The Gurmukhi alphabet, used to write Punjabi, has 35 base letters called the Painti Akhar (ਪੈਂਤੀ ਅੱਖਰ). The letters are recited in rows of five, grouped by where each sound is made in the mouth, and the first three are vowel carriers. Each letter makes one consistent sound, so the script is almost fully phonetic.
I grew up speaking Punjabi. My parents spoke it, I answered in it, and I could hold my own in a conversation across a dinner table. I learned the letters at Sunday Punjabi school too, but once English became my default, the reading faded. For years the script on a Gurdwara noticeboard was beautiful, familiar, and slow going: I had to sound out every word.
The day that changed is burned into my memory. I was a few weeks into actually learning Gurmukhi as an adult, and I walked past a sign I'd seen a hundred times. Except this time my eye landed on it and it just read: ਲੰਗਰ, langar. It wasn't shapes anymore. It was a word, and I knew what it said before I'd decided to read it. That's the moment I want for everyone, and it starts with these 35 letters.
This is the Gurmukhi alphabet, the Painti Akhar (ਪੈਂਤੀ ਅੱਖਰ), literally "thirty-five letters." Learn these and you can sound out almost any Punjabi word, because Gurmukhi is one of the most phonetic scripts in the world: each letter makes one consistent sound. No silent letters, no five ways to pronounce the same shape. Once you know the akhar, the script stops keeping secrets from you.
The name Gurmukhi means "from the mouth of the Guru." The script was standardised by Guru Angad Dev Ji, the second Sikh Guru, in the 16th century, and it's the script of both everyday Punjabi and Gurbani.
This page is a reference, so bookmark it and come back. You do not need to memorise all 35 at once. I certainly didn't.
How are the 35 Gurmukhi letters organised?
Gurmukhi reads left to right. The 35 letters are traditionally recited in rows of five, and I wish I had known this at the start: the rows aren't random. They're grouped by where the sound is made in your mouth. Back of the mouth to the front, throat to lips. Once I saw that, the whole chart stopped being a wall of symbols to memorise and turned into something with a logic I could feel on my own tongue.
The first row is special: its first three letters are vowel carriers, not true consonants. They hold vowel sounds rather than making a consonant of their own.
The vowel carriers
| Letter | Name | Role |
|---|---|---|
| ੳ | Ura | carries oo / o vowel sounds |
| ਅ | Aira | carries a / aa vowel sounds |
| ੲ | Iri | carries i / ee vowel sounds |
Vowels in Punjabi are written as small marks (laga matra) attached to these carriers or to consonants. Aira (ਅ) is the one you'll see most as a standalone vowel base.
The consonant rows
Each row below is a group of five related sounds. Read across, then down, and say them out loud as you go. You'll notice your tongue moving steadily forward through your mouth as you work down the rows.
Row 1 (with the carriers): ੳ ਅ ੲ ਸ (sassa, "s") ਹ (haha, "h")
Row 2: the "k" group: ਕ (kakka, "k") ਖ (khakha, "kh") ਗ (gagga, "g") ਘ (ghagha, "gh") ਙ (nganga, "ng")
Row 3: the "ch" group: ਚ (chacha, "ch") ਛ (chhachha, "chh") ਜ (jajja, "j") ਝ (jhajha, "jh") ਞ (nyanya, "ny")
Row 4: the retroflex "t" group: ਟ (tainka, "ṭ") ਠ (thattha, "ṭh") ਡ (dadda, "ḍ") ਢ (dhadha, "ḍh") ਣ (nana, "ṇ")
Row 5: the dental "t" group: ਤ (tatta, "t") ਥ (thatha, "th") ਦ (dadda, "d") ਧ (dhadha, "dh") ਨ (nanna, "n")
Row 6: the "p" group: ਪ (pappa, "p") ਫ (phapha, "ph") ਬ (babba, "b") ਭ (bhabha, "bh") ਮ (mamma, "m")
Row 7: the last group: ਯ (yayya, "y") ਰ (rara, "r") ਲ (lalla, "l") ਵ (vava, "v/w") ੜ (rara, "ṛ")
That's all 35.
Which Gurmukhi sounds are hardest for English speakers?
A few Gurmukhi distinctions don't exist in English. These were the ones that tripped me up longest, so don't worry about perfecting them on day one. Just know they're there:
- Aspirated vs unaspirated: ਕ (k) vs ਖ (kh), ਪ (p) vs ਫ (ph). The second of each pair has a puff of air. Hold your hand to your mouth, you should feel it on the aspirated one and not on the other.
- Retroflex sounds: ਟ ਠ ਡ (ṭ, ṭh, ḍ) are made with the tongue curled back to the roof of the mouth, distinct from the softer dental ਤ ਦ (t, d).
- The ੜ (ṛ): a flapped retroflex sound with no English equivalent. You'll get it by imitation, not by reading an explanation like this one.
This is exactly why hearing each letter matters far more than reading its transliteration. A romanised "t" cannot tell you which of four different Punjabi sounds is meant. The letter and its audio can. I leaned hard on listening, and it was the difference between guessing and knowing.
Learning them without burning out
The mistake I see most is people staring at the full chart, trying to brute-force all 35 at once, and giving up by the weekend. That's the slow road. Here's what actually worked for me.
Take a row at a time, not the whole alphabet. Five related letters, said out loud, is a sane amount for one sitting. And let yourself recognise before you recall: spotting ਸ inside a word is a real win long before you can write it from memory. Reading came to me well before writing did, and that's normal.
