Editing Gurmukhi (section)

==History and development==
The Gurmukhī script is generally believed to have roots in the [[Proto-Sinaitic alphabet]]{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=88}} by way of the [[Brahmi script]],{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=94-99, 72-73}} which [[Brahmic scripts|developed]] further into the Northwestern group ([[Sharada script|Sharada]], or Śāradā, and its descendants, including [[Laṇḍā scripts|Landa]] and [[Takri]]), the Central group ([[Nāgarī script|Nagari]] and its descendants, including [[Devanagari]], [[Gujarati script|Gujarati]] and [[Modi script|Modi]]) and the Eastern group (evolved from [[Siddhaṃ script|Siddhaṃ]], including [[Bengali alphabet|Bangla]], [[Tibetan script|Tibetan]], and some Nepali scripts),{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=68-69}} as well as several prominent [[writing systems of Southeast Asia]] and Sinhala in Sri Lanka, in addition to scripts used historically in Central Asia for extinct languages like [[Saka language|Saka]] and [[Tocharian script|Tocharian]].{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=68-69}} Gurmukhi is derived from Sharada in the Northwestern group, of which it is the only major surviving member,{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}} with full modern currency.{{sfn|Shackle|2007|p=594}}
Notable features include:
* It is an [[abugida]] in which all consonants have an inherent vowel, {{IPAblink|ə}}. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they are applied to, are used to change the inherent vowel.
* When they appear at the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.
* To form [[consonant clusters]], Gurmukhi uniquely affixes subscript letters at the bottom of standard characters, rather than using the true conjunct symbols used by other scripts,{{sfn|Shackle|2007|p=594}} which merge parts of each letter into a distinct character of its own.
* Punjabi is a tonal language with three tones. These are indicated in writing using the formerly voiced aspirated consonants (''gh'', ''dh'', ''bh'', etc.) and the intervocalic ''h''.{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=84}} 
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|-
! [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] 
|| 𐤀 || colspan="2" | 𐤁 || 𐤂 || colspan="2" | 𐤃
| 𐤄
| 𐤅
| colspan="4" | 𐤆 || colspan="2" | 𐤇 || colspan="2" | 𐤈 || 𐤉 || colspan="2" | 𐤊
| 𐤋 || 𐤌 || colspan="4" | 𐤍
| 𐤎
| 𐤏 || colspan="2" | 𐤐
| 𐤑 || colspan="2" | 𐤒
| 𐤓
| 𐤔 || colspan="2" | 𐤕
|-
! [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] 
|| 𐡀 || colspan="2" | 𐡁
| 𐡂 || colspan="2" | 𐡃
| 𐡄 || 𐡅 || colspan="4" | 𐡆 || colspan="2" | 𐡇 || colspan="2" | 𐡈
| 𐡉 || colspan="2" | 𐡊
| 𐡋 || 𐡌 || colspan="4" | 𐡍
| 𐡎
| 𐡏 || colspan="2" | 𐡐
| 𐡑 || colspan="2" | 𐡒
| 𐡓
| 𐡔 || colspan="2" | 𐡕
|-
! [[Brahmi script|Brahmi]] 
|| 𑀅 || 𑀩 || 𑀪 || 𑀕 || 𑀥 || 𑀠 || 𑀏 || 𑀯 || 𑀤 || 𑀟 || 𑀚 || 𑀛 || 𑀳 || 𑀖 || 𑀣 || 𑀞 || 𑀬 || 𑀓 || 𑀘 || 𑀮 || 𑀫 || 𑀦 || 𑀗 || 𑀜 || 𑀡 || 𑀰 || 𑀑 || 𑀧 || 𑀨 || 𑀲 || 𑀔 || 𑀙 || 𑀭 || 𑀱  || 𑀢 || 𑀝
|-
! Gurmukhi 
|| ਅ || ਬ || ਭ || ਗ || ਧ || ਢ || ੲ || ਵ || ਦ || ਡ || ਜ || ਝ || ਹ || ਘ || ਥ || ਠ || ਯ || ਕ || ਚ || ਲ || ਮ || ਨ || ਙ || ਞ || ਣ || (ਸ਼) || ੳ || ਪ || ਫ || ਸ || ਖ || ਛ || ਰ || ਖ || ਤ || ਟ
|-
! [[IAST]] 
|| a || ba || bha || ga || dha || ḍha || ē || va || da || ḍa || ja || jha || ha || gha || tha || ṭha || ya || ka || ca || la || ma || na || ṅa || ña || ṇa || śa* || ō || pa || pha || sa || kha || cha || ra || ṣa* || ta || ṭa
|-
! [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] 
|| [[Α]] || colspan="2" | [[Β]] || [[Γ]] || colspan="2" | [[Δ]] || [[Ε]] || [[Ϝ]] || colspan="4" | [[Ζ]] || colspan="2" | [[Η]] || colspan="2" | [[Θ]] || [[Ι]] || colspan="2" | [[Κ]] || [[Λ]] || [[Μ]] || colspan="4" | [[Ν]] || [[Ξ]] || [[Ο]] || colspan="2" | [[Pi (letter)|Π]] || [[Ϻ]] || colspan="2" | [[Ϙ]] || [[Ρ]] || [[Σ]] || colspan="2" | [[Τ]]
|-
| style="text-align: left" colspan="37" | <small>Possible derivation of Gurmukhi from earlier writing systems.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bühler|first=Georg|author-link=Georg Bühler|title=On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet|url=https://archive.org/details/onoriginofindian00bhuoft|year=1898|publisher=Strassburg K.J. Trübner|pages=53–77}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|
*The Gurmukhi character ਖ [kha] may have originally evolved from the Brahmi character denoting [ṣa], as the Sanskrit sounds /ʂə/ and /kʰə/ merged into /kʰə/ in Punjabi. Any phonemic contrast was lost, with no distinct character for [ṣa] remaining. Similarly, the characters representing /sə/ and /ʃə/ may have also converged into the character representing /ʃə/ as the sounds merged into /sə/.
*The predecessor of the Gurmukhi character ੜ [ṛa] was derived at a subsequent point, likely around the period of the [[Laṇḍā]] scripts, as preceding scripts lacked a character for this sound. It may ultimately share a mutual parent character with Gurmukhi ਡ [ḍa].}} The Greek alphabet, also descended from Phoenician, is included for comparison. </small>
|}
Gurmukhi evolved in cultural and historical circumstances notably different from other regional scripts,{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}} for the purpose of recording scriptures of [[Sikhism]], a far less Sanskritized cultural tradition than others of the subcontinent.{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}} This independence from the Sanskritic model allowed it the freedom to evolve unique orthographical features.{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}} These include: 
*Three basic bearer vowels, integrated into the traditional Gurmukhi character set, using the vowel diacritics to write independent vowels, instead of distinctly separate characters for each of these vowels as in other scripts;{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=84}}{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=150}} 
*a drastic reduction in the number and importance of conjunct characters{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=84}}{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=149}}{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=181}} (similar to Brahmi, the letters of which Gurmukhi letters have remained more similar to than those of [[Nāgarī script|Nagari]] have,{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=145}} and characteristic of Northwestern abugidas);{{sfn|Shackle|2007|p=594}}
*a unique standard ordering of characters that somewhat diverges from the traditional ''vargiya'', or Sanskritic, ordering of characters,{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=84}}{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=470}} including [[vowel]]s and [[fricative]]s being placed in front;{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=183}}{{sfn|Grierson|1916|p=626}} 
*the recognition of Indo-Aryan phonological history through the omission of characters representing the sibilants {{IPAblink|ʃ}} and {{IPAblink|ʂ}},{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=148}} retaining only the letters representing sounds of the spoken language of the time;{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=181}} these sibilants were naturally lost in most modern [[Indo-Aryan languages]], though such characters were often retained in their respective consonant inventories as placeholders and archaisms{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=84}} while being mispronounced.{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=148}} These sibilants were often variously reintroduced through later circumstances, as {{IPAblink|ʃ}} was to Gurmukhi,{{sfn|Grierson|1916|p=626}} necessitating a new glyph;{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=148}}
*the development of distinct new letters for sounds better reflecting the vernacular language spoken during the time of its development (e.g. for {{IPAblink|ɽ}},{{sfn|Masica|1993|p=147}} and the sound shift that merged Sanskrit {{IPAblink|ʂ}} and /kʰ/ to Punjabi /kʰ/); 
*a [[gemination]] diacritic, a unique feature among native subcontinental scripts,{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}} which serve to indicate the preserved [[Middle Indo-Aryan]] geminates distinctive of Punjabi;{{sfn|Shackle|2007|p=594}} 
and other features.
[[File:Historical geographical distribution of Sharada.png|thumb|right|Historical geographical distribution of [[Sharada script]]<ref name=sharada>{{cite web | url=https://unicode.org/L2/L2009/09074r-n3595-sharada.pdf | title=N3545: Proposal to Encode the Sharada Script in ISO/IEC 10646 | first1=Anshuman | last1=Pandey | publisher=Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 | date=2009-03-25 | access-date=2019-03-06 | archive-date=2020-08-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801085611/https://unicode.org/L2/L2009/09074r-n3595-sharada.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref>]]

