the neighbors do not have, ب پ ت ث — one skeleton, dots count to three. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.
All 38 letters in one list
ا, و, ی, ے, ٹ, ڈ, ڑ, ں, ھ, ب, پ, ت, ث, ج, چ, ح, خ, د, ذ, ر, ز, ژ, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ع, غ, ق, ف, ک, گ, ل, م, ن, ہ
The tables on this page also include آ and ء: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet.
ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. کتب is "k-t-b", and it reads kitab — the short i comes from memory. Only the long ones are written, with these signs, plus the seat a word starts on when it opens with any vowel. Vav and ye stay consonants ("v" and "y") whenever a vowel of their own stands next to them. The hamza is a glottal catch, a mark rather than a letter.
ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ — letters the neighbors do not have
Urdu took a borrowed skeleton and built its own sounds on it. Three retroflexes — the tongue curls back and taps the roof of the mouth. The nasal sign sends the vowel up into the nose. And do-chashmi he ھ reads nothing by itself: it turns the letter before it into a puff of air. This family is the first thing that gives an Urdu text away on sight.
ب پ ت ث — one skeleton, dots count to three
The most legible family: one boat-shaped skeleton, and the difference is the number of dots. One underneath, two on top, three on top. Learn it first — here you can see how the whole writing system works. The fourth letter lives only in bookish loanwords.
ج چ ح خ — j, ch and two h sounds
One skeleton, four letters, told apart by dots and their place. A dot inside makes "j". Three underneath make "ch". No dot leaves a breathy h from deep in the throat. A dot on top gives kh, with a rough edge. The two h sounds must not be confused: حال is "state", and خال is already "mole" — a different word.
د ذ ر ز ژ — tails with no beginning
Letters that join only from the right and so never change shape inside a word. Each pair shares one skeleton: an angle, or a stick with a tail. The second letter of the pair carries the dot. The retroflexes ڈ and ڑ live in the family above — Urdu built those itself.
س ش — the three teeth
The most conspicuous letter of the script: three teeth in a row. Dotless it is "s", with three dots on top "sh". A pair on one skeleton, like the tails above.
ص ض ط ظ — old spellings on living words
Four "heavy" consonants of the older alphabet. Their special thick pronunciation faded out of speech centuries ago. Today ص reads as plain s, ض as z, ط as t, ظ as z. Three signs share the one z sound. They live in bookish loanwords, but there is no skipping them: صبح "morning" opens every day.
ع غ ق — the throat and the depth
Ayn here has almost gone mute: it reads as a broken-off vowel or not at all. Ghayn went the other way and found a voice — a deep gargled g. And ق is a sound made down in the throat, between "k" and "g". The transcription writes it as "g", like the ghayn. Depth is what you hear: کمر "waist" and قمر "moon" differ only in it.
ف ک گ ل م ن ہ — the light consonants
Consonants with skeletons of their own that nothing can be confused with. ک and گ differ from ق in depth: ک is an ordinary k, and گ an ordinary g. The ق sounds from the bottom of the throat. And the lightest h of the script: ہ is a plain breath of air — the copula ہے "is" is written with it.
What to know about this script
There are 40 signs: 38 letters, alef with madda and the hamza, a mark that is not a letter. The order here is not alphabetical — it goes by families. First come the vowels that do get written and the letters Urdu built for itself, then the skeletons and their dots. Short vowels can be written with harakat, small strokes above the line. Living text does not carry them: in the first weeks the transcription reads for you. Aspiration is a pair: the do-chashmi he ھ before a letter makes a puff of breath — بھ reads bh. In calligraphy the hand is Nastaliq, slanting and hanging; in print you meet the upright naskh. The numerals are Eastern (۰۱۲۳…) and look different from yours.
Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does
The Urdu script is the Arabic alphabet with six letters of its own: ٹ, ڈ and ڑ — t, d and r said with the tongue curled back — ں, a nasal n, ھ, the mark of aspiration, and ے, a long “e” at the end of a word. In calligraphy it lives in nastaliq, a slanted, “hanging” hand.
P. T. Daniels, W. Bright, “The World’s Writing Systems”, the chapter on Arabic writing, 1996
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “aa (long)”?
A vertical stroke. At the head of a word it often carries the madda wave (آ) or a hamza (أ)
- Which character reads as “y / ee”?
Two dots underneath. In mid-word it shrinks to a small zigzag on a spine — spot the dots and you have found it
- Which character reads as “t (retroflex)”?
The ت skeleton wearing a little toe-cap on its head. The cap is the whole difference: plain t, then this one
- Which character reads as “n (nasal)”?
The circle of ن without its dot. Word-finally it stands in place of an ordinary n when the nasal sound colors the vowel instead of sounding as a consonant
- Which character reads as “p”?
The ب skeleton with three dots underneath — the b boat plus dots. A sound this alphabet had to build a letter for
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 38 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Urdu alphabet?
38 letters — Urdu script: ا, و, ی, ے, ٹ, ڈ, ڑ, ں, ھ, ب, پ, ت, ث, ج, چ, ح, خ, د, ذ, ر, ز, ژ, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ع, غ, ق, ف, ک, گ, ل, م, ن, ہ. The tables on this page also include آ and ء: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet. There are no capital and small forms: the character is written the same way everywhere.
Can I listen to how the Urdu letters sound?
Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.
How long does it take to learn the Urdu alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.