Then get into real words as fast as possible. Even tiny ones, ਘਰ (ghar, "house"), ਪਾਣੀ (paani, "water"), make the letters stick because they actually mean something. Letters learned in isolation evaporate. Letters learned inside words you care about stay. If you want to try it now, I walk through reading your first Gurmukhi word step by step. Save the vowel marks for once the consonants feel familiar, not before.
Which Gurmukhi letters are easy to mix up?
Two kinds of letters cause most beginner mistakes: letters that look alike, and letters that sound alike to an English ear.
Letters that look alike
A few pairs differ by a single small stroke, curl or loop:
- ਸ (sassa, "s") and ਮ (mamma, "m")
- ਘ (ghagha, "gh") and ਧ (dhadha, "dh")
The fix is to stop learning them apart. Put the two letters side by side, find the one stroke that differs, and say each letter's sound out loud as you look at it. Then read both inside real words. Your eye learns the difference much faster when each shape is tied to a sound and a meaning.
Letters that sound alike
Look back at the chart and you'll see some letters share a name. ਡ and ਦ are both dadda, ਢ and ਧ are both dhadha, and ਰ and ੜ are both rara. The names match because, to an untrained ear, the sounds nearly do. What separates them is where your tongue goes:
| Retroflex (tongue curled back) | Dental (tongue behind the teeth) |
|---|---|
| ਟ (ṭ) | ਤ (t) |
| ਠ (ṭh) | ਥ (th) |
| ਡ (ḍ) | ਦ (d) |
| ਢ (ḍh) | ਧ (dh) |
| ਣ (ṇ) | ਨ (n) |
The rows also put each unaspirated letter next to its aspirated partner: ਕ and ਖ, ਗ and ਘ, ਚ and ਛ, ਪ and ਫ, ਬ and ਭ. That puff of air changes meaning. ਕਰ (kar) means "do", while ਘਰ (ghar) means "house". Letters like ਘ also link to Punjabi's tones: in modern speech, a ਘ at the start of a word often comes out closer to a plain "k" with a low pitch on the vowel that follows. I go deeper in Aspirated Sounds in Punjabi and Why They Matter and Punjabi Tones Explained.
What comes after the 35 letters?
The akhar are the foundation, but a few more pieces sit on top of them before you can read any Punjabi text. In the order I'd learn them:
- Vowel marks. Gurmukhi has nine vowel marks, the laga matra, which change a consonant's built-in short "a" into another vowel. So ਕ is ka, ਕਾ is kaa and ਕਿ is ki. See Gurmukhi Vowels: Understanding the Laga Matra.
- Tippi, bindi and adhak. Tippi and bindi add a nasal sound, and adhak doubles the consonant that follows it. These are covered in How to Read Gurmukhi.
- Subscript letters. Three letters, ਰ, ਹ and ਵ, can be written small beneath another letter to blend two sounds, as in ਪ੍ਰ (pra). You'll meet them most in Gurbani and formal words: Gurmukhi Conjuncts and Subscript Letters Explained.
- Numerals. Gurmukhi has its own ten digits, ੦ to ੯, which map one to one onto 0 to 9. You'll see them on the ang numbers of the Guru Granth Sahib: Gurmukhi Numerals.
Gurmukhi alphabet FAQ
How many letters are in the Gurmukhi alphabet?
Gurmukhi has 35 base letters, the Painti Akhar, recited in seven rows of five. The first three are vowel carriers and the other 32 are consonants. Vowels are written as small marks attached to the letters rather than as separate letters.
How long does it take to learn the Gurmukhi alphabet?
With about 15 minutes a day, most beginners can read Gurmukhi slowly in four to six weeks, and can sound out simple words well before that. Writing from memory usually comes later than reading. For the wider picture, see How Long Does It Take to Learn Punjabi?
Is Gurmukhi the same script as Hindi?
No. In India, Punjabi is written in Gurmukhi and Hindi is written in Devanagari. Both come from the Brahmic family of scripts, but they are separate scripts with their own letter shapes, so you learn Gurmukhi on its own terms. More in Punjabi vs Hindi.
Is Gurmukhi only used for Gurbani?
No. Gurmukhi is the script of everyday Punjabi as well as Gurbani, so the same 35 letters let you read signs, menus and messages. If scripture is your main reason for learning, Learning Punjabi to Understand Gurbani covers that path.
Do I need to write the letters by hand?
Not at the start. Recognising a letter comes before recalling it, and reading came to me well before writing did. When you want to write, you can also add a Punjabi keyboard to your phone or computer: How to Type Gurmukhi on Your Phone and Computer.
Where do the letters fit in learning Punjabi?
The alphabet is step one. Next comes joining letters and vowel marks into words, covered in How to Read Gurmukhi: A Step-by-Step Guide, and from there, the full beginner's path.
A chart like this one can show you the 35 akhar, but it can't do the two things that actually got me reading: it can't give you the sound of each letter, and it can't train your recall so the shapes surface on sight. That's the gap I built Panjabi Go to close. It teaches Gurmukhi from scratch with native-quality audio for every akhar and pronunciation feedback, so the tricky aspirated and retroflex sounds go in correctly from the start, and it uses spaced repetition in short daily lessons so the letters move from "I can find it on the chart" to "I just read it." Start with the letters free and chase your own ਲੰਗਰ moment.