From the 10th century onwards, regional differences started to appear between the Sharada script used in Punjab, the Hill States (partly [[Himachal Pradesh]]) and [[Kashmir]]. Sharada proper was eventually restricted to very limited ceremonial use in Kashmir, as it grew increasingly unsuitable for writing the [[Kashmiri language]].<ref name=sharada/> With the last known inscription dating to 1204 C.E., the early 13th century marks a milestone in the development of Sharada.<ref name=sharada/> The regional variety in Punjab continued to evolve from this stage through the 14th century; during this period it starts to appear in forms closely resembling Gurmukhī and other [[Landa scripts]]. By the 15th century, Sharada had evolved so considerably that [[epigraphist]]s denote the script at this point by a special name, ''Dēvāśēṣa''.<ref name=sharada/> Tarlochan Singh Bedi (1999) prefers the name ''prithamă gurmukhī'', or Proto-Gurmukhī. It was through its recording in Gurmukhi that knowledge of the pronunciation and grammar of the Old Punjabi language (c. 10th–16th century) was preserved for modern philologists.{{sfn|Bhardwaj|2016|p=48}}
[[File:A sample of a mediaeval, handwritten Gurmukhi document.png|thumb|A sample of a mediaeval, handwritten Gurmukhi document]]
The [[Sikh gurus]] adopted Proto-Gurmukhī to write the [[Guru Granth Sahib]], the religious scriptures of the Sikhs. The [[Takri]] alphabet developed through the ''Dēvāśēṣa'' stage of the Sharada script from the 14th-18th centuries<ref name=sharada/> and is found mainly in the [[Punjab States Agency|Hill States]] such as [[Chamba, Himachal Pradesh]] and surrounding areas, where it is called [[Chambeali]]. In [[Jammu Division]], it developed into Dogri,<ref name=sharada/> which was a "highly imperfect" script later consciously influenced in part by Gurmukhi during the late 19th century,{{sfn|Grierson|1916|pp=638-639}} possibly to provide it an air of authority by having it resemble scripts already established in official and literary capacities,<ref name="L215234">{{cite web|last=Pandey|first=Anshuman|date=2015-11-04|title=L2/15-234R: Proposal to encode the Dogra script|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15234r-dogra.pdf|access-date=2021-03-17|archive-date=2019-06-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190614230112/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15234r-dogra.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> though not displacing Takri.{{sfn|Grierson|1916|pp=638-639}} The local Takri variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century.<ref name=sharada/> After 1948, when [[Himachal Pradesh]] was established as an administrative unit, the local Takri variants were replaced by [[Devanagari]].

