Concept
The Urdu alphabet (), is the right-to-left alphabet used for Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian script, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic script. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter cases and is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly written in the Naskh style. Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into the Latin alphabet (called Roman Urdu) omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin script. The standard Urdu script is a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script and has its origins in 13th century Iran. It is closely related to the development of the Nastaliq style of Perso-Arabic script. Despite the invention of the Urdu typewriter in 1911, Urdu newspapers continued to publish prints of handwritten scripts by calligraphers known as katibs or khush-navees until the late 1980s. The Pakistani national newspaper Daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper to use Nastaʿlīq computer-based composition. There are efforts under way to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers with Urdu software programs. Other than the Indian subcontinent, the Urdu script is also used by Pakistan's large diaspora, including in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia and other places. Nastaliq Urdu is written in the Nastaliq style ( Nastaʿlīq). The Nastaliq calligraphic writing style began as a Persian mixture of the Naskh and Ta'liq scripts. After the Mughal conquest, Nastaliq became the preferred writing style for Urdu. It is the dominant style in Pakistan and many Urdu writers elsewhere in the world use it. Nastaʿlīq is more cursive and flowing than its Naskh counterpart.
