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{{Short description|Ways to convert text between Hindi and Urdu language}}
Hindi–Urdu (Devanagari: {{lang|inc-Deva|हिन्दी-उर्दू}}, Nastaliq: {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|ہندی-اردو}}}}) (also known as [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]])<ref name="NCSU-Hindustani">{{Cite web|url = http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|title = About Hindi-Urdu|publisher = [[North Carolina State University]]|access-date = 9 August 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090815023328/http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|archive-date = 15 August 2009|df = dmy-all}}</ref><ref name="Ray2011">{{cite book|last1=Ray|first1=Aniruddha|title=The Varied Facets of History: Essays in Honour of Aniruddha Ray|date=2011|publisher=Primus Books|isbn=978-93-80607-16-0|language=en|quote=There was the ''Hindustani Dictionary'' of Fallon published in 1879; and two years later (1881), John J. Platts produced his ''Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English'', which implied that Hindi and Urdu were literary forms of a single language. More recently, Christopher R. King in his ''One Language, Two Scripts'' (1994) has presented the late history of the single spoken language in two forms, with the clarity and detail that the subject deserves.}}</ref> is the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of modern-day [[North India|Northern India]] and [[Pakistan]] (together classically known as [[Hindustan]]).<ref name="Ashmore1961">{{cite book |last1=Ashmore |first1=Harry S. |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica: a new survey of universal knowledge, Volume 11 |date=1961 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |page=579 |language=en |quote=The everyday speech of well over 50,000,000 persons of all communities in the north of India and in West Pakistan is the expression of a common language, Hindustani.}}</ref> [[Modern Standard Hindi]] is officially registered in [[India]] as a standard written using the [[Devanagari]] script, and [[Urdu|Standard Urdu]] is officially registered in [[Pakistan]] as a standard written using an extended [[Perso-Arabic script]].

'''Hindi–Urdu transliteration''' (or '''Hindustani transliteration''') is the process of converting text written in [[Devanagari|Devanagari script]] (used for [[Hindi]]) into [[Persian alphabet|Perso-Arabic script]] (used for [[Urdu]]), or vice versa. It focuses on representing the shared [[Phoneme|phonemes]] between those writing systems or using other writing systems, primarily [[Latin alphabet]], in their stead.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lehal|first1=Gurpreet Singh|last2=Saini|first2=Tejinder Singh|date=December 2012|title=Development of a Complete Urdu-Hindi Transliteration System|url=https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/C12-2063|journal=Proceedings of COLING 2012: Posters|location=Mumbai, India|publisher=The COLING 2012 Organizing Committee|pages=643–652}}</ref> [[Transliteration]] is theoretically possible because of the common [[Hindustani phonology]] underlying Hindi-Urdu. In the present day, the Hindustani language is seen as a [[Indian reunification|unifying]] language,<ref>{{Cite web|last=David Lunn|first=Dawn com|title=Urdu and Hindi could be one language called Hindustani. Will the politics of language allow it?|url=https://scroll.in/article/910647/urdu-and-hindi-could-be-one-language-called-hindustani-will-the-politics-of-language-allow-it|access-date=2021-04-08|website=Scroll.in|date=28 January 2019 |language=en-US}}</ref> as initially proposed by [[Mahatma Gandhi]] to resolve the [[Hindi–Urdu controversy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thefederal.com/analysis/how-gandhi-changed-his-mind-about-the-south-after-experiments-with-hindi-as-national-language/|title=After experiments with Hindi as national language, how Gandhi changed his mind|work=Prabhu Mallikarjunan|date=3 October 2019 |publisher=The Feral}}</ref>

Technically, a direct one-to-one script mapping or rule-based lossless transliteration of Hindi-Urdu is not possible, primarily because Hindi is written in an [[abugida]] script and Urdu is written in an [[abjad]] script, and also because of other constraints like multiple similar characters from Perso-Arabic mapping onto a single character in Devanagari.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Visweswariah |first1=Karthik |last2=Chenthamarakshan |first2=Vijil |last3=Kambhatla |first3=Nandakishore |title=Urdu and Hindi: Translation and sharing of linguistic resources |journal=Coling 2010: Posters |date=August 2010 |pages=1283–1291 |url=https://academic.microsoft.com/paper/2158884999 |publisher=Coling 2010 Organizing Committee}}{{dead link|date=January 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> However, there have been dictionary-based mapping attempts which have yielded very high accuracy, providing near-to-perfect transliterations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lehal |first1=Gurpreet Singh |last2=Saini |first2=Tejinder Singh |title=A Hindi to Urdu Transliteration System |date=2010 |url=http://www.learnpunjabi.org/pdf/paper248.pdf}}</ref> For literary domains, a mere transliteration between Hindi-Urdu will not suffice as formal Hindi is more inclined towards [[Sanskrit]] vocabulary whereas formal Urdu is more inclined towards [[Persian language|Persian]] and [[Arabic]] vocabulary; hence a system combining transliteration and translation would be necessary for such cases.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Durrani|first1=Nadir|last2=Sajjad|first2=Hassan|last3=Fraser|first3=Alexander|last4=Schmid|first4=Helmut|date=July 2010|title=Hindi-to-Urdu Machine Translation through Transliteration|url=https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/P10-1048|journal=Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics|location=Uppsala, Sweden|publisher=Association for Computational Linguistics|pages=465–474}}</ref>