[[File:Example of a Multani variant of Landa script, a mercantile shorthand script of Punjab, from 1880.png|thumb|left|Example of the [[Multani alphabet|Multani]] variant of [[Laṇḍā scripts|Landa script]], a mercantile shorthand script of Punjab, from 1880<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2012/12316-multani.pdf | title=N4159: Proposal to Encode the Multani Script in ISO/IEC 10646 | first1=Anshuman | last1=Pandey | publisher=Working Group Document, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 | date=2009-01-29 | access-date=2019-03-06 | archive-date=2018-11-26 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181126111141/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2012/12316-multani.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref>]]
Meanwhile, the mercantile scripts of Punjab known as the Laṇḍā scripts were normally not used for literary purposes. ''Laṇḍā'' means alphabet "without tail",{{sfn|Shackle|2007|p=594}} implying that the script did not have vowel symbols. In Punjab, there were at least ten different scripts classified as Laṇḍā, [[Mahajani]] being the most popular. The Laṇḍā scripts were used for household and trade purposes.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=182}} In contrast to Laṇḍā, the use of vowel diacritics was made obligatory in Gurmukhī for increased accuracy and precision, due to the difficulties involved in deciphering words without vowel signs.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=181}}{{sfn|Grierson|1916|pp=624, 628}}

