Urdu: some thoughts about the script and grammar, and other general notes for students

assembled from years of classroom notes by FWP, 2006 onward.

*script chart*; *positional chart*; *more help*

*INTRODUCTION*

0.1 The letters
0.2 Connectors and non-connectors
0.3 A word about diacritics
0.4 A note about these notes
0.5 A tribute to Devanagari

*SECTION ONE*

1.1 The letter alif
1.2 The letter alif madd
1.3 The be series
1.4 The letter nūn
1.5 The letter chhoṭī ye

*SECTION TWO*

2.1 The jīm series
2.2 The letter vāʾo

*SECTION THREE*

3.1 The dāl series
3.2 The re series
3.3 The letter baṛī ye

*SECTION FOUR*

4.1 The letters sīn and shīn
4.2 The letter ṣvād
4.3 The letter ẓvād
4.4 The letter t̤oʾe
4.5 The letter z̤oʾe

*SECTION FIVE*

5.1 Diacritics -- zer, zabar, and pesh
5.2 Diacritics -- the jazm
5.3 Diacritics -- the tashdīd
5.4 Diacritics -- the iẓāfat

*SECTION SIX*

6.1 The letters kāf and gāf
6.2 The letter lām

*SECTION SEVEN*

7.1 The letter fe
7.* The letter qāf
7.3 The letter mīm
7.4 The letter ʿain
7.5 The letter ġhain

*SECTION EIGHT*

8.1 The letter chhoṭī he
8.2 The phantom vowel "eh"
8.3 The phantom vowel "oh"
8.4 The mysteries of yih and vuh

*SECTION NINE*

9.1 The letter nūn-e ġhunnah
9.2 The nasalizer diacritic
9.3 Nasalization

*SECTION TEN*

10.1 The letter do-chashmī he
10.2 Aspiration
10.3 About pronunciation

*SECTION ELEVEN*

11.1 The "letter" hamzah
11.2 The word jurʾat and other cases

*SECTION TWELVE*

12.1 The diacritic khaṛā zabar
12.2 The construction tanvīn
12.3 The letter alif-e maqṣūrah
12.4 The letter vāʾo-e maʿdūlah

*SECTION THIRTEEN*

13.1 The abjad (chronogram) system
13.2 Examples of tāriḳh composition

*SECTION FOURTEEN*

14.1 The shamsī and qamarī letters
14.2 About transliteration

*SECTION FIFTEEN*

15.1 Computer-generated script
15.2 Script-reading problems

*SECTION SIXTEEN*

16.1 Recognizing word sources
16.2 From Hindi to Urdu: the changes
16.3 Common Persian and Arabic forms

*SECTION SEVENTEEN*

17.1 Simplicity will take you far
17.2 In praise of postpositions
17.3 Possessed by postpositions
17.4 Compelled by postpositions

*SECTION EIGHTEEN*

18.1 Sentence organizers

*SECTION NINETEEN*

19.1 Some translation problems
19.2 Direct discourse and kih
19.3 Do the tenses really correspond?
19.4 Other common confusions

*SECTION TWENTY*

20.1 Transitive and intransitive verbs
20.2 The two great rules of the passive

*SECTION TWENTY-ONE*

21.1 Probably --the presumptive
21.2 Perhaps --the subjunctive
21.3 If only! --the contrafactual

*SECTION TWENTY-TWO*

22.1 The private lives of participles
22.2 Participle avoidance syndrome

*SECTION TWENTY-THREE*

23.1 Those annoying compound verbs
23.2 The modals and other odd fish
23.3 A newly evolving verb form

*JUST FOR FUN: SOME INTERESTING HINDUSTANI PROVERBS*

WORK IN PROGRESS!

 xx

== Urdu language-learning materials == Fran's favorites == fwp's main page ==

-- urdu script -- devanagari -- diacritics -- plain roman -- more information --