In addition to Hindi-Urdu, there have been attempts to design Indo-Pakistani transliteration systems for [[digraphic]] languages like [[Sindhi transliteration|Sindhi]] (written in extended Perso-Arabic in [[Sindh of Pakistan]] and in Devanagari by [[Sindhi Hindus|Sindhis in partitioned India]]), [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] (written in [[Gurmukhi]] in [[Punjab, India|East Punjab]] and [[Shahmukhi]] in [[West Punjab]]), [[Saraiki language|Saraiki]] (written in [[Saraiki alphabet#Arabic script|extended-Shahmukhi script]] in [[Saraikistan]] and unofficially in Sindhi-Devanagari script in India) and [[Kashmiri transliteration|Kashmiri]] (written in extended Perso-Arabic by [[Azad Kashmir|Kashmiri Muslims]] and extended-Devanagari by [[Jammu and Kashmir (union territory)|Kashmiri Hindus]]).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Perso-Arabic To Indic Script Transliteration|url=http://sangam.learnpunjabi.org/|access-date=2021-04-07|website=sangam.learnpunjabi.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Saraiki - Devanagari Machine Transliteration System - SDMTS|url=http://www.sanlp.org/saraikiMT/index.html|access-date=2021-08-09|website=www.sanlp.org|archive-date=2021-10-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211023112143/http://www.sanlp.org/saraikiMT/index.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lawaye|first1=Aadil|last2=Kak|first2=Aadil|last3=Mehdi|first3=Nali|date=January 2010|title=Building a Cross Script Kashmiri Converter: Issues and Solutions|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320547275|journal=Proceedings of Oriental COCOSDA}}</ref>

== Vowels ==

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em 2em; text-align: center;"
|+ Hindustani [[vowel]]s
|-
! rowspan="2" |IPA
! rowspan="2" |[[ISO 15919]]
! colspan="2" |Hindi
! colspan="4" |Urdu<ref>Diacritics in Urdu are normally not written and usually implied and interpreted based on the context of the sentence</ref>
! rowspan="2" |Approx. English equivalent
|-
!Independent vowel
!Diacritic on consonants
! colspan="2" |Final
!Medial!! Initial
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|ə}}</big><ref>{{IPA|[ɛ]}} occurs as a conditioned allophone of {{IPA|/ə/}} near an {{IPA|/ɦ/}} surrounded on both sides by schwas. Usually, the second schwa undergoes syncopation, and the resultant is just an {{IPA|[ɛ]}} preceding an {{IPA|/ɦ/}}.
</ref>|| a
| अ
|<ref>Hindi does not have a diacritic to represent ə as it is usually implied after unmarked consonants.</ref>
|{{Lang|ur|ـہ}}
|{{Lang|ur|ـا}}
|{{nq|ـ◌َـ}}
|{{lang|ur|اَ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | '''a'''bout
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|äː|aː}}</big>|| ā
| आ
|ा
| colspan="3" |{{Lang|ur|ـا}}
|{{Lang|ur|آ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | f'''a'''r
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|ɪ}}</big>|| i
| इ
|ि
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" |{{Lang|ur|ـی}}
|{{nq|ـ◌ِـ}}||{{Lang|ur|اِ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | st'''i'''ll
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|iː}}</big>|| ī
| ई
|ी
|{{nq|◌ِـیـ}}||{{Lang|ur|اِیـ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | f'''ee'''
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|ʊ}}</big>|| u
| उ
|ु
| colspan="2" |{{Lang|ur|ـو}}
|{{Nq|ـ◌ُـ}}||{{Lang|ur|اُ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | b'''oo'''k
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|uː}}</big>|| ū
| ऊ
|ू
| colspan="3" |{{nq|◌ُـو}}||{{Lang|ur|اُو}}|| style="text-align: left;" | m'''oo'''n
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|eː}}</big>|| ē
| ए
|े
| colspan="2" |{{Lang|ur|ے}}
|{{Lang|ur|ـیـ}}||{{Lang|ur|ایـ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | h'''ai'''r (Australian English)
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|ɛː}}</big>|| ai
| ऐ
|ै
| colspan="2" |{{nq|◌َـے}}
|{{nq|◌َـیـ}}||{{Lang|ur|اَیـ}}|| style="text-align: left;" | f'''ai'''ry
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|oː}}</big>|| ō
| ओ
|ो
| colspan="3" |{{Lang|ur|ـو}}||{{Lang|ur|او}}|| style="text-align: left;" | f'''o'''rce
|-
| <big>{{IPA link|ɔː}}</big>{{Citation needed|date=August 2025}}|| au
| औ
|ौ
| colspan="3" |{{nq|◌َـو}}||{{Lang|ur|اَو}}|| style="text-align: left;" | l'''o'''t (Received Pronunciation)
|-
|<big>{{IPA link|ʰ}}</big><ref>Hindi has individual letters for aspirated consonants whereas Urdu has a specific letter to represent an aspirated consonant</ref>
|h
| colspan="2" bgcolor="CCCCCC" style="text-align:left;" |
| colspan="4" |{{Lang|ur|ھ}}
| style="text-align:left;"|(Aspirated sounds) '''c'''ake
|-
| rowspan="2" |<big>{{IPA link|◌̃}}</big><ref>No words in Hindustani can begin with a nasalised letter/diacritic.

