Punjabi

A page to experiment with Gurmukhi script if wikispaces allows this! ਆਹਾਤ ਚਾਨ ਅੇ ਦੋ ਅਿਤਹ ਤਹਿਸ? The above is a letter for letter transliteration of English (can you read it?) but demonstrates the achievable. (This works in Firefox on a Mac and should be achievable with the right set up on a PC browser - works with no tweaking in Windows XP/IE. This means it can be viewed in a reasonably recent browser - creating and editing text on a PC will require the relevant fonts, software and keyboard allocations to be set up).

(See the ਪੰਜਾਬੀ - ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ page for Gurmukhi example material on this site.) (External links open in new window) (See the ਪੰਜਾਬੀ - ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ Links page for Links to Gurmukhi material online believed to work without special fonts)

Links to Gurmukhi material (mostly) about Punjabi online:

http://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਪੰਜਾਬੀ_ਬੋਲੀ - Punjabi language page from wikipedia in Gurmukhi (IF anyone has a problem with the links featuring Gurmukhi text, let us know and I'll put up the Unicode HEX links as in the Shahmukhi example below) @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_language - equivalent page in English (contains much more technical information and links) @http://www.learnpunjabi.org/ - a VERY useful page from Punjabi University, Patiala
 * @http://g2s.learnpunjabi.org/unipad.aspx - WANT TO TYPE Gurmukhi painlessly? TRY THIS!!**

**(ਕੈਨ ਯੂ ਰੀਡ ਧਿਸ ਇਙਗਲਿਸ਼ ਏਕਸਾਂਮੁਲ?) - typed with the 'unipad'!**
@http://pnb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%BE%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%A8%DB%8C - Shahmukhi version of Punjabi page

Here follow some useful links for non-native Punjabi speakers (speakers of English) to learn Punjabi/Gurmukhi:

@http://www.gurbanifiles.org/unicode/index.htm - detailed guidance on the use of Unicode (UTF-16) for Gurmukhi/Gurbani

@http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Punjabi/Gurmukhi - a good introduction to the text in a Wikipedia book but character descriptions a bit linguistically naive and the eastern 'tradition' of suggesting that you (a 'foreigner') might learn a language by learning the writing system first - the complete opposite of what billions of language native speakers do world-wide is of course unfortunate nonsense. (ie. You learn a language by 1. Listening/understanding; 2. Speaking; 3. Reading/alphabet - (optional); 4. Writing (optional)!)

@http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gurmuki.htm - an excellent introduction to the script and numerous world languages and writing systems - source of opening to ਪੰਜਾਬੀ - ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ Gurmukhi page with minor layout error on first page causing two vowels to be labelled as consonants. The introduction to the vowels will make more sense to English speakers than the previous link. Contains numerous links to other resources.

@http://www.5abi.com/5ratan/05_paath05.htm - 5abi - Gyan Ratan - Punjabi Lessons - Introduction to some basics - Lessons 3 to 4 and 6 of some interest. Suffers from similar drawbacks to the wiki book above and unfortunately the Gurmukhi text rendering doesn't work giving an impossible 'romanisation' but the other English transliteration/phonetic rendering helps.

@http://www.punjabonline.com/servlet/library.language - excellent introduction to some basics for the linguistically aware English speaker. Brilliant java applet which reads the alphabet (click on red block - requires java enabled and sound). Font supplied - may require re-start to work in browsers. OH DEAR! Much more. Font incorrectly named as GurmukhiWebThick in html, requires file to be saved and that name replaced with GurbaniAkharThick - that works. Don't know if it's possible to rename the font on system instead but seems not. I assume these problems occur because the people creating the files don't realise that the user must be supplied with the correct font for their system and must be correctly identified in the html as browsers can't perform font substitution for these fonts (well, they do, but what you get is some crazy romanisation according to the keystrokes required for the Gurmukhi!)

More to follow!