ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
Lingo7 lets you read books with a translation under every sentence in 49 languages. Punjabi is not one of them yet. Ask for it below, and see what adding it takes and what reading Punjabi involves.
Lingo7 does not read Punjabi yet: the app has no Punjabi dictionary, audio or shelf of books. You can vote for Punjabi here. Leave your email to vote; we add the most requested languages first and write to you once, when Punjabi is ready.
We add the most requested languages first. Leave your email and we'll write to you once, when Punjabi is ready.
Thank you!
We use your email only to tell you when Punjabi launches, and delete it whenever you ask. Privacy policy
The demo below is the live reader with a German book. Punjabi would work the same way once it is added.
Spoken in: Pakistan (Punjab), India (Punjab); large communities in Canada and the United Kingdom
Punjabi is written in two scripts, and most readers know only one. In India it is Gurmukhi, an abugida that runs left to right; in Pakistan, where most Punjabi speakers live, it is Shahmukhi, the Urdu alphabet with a few extra letters, written right to left in Nastaliq. The two scripts have nothing in common on the page, so a book, a newspaper or a website in one is closed to a reader of the other.
Gurmukhi has 35 original letters, called the painti ("the thirty-five"), plus six more with a dot at the foot for sounds found mostly in loanwords, which writers do not always use. Every consonant carries a built-in vowel, as in Devanagari. Two signs, tippi and bindi, mark nasal sounds, and the addak (ੱ) doubles the consonant after it.
Punjabi is tonal, unusual for an Indo-European language, but no mark writes tone directly. It shows through spelling: the letters ਘ, ਝ, ਢ, ਧ and ਭ, which once stood for sounds like gh and bh, and the letter ਹ now signal a tone, so ਘਰ (house) starts with a k sound and a low tone rather than gh. The Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture, is written in Gurmukhi, but in an older mix of languages often called Sant Bhasha.
Our free tools cover the 49 languages in the app.
There is no date yet. We add the most requested languages first, and Punjabi needs the work described on this page. Leave your email in the form and we will write to you once, when Punjabi is ready.
Not yet. Lingo7 has no Punjabi dictionary, audio or shelf of books, so a Punjabi book would not get the sentence-by-sentence translation and word lookups the app is built on. The 49 languages it does read are listed on the home page.
One vote per email address per language. The count on this page shows a number once at least 10 people have asked, and refreshes within a minute of a new vote. Your email is stored only to tell you when Punjabi launches, and deleted whenever you ask at support@lingoseven.com.
It depends on what you want to read. Gurmukhi is the official script of Punjabi in India and the script of Sikh scripture; Shahmukhi is used in Pakistan, where most Punjabi speakers live. Free children's stories, such as those on StoryWeaver, are mostly in Gurmukhi.
Not with a tone mark. Tone shows through certain letters: ਘ, ਝ, ਢ, ਧ and ਭ, which once stood for aspirated sounds such as gh, and ਹ now signal a tone instead. Once you know which letters carry it, the spelling tells you the tone.
Partly. It is written in Gurmukhi, but its language mixes older dialects often called Sant Bhasha with Persian and older forms of Indo-Aryan. Knowing modern Punjabi gives you the script, but not all of the language.