Consonants in Urdu - A Complete List
Learn all Urdu consonants (اردو حروفِ صحیح) with their names, pronunciation, and English equivalents. The Urdu alphabet contains 35 consonant letters, including several unique sounds not found in Arabic or English.
Consonants (حروفِ صحیح) in Urdu
Aspirated Consonants (with Do Chashmi Hay ھ)
About Consonants in Urdu
Urdu consonants (حروفِ صحیح) form the backbone of the Urdu script, which is a modified form of the Perso-Arabic Nastaliq writing system. The standard Urdu alphabet contains 37 basic letters, of which approximately 35 are consonants. These include letters inherited from Arabic (like ص، ض، ط، ظ، ع، غ), letters from Persian (like پ، چ، ژ، گ), and uniquely South Asian retroflex letters (like ٹ، ڈ، ڑ) that represent sounds made by curling the tongue backward against the roof of the mouth — a distinctive feature of Urdu and other languages of the Indian subcontinent.
One of the most notable features of Urdu consonants is the aspiration system using Do Chashmi Hay (ھ). By combining ھ with consonants like ب، پ، ت، ج، چ، د، ک، گ, Urdu creates aspirated sounds (بھ، پھ، تھ etc.) that are essential for distinguishing many Urdu words. For example, "kal" (کل — yesterday/tomorrow) and "khal" (کھل — open) are different words distinguished only by aspiration. Another important feature is the distinction between dental consonants (where the tongue touches the teeth, like ت and د) and retroflex consonants (where the tongue curls back, like ٹ and ڈ). Many Arabic-origin letters like ث، ذ، ص، ض، ط، ظ are pronounced identically to simpler letters in everyday Pakistani Urdu, but they are preserved in writing to maintain the spelling of Arabic and Persian loanwords.