In the following epochs, Gurmukhī became the primary script for the literary writings of the Sikhs. Playing a significant role in Sikh faith and tradition, it expanded from its original use for Sikh scriptures and developed its own orthographical rules, spreading widely under the [[Sikh Empire]] and used by Sikh kings and chiefs of Punjab for administrative purposes.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=183}} Also playing a major role in consolidating and standardizing the Punjabi language, it served as the main medium of literacy in Punjab and adjoining areas for centuries when the earliest schools were attached to ''[[gurdwaras]]''.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=183}} The first natively produced grammars of the Punjabi language were written in the 1860s in Gurmukhi.{{sfn|Bhardwaj|2016|p=18}} The [[Singh Sabha Movement]] of the late 19th century, a movement to revitalize Sikh institutions which had declined during [[British Raj|colonial rule]] after the fall of the Sikh Empire, also advocated for the usage of the Gurmukhi script for [[mass media]], with print media publications and [[Khalsa Akhbar Lahore|Punjabi-language newspapers]] established in the 1880s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deol |first1=Harnik |title=Religion and Nationalism in India: The Case of the Punjab |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=Abingdon, United Kingdom |isbn=978-1-134-63535-1 |page=72 |edition=illustrated |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tkHi5j81VHEC&q=khalsa+akhbar |access-date=2 May 2019 |archive-date=25 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125021434/https://books.google.com/books?id=tkHi5j81VHEC&q=khalsa+akhbar |url-status=live }}</ref> In the 1940s leading up to the 1947 partition, the Akali Dal held talks with the Muslim League where official recognition of Gurmukhi was demanded in-order to win the Sikhs over to the Pakistani cause.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Yong |first=Tan Tai |date=July–December 1994 |title=Prelude to Partition: Sikh Responses to the Demand for Pakistan, 1940–47 |url=https://giss.org/pdf/1_2_Punjab_F.pdf |journal=International Journal of Punjab Studies |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=179}}</ref> Later in the 20th century, after the struggle of the [[Punjabi Suba movement]], from the founding of modern India in the 1940s to the 1960s, the script was given the authority as the official state script of the [[Punjab, India]],<ref name="Bright1996"/>{{sfn|Jain|Cardona|2007|p=53}} where it is used in all spheres of culture, arts, education, and administration, with a firmly established common and secular character.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=183}}  It is one of the [[official scripts of the Indian Republic]], and is currently the 14th most used script in the world.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kumar |first1=Munish |last2=Jindal |first2=M.K. |last3=Sharma |first3=R.K. |editor1-last=Nagamalai |editor1-first=Dhinaharan |editor2-last=Renault |editor2-first=Eric |editor3-last=Dhanuskodi |editor3-first=Murugan |title=Advances in Digital Image Processing and Information Technology: First International Conference on Digital Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, DPPR 2011, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India, September 23-25, 2011, Proceedings |date=2011 |publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg |isbn=978-3-642-24055-3 |page=274 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l4AKBwAAQBAJ&dq=gurmukhi&pg=PA274}}</ref>

===Etymology===
[[File:Fresco artwork from Pothi-Mala, Guru Harsahai, Punjab 113.jpg|thumb|18th century fresco of a woman writing in Gurmukhi from Pothimala, [[Guru Har Sahai|Guru Harsahai]], Punjab.]]
The prevalent view among Punjabi linguists is that as in the early stages the Gurmukhī letters were primarily used by the Guru's followers, ''[[gurmukh]]s'' (literally, those who face, or follow, the Guru, as opposed to a ''[[manmukh]]''); the script thus came to be known as ''gurmukhī'', "the script of those guided by the Guru."{{sfn|Salomon|2007|p=83}}{{sfn|Bhardwaj|2016|p=14}} [[Guru Angad]] is credited in the Sikh tradition with the creation and standardization of Gurmukhi script from earlier [[Sharada script|Śāradā]]-descended scripts native to the region. It is now the standard writing script for the Punjabi language in India.<ref name="shacklexvii">{{cite book | last=Shackle | first=Christopher |author2=Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh | year=2005 | title=Teachings of the Sikh Gurus: Selections from the Sikh Scriptures | publisher=Routledge  | location=United Kingdom | isbn = 978-0-415-26604-8 | pages=xvii–xviii}}</ref> The original Sikh scriptures and most of the historic Sikh literature have been written in the Gurmukhi script.<ref name="shacklexvii" />

Although the word Gurmukhī has been commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru", the term used for the Punjabi script has somewhat different connotations. This usage of the term may have gained currency from the use of the script to record the utterances of the Sikh Gurus as scripture, which were often referred to as Gurmukhī, or from the ''mukhă'' (face, or mouth) of the Gurus. Consequently, the script that was used to write the resulting scripture may have also been designated with the same name.{{sfn|Bāhrī|2011|p=181}}

The name for the Perso–Arabic alphabet for the Punjabi language, ''[[Shahmukhi]]'', was modeled on the term ''Gurmukhi''.<ref name=bashir>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ajrEDwAAQBAJ&q=gurmukhi|title=A Descriptive Grammar of Hindko, Panjabi, and Saraiki (Volume 4 of Mouton-CASL Grammar Series)|last1=Bashir|first1=Elena|author1-link=Elena Bashir|last2=Conners|first2=Thomas J.|publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG|location=Berlin, Germany|year=2019|isbn=978-1-61451-225-7|page=18|access-date=2020-06-16|archive-date=2020-06-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630232054/https://books.google.com/books?id=ajrEDwAAQBAJ&q=gurmukhi|url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Bhardwaj|2016|p=13}}