The Western Punjabi language
and how it is written

Where Western Punjabi ranks

Western Punjabi is the 22nd most-spoken language in the world by total speakers ^[1,2]. Here it is among its neighbours in the ranking, on one scale.

“How are you?” in Western Punjabi

The design of Nastaliq

Urdu and Punjabi in Pakistan are written in the Perso-Arabic alphabet, normally in the Nastaliq style^[7,8]. Nastaliq grew out of Naskh in 14th-century Iran and was given its canonical form by Mir Ali Tabrizi^[9,10]. Its words slope down from right to left instead of sitting on a flat line.

Abjad (consonants). Letters write consonants; short vowels are optional marks.

Kind

Abjad (consonants)

Direction

Right to left (numbers left to right)

Took shape

In 14th-century Shiraz and Tabriz, standardised by Mir Ali Tabrizi

Line of descent

Phoenician → Aramaic → Nabataean → Arabic → Naskh → Nastaliq

Traditional surface

Paper

Own digits

۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹

Also writes

اُردُو Urdu

• A hanging, sloping line

  In Nastaliq each word descends diagonally towards its end, so letters stack at an angle and lines need extra height. That slant is why the style is so hard to set in metal or digital type^[9,11].

• Letters for Indian sounds

  Urdu adds ٹ, ڈ and ڑ for retroflex sounds (marked with a small ط), ں for nasal vowels, ھ for aspiration and ے (bari ye) for a final e^[8].

• A newspaper font built from ligatures

  Noori Nastaliq, created by calligrapher Ahmed Mirza Jamil with Monotype and released in 1981, set Urdu from a library of hand-drawn ligatures instead of single letters^[12,11].

• One language, two scripts, one border

  The same Punjabi sentence is written right to left in Shahmukhi in Lahore and left to right in Gurmukhi in Amritsar, 50 km away^[3,6].

Explore the letters

Numbers in Nastaliq

Western Punjabi's relatives among the 38

Western Punjabi belongs to the Indo-European family (Indo-Aryan). These are the other languages with 50 million or more speakers in the same family; the closest — in the same branch — come first.

• हिन्दीHindiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 611M
• বাংলাBengaliSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 274M
• اُردُوUrduSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 246M
• मराठीMarathiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 99M
• ગુજરાતીGujaratiSame branch: Indo-Aryan · 62M
• EnglishEnglishGermanic · 1.5B
• españolSpanishRomance · 561M
• françaisFrenchRomance · 334M
• portuguêsPortugueseRomance · 269M
• русскийRussianBalto-Slavic · 210M
• DeutschGermanGermanic · 133M
• فارسیPersian (Iranian)Iranian · 82M
• italianoItalianRomance · 66M
• भोजपुरीBhojpuriIndo-Aryan (Bihari) · 53M

Western Punjabi across the hub

The main page compares all 38 languages. Each link opens it on Western Punjabi.

• Preview it in the explorer →with all 38 side by side
• Hear it in the voice tour →“How are you?” in every language, spoken in turn
• Trace its script's family tree →from the first alphabets and Chinese oracle bones
• Compare its digits →ten ways to write 0–9
• See its share of speakers →an interactive breakdown by script, family and region

Sources

1. Ethnologue — What are the top 200 most spoken languages? (2026)
2. Wikipedia — List of languages by total number of speakers (Ethnologue 2026 figures, retrieved October 2026)
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Punjabi language
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Lahnda language
5. Leiden University Scholarly Publications — Heer Waris Shah (AH 1180 / 1766)
6. Omniglot — Punjabi: Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi
7. Encyclopaedia Britannica — Urdu language
8. Omniglot — Urdu alphabet
9. Wikipedia — Nastaliq (origins in 14th-century Shiraz and Tabriz)
10. World History Encyclopedia — Nasta'liq
11. Unicode Conference 28 — Nastaliq through Unicode and OpenType (Monotype)
12. Wikipedia — Noori Nastaliq
13. Omniglot — Useful phrases in Punjabi

Checked October 25, 2026. Speaker numbers are Ethnologue's 2026 estimates, which count each language separately (Arabic and Chinese varieties are listed one by one). Maps shade whole countries, not regions within them. Found an error? Tell us.