Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization

The Modern International Standard Letters of Alphabet for URDU - HINDUSTANI - ["THE" INDIAN LANGUAGE]

Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

, Hindustani

Hindustani language

Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...

or The Indian Language is a language that has evolved over the subcontinent of Hindustan

Hindustan

Hindustan or Indostan, literal translation "Land of River Sindhu ", is one of the popular names of South Asia. It can also mean "the land of the Hindus"...

over the centuries as its lingua franca among a rich and fertile grounds of diverse Indian languages (belonging to four language families:Indo-European, Dravidian, Mon-Khmer, and Sino-Tibetan) and English. Some Indian languages have a long literary history--Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

literature is more than 5,000 years old and Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

3,000. India also has some languages that do not have written forms. Regardless of the source of origin of linguistic traditions, Hindustani language cherishes, treasures and preserves our common Hindustani cultural heritage.

The Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization scheme is an international standard for romanising

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

Urdu

-Hindustani

Hindustani language

Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...

. Syed Fasih Uddin and Quader Unissa Begum presented the scheme in 1992, at the First International Urdu Conference in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

.

Uddin and Begum based their scheme on the work that John Borthwick Gilchrist

John Borthwick Gilchrist

John Borthwick Gilchrist FRSE was a Scottish surgeon and Indologist.-Early life:Gilchrist was born in Edinburgh to merchant Walter Gilchrist, who disappeared the year he was born...

and others began at Fort William College

Fort William College

Fort William College was an academy and learning centre of Oriental studies established by Lord Wellesley, then Governor-General of British India. It was founded on July 10, 1800 within the Fort William complex in Calcutta...

in Calcutta more than a century prior. Gilchrist's romanisation system became the de facto standard for romanised Hindustani during the late 19th century.

Uddin and Begum attempted to improve on, and modernize, Gilchrist's system in a number of ways. For example, in the Uddin and Begum scheme, Urdu and Hindi characters correspond one-to-one. Also, diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

s indicate vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

phonics

Phonics

Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...

, whereas in the Gilchrist system the reader must infer vowel pronunciation from context. To facilitate Urdu-Hindustani romanisation in a much wider range of computer software

Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....

, Uddin and Begum limited their character set to the common ASCII

ASCII

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

standard.

Romanization scheme

MIS Urdu - Hindustani Language Letters of Alphabet
	\| Lower Case Characters	\| Upper Case Characters	\| Character Name
1	a a'	A A'	Alif
2	b	B	Be
3	c_h	C_H	C_Hi'm
4	d	D	Dal
5	d^	D^	D^a'l
6	e	E	Ye
7	f	F	Fe
8	g	G	Ga'f
9	g_h	G_H	G_Hain
10	h	H	He
11	i i'	I I'	Yi
12	j j'	J J'	Ji'm
13	k	K	Ka'f
14	k_h	K_H	K_Hae
15	l	L	La'm
16	m	M	Mi'm
17	n (n)	N (N)	Nu'n
18	o	O	Ow
19	p	P	Pe
20	q	Q	Qha'f
21	r	R	Re
22	r^	R^	R^ae
23	s	S	Se
24	s_h	S_H	S_Hin
25	t	T	TeAlif
26	t^	T	T^e
27	u u'	U U'	Ou
28	w	W	Wa'o
29	y	Y	Ya
30	z	Z	Ze

Notes:

^ is the hard sound. (representing with the caret)
_h _H is the guttural sound.(representing with the Under Score)
’ is the long vowel sound. (representing with the Apostrophe)
(n) (N) is the nasal sound of Nu'n, when if follows a long vowel and when sometimes used at the end of a word. (representing by enclosing it in The Parenthesis)
~ Gemination, which is the inter-junction of two vowels, with the first vowel casting a shadow on the second vowel.

Short vowels

a A

Sounds like English u in but, shut.
- In Urdu: ab, adab, agar, ahmaq, kam.

i I

Sounds like English i in bit, hit.
- In Urdu: kari, giri, ajnabi, bha'i.

u U

Sounds like English u in pull, bull.
- In Urdu: Urdu, uda's, umda, ungli.

Note: In traditional Urdu script these vowels sounds are not represented by any letters of alphabet. They are often omitted or sometimes represented by signs which are added to consonants and are termed "Eara'bs". "Eara'bs" representing short vowels are "zabar", "zaer" and "paesh".

Long vowels

a' A'

Sounds like English "a" in far, father.
- In Urdu: a'ba'di, a'g, a'fat, a'm, ka'm.

i' I'

Sounds like English "ea" in heat, seat.
- In Urdu: i'nt^.

u' U'

Sounds like English "oo" in tool, soon.
- In Urdu: bu'nd, bhu'k, ju'ta, jhu't^.

Neutral vowels

Urdu has three neutral vowels, which are without long or short form.
e E

Sounds like English "ay" in hay, lay.
- In Urdu: la'e, ga'e, c_ha'e, pic_he, pic_hhle.

o O

Sounds like English "o" in old, own.
- In Urdu: os, ko, or^hna, roz, afsosna'k.

y Y

Sounds like English "y" in yard, young.
- In Urdu: ya'r, ya'd, yaqin ha~ey.

Compound vowels

A~i A~I

In Urdu: a~isa, a~ina

A~u A~U

In Urdu: a~urat

A~y A~Y

In Urdu: a~ya, a~yanda

Double vowels

Inter-junction of two vowels, with the first vowel casting a shadow on the second vowel. The two vowels are separated by a ~ Tilde. The following examples illustrates the case of double vowels. In traditional notations this is referred as HUMZA.

Kaha~e A'~i’ La'~e La'~o Li’~ye
Ga~e Ha~ey Ga~i’ A'~u(n) Kiji~ye

Nasal Nu'n

Is the nasal sound of Nu'n, when if follows a long vowel and when sometimes used at the end of a word. (representing by enclosing in The Parenthesis). The following examples illustrates the case of Nasal Nu'n. In traditional notations this is referred as Nu'n-e-g_huna.

Ma(n) Ha(n) De(n) Me(n)
Ha,e(n) Tihe(n) Hu(n)

Sounds from Sanskrit-derived words

Sanskrit

-based words in Urdu have the following typical vernacular compound sounds:
bh c_hh dh d^h gh jh kh ph r^h th t^h

Sounds from Persian-derived words

Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

-based words in Urdu have the following typical vernacular sounds:
C_Hi'm Ga'f Pe

Sounds from Arabic-derived words

Arabic-derived words in Urdu that have the following typical vernacular sounds:
Ain G/Hain Fe Qha'f Toe Zoe Swa'd Zwa'd Se Ha~e