# Urdu: Written form of 'choti he'



## lafz_puchnevala

Hi All,

I would like to know the special written form of 'choti he' before 'alif' and 'lam' if such an exception exists.

Thank you for your replies!!


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## Faylasoof

lafz_puchnevala said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I would like to know the special written form of 'choti he' before 'alif' and 'lam' if such an exception exists.
> 
> Thank you for your replies!!


 I'm not quite sure what you are asking but I guess you mean like this ہاتھ _haathh_(=hand) and ہلال hilaal (crescent).
But you'll see ہاتھ _haathh_ also written as هاتهہ , as in Platts, with a _do-chashmii he_ at the begining. This doesn't  really matter. What matters is when to use either of these in the middle or end  of the word, by convention. 
For example: بہرا  _*bahraa *_(=deaf) versus بھرا _*bharaa*_ (filled /full) and بہانہ _*bahaanah*_ versus  بھانا _*bhaanaa*_.


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## marrish

lafz_puchnevala said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I would like to know the special written form of 'choti he' before 'alif' and 'lam' if such an exception exists.
> 
> Thank you for your replies!!


It is the same shape as you would write baa but instead of a dot below, you should write an inverted comma as a sign of ''h''. In other words, taking F. SaaHib's examples, there is a difference between :
ﺑ ﮩ ﺎ ﻧ ـہ : بہانہ 
ﮨ ﺎ ﺗ ﮫ : ہاتھ
So haath is not written with this form of 'chhoTii he':
ﮩﺎ


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## lafz_puchnevala

marrish said:


> It is the same shape as you would write baa but instead of a dot below, you should write an inverted comma as a sign of ''h''.



Great clarification! Thanks!


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## lafz_puchnevala

Faylasoof said:


> I'm not quite sure what you are asking but I guess you mean like this ہاتھ _haathh_(=hand) and ہلال hilaal (crescent).
> But you'll see ہاتھ _haathh_ also written as هاتهہ , as in Platts, with a _do-chashmii he_ at the begining. This doesn't  really matter. What matters is when to use either of these in the middle or end  of the word, by convention.
> For example: بہرا  _*bahraa *_(=deaf) versus بھرا _*bharaa*_ (filled /full) and بہانہ _*bahaanah*_ versus  بھانا _*bhaanaa*_.



In the word 'hilaal' are you using the special form of 'lam-alif'? It doesn't seem so to me. The 'lam-alif' form I have been advised to use in Urdu is the incorrect form in this link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ligature_arabe_lam_alif.png

And as a side note, why is this form labelled as incorrect here?

Thanks!


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## eskandar

lafz_puchnevala said:


> In the word 'hilaal' are you using the special form of 'lam-alif'? It doesn't seem so to me. The 'lam-alif' form I have been advised to use in Urdu is the incorrect form in this link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ligature_arabe_lam_alif.png
> 
> And as a side note, why is this form labelled as incorrect here?


Who advised you to use the incorrect form? They were certainly wrong. The image you linked to is right to label that form as incorrect. You will note that Faylasoof SaaHib wrote hilaal correctly as ہلال , using the "special" laam-alif ligature labeled "correct" in the image you linked to.


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## lafz_puchnevala

eskandar said:


> Who advised you to use the incorrect form? They were certainly wrong. The image you linked to is right to label that form as incorrect. You will note that Faylasoof SaaHib wrote hilaal correctly as ہلال , using the "special" laam-alif ligature labeled "correct" in the image you linked to.



So when would this incorrect form be used?


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## eskandar

It isn't used, hence "incorrect". I assume it exists in that image for pedagogical reasons. A learner might assume that that is the way to write a laam followed by an alif, since most other letter combinations would connect in a similar way, but laam-alif is a special case and is just about always written the way it appears next to "correct" in your image. You can see many different variations of laam-alif on Google image search (note: most of the examples are in Arabic rather than Urdu since لا means "no" or "not" in Arabic and is thus extremely common). Notice that they are all written the correct way.


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## lafz_puchnevala

eskandar said:


> It isn't used, hence "incorrect". I assume it exists in that image for pedagogical reasons. A learner might assume that that is the way to write a laam followed by an alif, since most other letter combinations would connect in a similar way, but laam-alif is a special case and is just about always written the way it appears next to "correct" in your image. You can see many different variations of laam-alif on Google images (note: most of the examples are in Arabic rather than Urdu since لا means "no" or "not" in Arabic and is thus extremely common). Notice that they are all written the correct way.



What I have heard is that the correct form is normally reserved for Arabic and Arabic loan words starting with 'la-' while the incorrect form is more often used in Urdu or Persian words which are not borrowed from Arabic.


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## eskandar

I don't know where you've heard such a thing, but it's absolutely untrue. The correct form is used in all words which are spelled with a laam followed by an alif, including all words of Indic origin. You can open any Urdu dictionary you like and you'll see plenty of words like لاج laaj, لات laat, لابھ laabh, etc., all of which are derived from Prakrit or Sanskrit and shared with Hindi, yet all written the correct way. I have never seen the incorrect way in print. The only time you might encounter it is in something handwritten by a new learner (like a very young child), or perhaps typed on an Urdu typewriter where the typist was careless and made a mistake in typing. Those are just hypothetical examples. The only time in my life I have seen the incorrect version was in instructional material like the image you provided, instructing the writer on what _not_ to do.


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## marrish

Sorry eskandar SaaHib but in written Urdu similar to nasta3liiq the alif is straight and this is the usual form, barring shikastah writing which I like but it is something different. 

Actually I think there was    a thread about it but I can't recall it at the moment.


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## eskandar

marrish SaaHib, I know what you're referring to, but take a careful look at the image provided by our lafz-puchnevaalaa and ask yourself whether the "incorrect" form looks the same as a nasta3liiq لا . They are to my eyes different. The difference is that in nasta3liiq, the laam should be rounder than what is displayed in the image, and most importantly (IMHO), the bottom-leftmost end 'tail' of the laam extends slightly past the bottom of the alif (to the left). This is how it is written in the nasta3liiq-printed Urdu material sitting on my desk as we speak. The form in the image is nasKh, in any case.


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## marrish

You are right eskandar SaaHib. The incorrect form does not resemble nasta3liiq laam and in naskh it is not done. 
Here is the other thread (Persian laam): http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2616080&p=13200750#post13200750 where I attached a picture where nasta3liiq laam can be seen.


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## eskandar

Thanks for linking to the other thread, marrish SaaHib, I had forgotten that we'd had nearly this exact same discussion just months earlier!


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## lafz_puchnevala

marrish said:


> You are right eskandar SaaHib. The incorrect form does not resemble nasta3liiq laam and in naskh it is not done.
> Here is the other thread (Persian laam): http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2616080&p=13200750#post13200750 where I attached a picture where nasta3liiq laam can be seen.



In the link presented in the thread, http://forum.wordreference.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11568&d=1365968810
the lam-alif seems to be written like the incorrect form but with a rounded bottom. Can I conclude that this is the more widely used form in Urdu or would I be able to find both forms in the written language? Of course, here, I am assuming that the nastaliq form is the more popular font accepted in Urdu.


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## eskandar

No, the form in that image is correct. There are subtle differences between this laam-alif and that in the Wikimedia image you posted earlier in this thread, viz. 





eskandar said:


> The difference is that in nasta3liiq, the laam  should be rounder ... and most  importantly (IMHO), the bottom-leftmost end 'tail' of the laam extends  slightly past the bottom of the alif (to the left).


The image from the other thread meets these criteria and is correctly written.


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