Type Abjad Print basis Urdu alphabet | Languages Urdu | |
Parent systems Braille
English Braille
Persian Braille
Pakistani Urdu Braille | ||
According to Unesco (2013), there are different braille alphabets for Urdu in India and in Pakistan. The Indian alphabet is based on national Bharati Braille, while the Pakistani alphabet is based on Persian Braille.
Contents
Differences from Persian Braille and from Bharati Braille
Besides the addition of Urdu-specific consonants, analogous to the additional letters in the print Urdu alphabet compared to the Persian alphabet, Pakistani Urdu Braille differs from Persian Braille in the transcription of the print letter ژ ž, which is written as a digraph in Urdu braille rather than as Persian
⠬, which in Urdu is used for ڈ ḍ.
Indian Urdu Braille differs from other Bharati braille alphabets in having several letters borrowed from Persian, such as
⠟ for ق q (Bharati kṣ),
⠱ for ح ḥ (Bharati jñ), and
⠷ for ع ‘ (Bharati ḻ). Another such letter,
⠭ for خ x, is shared with Gurmukhi Braille ਖ਼ x but with no other Bharati alphabet, where
⠭ is otherwise the vowel o.
Alphabets
Note: It is not clear if these are written right-to-left or left-to-right. The directionality of some of the digraphs may have gotten confused.It is not clear if vowels in Indian Urdu Braille follow pronunciation and their Devanagari Braille equivalents, or print orthography.
Contractions
Pakistani Urdu Braille has several contractions beyond the aspirated consonants:
كو⠻, سا
⠑, نا
⠔, و ن گ
⠶, نا
⠢, نے
⠼, يا
⠽, لا
⠧, بے
⠤, اء
⠈.
Punctuation
Basic punctuation in Pakistan is the same as in India. See Bharati Braille#Punctuation.