Letters, paer bindi - ਸ਼ ਖ਼ ਗ਼ ਜ਼ ਫ਼ ਲ਼ . . .
All of these letters are the same as the letters from which they are derived. You already know the sounds that they make so there is only the paer bindi that makes them different.
Here, I have included the text from the pages that each of the letters in their 'non-paer-bindi' forms appear, for the sake of completeness.
ਸ਼
You've already come across the potential for confusion between ਸ and ਮ so here, there is no exception.
If you look at ਸ on the left, you can see that it is basically an 'n' with a line over the top.
The top line is not a compulsary feature of this writing so the right-hand side doesn't have to go back upto the bar level to finish off the letter.
You need the line over the top of
(ਸ) to differentiate it from
(ਮ) as you can see in ਸਮਝਉਂਦੇ above-right.
ਖ਼ ਖ (
) looks and is written pretty similarly to the way it is written when writing it Gurbani-style. The bottom-left is written more smoothly, a bit like a 'u' with a line across it.
ਗ਼ ਗ (
) is an interesting one.
The logical reason for the kannaa being only half the height of the letters is so that you can tell whethere you have a gaggaa or a rarraa followed by a kannaa. However, when you are writing quickly, there isn't always the opportunity to make sure that the kannaa is only half the height.
When you want to write a gaggaa, you want to make it different. You can do this by linking the left and right hand parts of the gaggaa or by writing a line over the top. Both are done here like so...
Just be careful to make sure that whatever you do, you are consistent and unambiguous.
ਜ਼
After drawing the initial loop, continue the line straight down and add another line to the right.
ਫ਼ In the same way that ਜ (
), ਦ (
), ਢ (
) and ਚ (
) lose the corners on the righthand side so that they just become a smoothe semi-circle, ਫ (
) does the same.
However, this takes some getting used to.
ਲ਼ Lallaa takes a real increase in speed when you write it like this. All straight lines.
Remember, just add the paer bindi in the usual place.
Copyright ©2007-2023 Paul Alan Grosse.
