ا — alef
«alef» is a vowel of the Urdu script, read as “aa (long)”. A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". At the start of a word it is simply the seat any first vowel sits on. Short vowels are not drawn in writing at all. For example, in the word “انڈا” — egg. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. A vertical stroke. At the head of a word it often carries the madda wave (آ) or a hamza (أ). It appears, for example, in the word “سلام” — hello.
In short
| Character | ا |
| Name | alef |
| Sound | aa (long) |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 1st of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, after it comes آ, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ا
- On a phone: add the Urdu keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0627 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0627.
- Unicode code point: U+0627. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". At the start of a word it is simply the seat any first vowel sits on. Short vowels are not drawn in writing at all
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| final | ـا | joins only from the right |
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- انڈاandaegg
The character in the “ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length” group
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.
Words with this character
- سلامsalamhello
- مہربانیmeharbaniplease
- جی ہاںdzhi hanyes
- خدا حافظkhuda hafizgoodbye
- کیا حال ہے؟kya hal hai?how are you?
- خرابkharabbad
- کوئی بات نہیںkoy bat nahinyou are welcome
- میرا نام … ہےmera nam … haimy name is
- آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟ap ka nam kya hai?what is your name?
- آپ کہاں سے ہیں؟ap kahan se hain?where are you from?
- پاکستانPakistanPakistan
- لاہورLahorLahore
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «alef» it is “aa (long)”, as in the word “انڈا”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 38 letters — at once.
- 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.
Frequently asked
How does the Urdu character ا read?
As “aa (long)” — it is a vowel of the Urdu script. A long "aa", held about twice as long as the a of "father". At the start of a word it is simply the seat any first vowel sits on. Short vowels are not drawn in writing at all. For example, in the word “انڈا” — egg.
What is the letter ا called?
Alef. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “alef” and reads as “aa (long)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.