In Urdu the initial form (letter) for representing a nasalised word is: ن٘ (nūn + small nūn ghunna diacritic)</ref>|| m̐
| rowspan="2" bgcolor="CCCCCC" style="text-align:left;" |
|ँ
| colspan="2" rowspan="2" |{{Lang|ur|ں}}
| rowspan="2" |{{Lang|ur|ـن٘ـ}}
| rowspan="2" bgcolor="CCCCCC" |{{Lang|ur|ن٘}}|| style="text-align: left;" | nasal vowel fa'''un''' ({{IPA|[ãː, õː]}}, etc.)
|-
| ṁ
|ं|| style="text-align: left;" | ju'''ng'''le
|}

== Consonants ==

[[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] has a rich set of consonants in its full-alphabet, since it has a mixed-vocabulary ([[rekhta]]) derived from [[Old Hindi]] (from [[Dehlavi dialect|Dehlavi]]), with loanwords from [[Classical Persian|Parsi]] (from [[Pahlavi language|Pahlavi]]) and [[Classical Arabic|Arabic]] languages, all of which itself are from 3 different language-families respectively: [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]], [[Iranian languages|Iranian]] and [[Semitic languages|Semitic]].

The following table provides an approximate one-to-one mapping for [[Hindustani language|Hindi-Urdu]] consonants,<ref>{{Citation|last=NC|first=Gokul|title=GokulNC/Indic-PersoArabic-Script-Converter|date=2021-05-07|url=https://github.com/GokulNC/Indic-PersoArabic-Script-Converter|access-date=2021-05-28}}</ref> especially for computational purposes (lossless script conversion). Note that this direct script conversion will not yield correct spellings,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ahmed|first=Nisar|title=An efficient Hindi-Urdu Transliteration System|url=http://www.statmt.org/OSMOSES/EFHU.pdf|journal=5th International. Multidisciplinary Conference, 29-31 Oct., at, ICBS, Lahore|archive-date=2021-04-22|access-date=2021-04-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210422062639/http://www.statmt.org/OSMOSES/EFHU.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> but rather a readable text for both the readers. Note that Hindi–Urdu transliteration schemes can be used for [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] as well, for [[Gurmukhi]] (Eastern Punjabi) to [[Shahmukhi]] (Western Punjabi) conversion, since Shahmukhi is a superset of the Urdu alphabet (with 2 extra consonants) and the Gurmukhi script can be [[Brahmic scripts#Consonants|easily converted]] to the Devanagari script. Moreover a [[Fort William College]] document has shown the equivalent of the 'ع' sound of Hindustani.<ref>{{Cite book |title=''Primitiae Orientales'' Vol. II |publisher=Fort William College |year=1803 |location=Al Hindiyyah Al Bartaniyyah |pages=51 |language=en}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Hindustani Consonants
! PersoArabic !! [[ISO 15919|Latin]] !! Devanagari !! Comments
|-
| ک || k || क ||
|-
| کھ || kh || ख ||
|-
| ق || q || क़ || The [[nuqta]], in colloquial settings, is sometimes ignored in Hindi and written as क<ref name="Shapiro1989">{{cite book |last1=Shapiro |first1=Michael C. |title=A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi |date=1989 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publ. |isbn=978-81-208-0508-8 |page=20 |language=English |quote=In addition to the basic consonantal sounds discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2, many speakers use any or all five additional consonants (क़ ''ḳ'', ख़ ''ḳh'',ग़ ''ġ'', ज़ ''z'', फ़ ''f'') in words of foreign origin (primarily from Persian, Arabic, English, and Portuguese). The last two of these, ज़ ''z'' and फ़ ''f'', are the initial sounds in English ''zig'' and ''fig'' respectively. The consonant क़ ''ḳ'' is a voiceless uvular stop, somewhat like ''k'', but pronounced further back in the mouth. ख़ ''ḳh'' is a voiceless fricative