Type on Latin keyboard, get Urdu text

At first, refer to the given tables to get the characters you want. After a time this will become automatic.

Try live at https://www.eludev.fr/urdu

Programming language

The application is written with Elm, which allows for:

• easy and clean development
• very small application size (less than 33 kb for the generated javascript)
• easy communication with javascript
• simple, consistent and efficient tooling

Rationale

We generally followed the same transcription as in our arabic and persian script tools, with some adaptations:

_ prefixed characters:

We use for instance _t to get ث , _s to get ش

For the Arabic emphatics (ص ض ط ظ) we use _S, _D (referring to arabic, not to urdu phonetic value), _T and _Z.

retroflex consonants

Urdu retroflex consonants (ٹ ڈ ڑ) are transcribed as T, D and R

nun ghunna

To get nun ghunna ں (nasalization mark at end of word) type n'

aspirated consonants

Aspirated consonants are represented as digraphs, just as in Urdu: b' p' t' T' j' c' d' D' R' k' g' correspond to بھ پھ تھ ٹھ جھ چھ دھ ڈھ ڑھ کھ گھ

To get an accurate representation (with do chashmi he) you need to use a Nastaliq font :

nastaliq font:

If you try the program live at https://eludev.fr/urdu/, you will see the aspirated digraphs such as k' کھ with a much nicer representation (if you try kh instead of k' you will get a totally different digraph!).

This only appears if you use a nastaliq font.

For an introduction to Nastaliq, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastaliq#Notes

We use the Google Noto Nastaliq Urdu font.

For an introduction to Google Noto fonts, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noto_fonts#External_links

To learn how to use Noto fonts, read https://design.google/library/hot-type-always-fresh and https://developers.google.com/fonts/docs/getting_started

For our urdu script program, this very simply translates to:

• 3 lines in index.html (just after the tag):

  <link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
  <link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
  <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Noto+Nastaliq+Urdu:wght@400..700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

• and the following in the style.css stylesheet:

#convert{
  font-family: "Noto Nastaliq Urdu", serif;
  font-optical-sizing: auto;
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: 400; /* weight should be in the 400 -700 range */
  font-size: 1.5em;
}

with serif beeing the fallback font in the font-family specifiation.

On my mac, Noto Nastaliq Urdu is also available in MS Word fonts.

Unrecognized characters

Any character not recognized is rendered unmodified.

Licence

MIT