DefinePK

Abstract

This article deals with the birth and evolution of Indo-Perso-Arabic script & its alphabet set and concludes with the editing of Deputy Nazeer Ahmad's reader viz Rasm ul Khatt whose latest edition is published recently in 2021. In the first part of this article, after quickly discussing the history of Urdu script and traversing topics like spelling-pronunciation relationship etc., the author has briefly discussed difference between writing system, script, alphabet, orthography and word, and then between word, dictionary word, dictionary entry/ headword, lexical item and lexeme, etc. While establishing his long-held take on Urdu alphabet-set to be comprising 38 letters and while emphasising the need of retaining the written shapes of Urdu words as are familiar to the Urdu world, the author suggests فلمچہ as the Urdu equivalent of Visual Gestalt; and has claimed that Deputy Nazeer Ahmad was the first scholar to advance the idea of Ghost Character Theory (GCT) in Urdu alphabet system. The author briefly discusses the role of Fort William College in his analysis of the sensitive topic of Urdu-Devanagari conflict and the language policy of EIC and British Raj.
Second part of this article deals with an in-depth critical study of the reader in question and its editing.