similar in pronunciation to the final sound of the German ''ach''. ग़ ''ġ'' is generally pronounced as a voiceless uvular fricative, although it is occasionally heard as a stop rather than a fricative. In ''devanāgari'' each of these five sounds is represented by the use of a subscript dot under one of the basic consonant signs. In practice, however, the dot is often omitted, leaving it to the reader to render the correct pronunciation on the basis of his prior knowledge of the language. }}</ref><ref name="PandeyMondalAgrawalBangalore2013">{{cite book |last1=Pandey |first1=Dipti |last2=Mondal |first2=Tapabrata |last3=Agrawal |first3=S. S. |last4=Bangalore |first4=Srinivas |title=2013 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA held jointly with 2013 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation (O-COCOSDA/CASLRE) |chapter=Development and suitability of Indian languages speech database for building watson based ASR system |date=2013 |page=3|doi=10.1109/ICSDA.2013.6709861|isbn=978-1-4799-2378-6 |s2cid=26461938 |quote=Only in Hindi 10 Phonemes व /v/ क़ /q/ ञ /ɲ/ य /j/ ष /ʂ/ ख़ /x/ ग़ /ɣ/ ज़ /z/ झ़ /ʒ/ फ़ /f/}}</ref>
|-
| خ || k͟h || ख़ || The [[nuqta]], in colloquial settings, is sometimes ignored in Hindi and written as ख<ref name="Shapiro1989"/><ref name="PandeyMondalAgrawalBangalore2013"/>
|-
| گ || g || ग ||
|-
| غ || ġ || ग़ || The [[nuqta]], in colloquial settings, is sometimes ignored in Hindi and written as ग<ref name="Shapiro1989"/><ref name="PandeyMondalAgrawalBangalore2013"/>
|-
| گھ || gh || घ ||
|-
| چ || c || च ||
|-
| چھ || ch || छ ||
|-
| ج || j || ज ||
|-
| جھ || jh || झ ||
|-
| ز || z || ज़ || The [[nuqta]], in colloquial settings, is sometimes ignored in Hindi and written as ज<ref name="Shapiro1989"/><ref name="PandeyMondalAgrawalBangalore2013"/>
|-
| ذ || ẕ || ज़ || (Same sound as ज़, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ض || ż || ज़ || (Same sound as ज़, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ظ || ẓ || ज़ || (Same sound as ज़, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ژ || ž || झ़ || Used in direct [[Farsi]] loan-words
|-
| ٹ || ṭ || ट ||
|-
| ٹھ || ṭh || ठ ||
|-
| ڈ || ḍ || ड ||
|-
| ڈھ || ḍh || ढ ||
|-
| ڑ || ṛ || ड़ || Colloquially, ṛ is often confused with ḍ and vice versa
|-
| ڑھ || ṛh || ढ़ || Colloquially, ṛh is often confused with ḍh and vice versa
|-
| ت || t || त ||
|-
| تھ || th || थ ||
|-
| ط || t̤ || त || (Same sound as त, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| د || d || द ||
|-
| دھ || dh || ध ||
|-
| ن || n || न ||
|-
| پ || p || प ||
|-
| پھ || ph || फ ||
|-
| ف || f || फ़ || The [[nuqta]], in colloquial settings, is sometimes ignored in Hindi and written as फ<ref name="Shapiro1989"/><ref name="PandeyMondalAgrawalBangalore2013"/>
|-
| ب || b || ब ||
|-
| بھ || bh || भ ||
|-
| م || m || म ||
|-
| ی || y || य ||
|-
| ر || r || र ||
|-
| ل || l || ल ||
|-
| rowspan="2" | و || v || व || rowspan="2" | و is transcribed as /w/ for Arabic words and /v/ for Indo-Iranian words
|-
| w || व़
|-
| ش || ś || श
|-
| س || s || स ||
|-
| ص || s̤ || स || (Same sound as स, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ث || s̱ || स || (Same sound as स, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ہ || h || ह ||
|-
| ح || ḥ || ह || (Same sound as ह, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons)
|-
| ۃ || h̤ || ह || (Same sound as ह, spelled differently in Urdu for etymological reasons, sometimes silent)
|-
| ھ || h || ્ह || [[ھ]] is generally only used for aspirated consonants. Any individual usage is generally considered an error and to be taken as ہ
|-
| ع || a' || अ़ || Sometimes [[glottal stop]], sometimes silent.
|}

=== Sanskrit consonants ===

The following consonants are mostly used in words that are directly borrowed or adapted from [[Sanskrit]].
{| class="wikitable"
! Perso-Arabic !! Latin !! Devanagari !! Remarks
|-
| ن٘ || ṅ || ङ ||
|-
| ݩ || ñ || ञ || ݩ was introduced to write [[Gojri language|Gojri]]<ref name="arabic_ext_2002">{{Cite web|title=Proposal for extensions to the Arabic block|url=https://unicode.org/L2/L2002/02274-arabic-ext.pdf}}</ref>
|-
| ݨ || ṇ || ण || ݨ was introduced to write [[Shahmukhi]]<ref name="arabic_ext_2002" />
|-
| لؕ || ḷ || ळ || Rarely used in [[Shahmukhi]]
|-
| ݜ || ṣ || ष || ݜ was introduced to write [[Shina language|Shina]]<ref name="arabic_ext_2002" />
|-
| ڔّ || r̥ || ऋ ||
|}

=== Implosive consonants ===

These consonants are mostly found only in languages like [[Sindhi language#Perso-Arabic_script|Sindhi]] and [[Saraiki alphabet#Arabic script|Saraiki]].

{| class="wikitable"
! [[Perso-Arabic]] !! Latin !! Devanagari
|-
| ڳ || g̤ || ॻ
|-
| ڄ || j̈ || ॼ
|-
| ݙ/ڏ || d̤ || ॾ
|-
| ٻ || ḇ || ॿ
|}

== Numerals ==

{| class="wikitable"
! Usage !! Numeral System
! colspan="10" |Digits
|-
| Urdu || [[Eastern Arabic numerals|East-Arabic]] || ۰ || ۱ || ۲ || ۳ || ۴ || ۵ || ۶ || ۷ || ۸ || ۹
|-
| International || [[Hindu–Arabic numeral system|Hindu-Arabic]] || 0 || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9
|-
| Hindi || [[Devanagari numerals|Modern Devanagari]] || ० || १ || २ || ३ || ४ || ५ || ६ || ७ || ८ || ९
|}

== Punctuations & Symbols ==

{| class="wikitable"
! Script !! Period !! Question Mark !! Comma !! Semi-colon !! Slash !! Percent !! End of verse
|-
| [[Perso-Arabic script|Perso-Arabic]] || ۔ || ؟ || ، || ؛ || ؍ || ٪ || ۝
|-
| [[Devanagari|Modern Devanagari]] ||। || ? || , || ; || / || % ||॥
|}

== Sample text ==

The following is an excerpt from the Hindustani poem [[Tarānah-e-Hindi]] written by [[Muhammad Iqbal]].

{| class="wikitable"
! Perso-Arabic !! Devanagari !! Latin !! English translation
|-
| <div align=right>{{Nastaliq|سَارے جَہَاں سے اَچّھَا، ہِنْدُوسِتَاں ہَمَارَا۔ ہَمْ بُلْبُلیں ہَیں اِسْکِی، یَہْ گُلْسِتَاں ہَمَارَا۔۔}}</div> || सारे जहाँ से अच्छा, हिन्दुसिताँ हमारा। हम बुलबुलें हैं इसकी, यह गुलसिताँ हमारा॥ || sāre jahā̃ se acchā, hindusitā̃ hamārā. ham bulbulẽ ha͠i iskī, yah gulsitā̃ hamārā.. || Better than the entire world, is our India. We are its nightingales, and it (is) our garden abode.
|}

==See also==
{{Portal|India|Pakistan|Languages}}
* [[Uddin and Begum Hindustani Romanisation]]
* [[Hindustani orthography]]
* [[Sindhi transliteration]]
* [[Hindustan|Hindustan (Indo subcontinent)]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindi-Urdu transliteration}}
[[category:Hindustani language]]
[[category:Hindustani orthography]]
[[category:Transliteration]]
[[category:Urdu]]
[[category:Hindi]]

Hindi–Urdu transliteration - Revision history

AlfonzoEsh: made new info!