A brief review of Alphabet used in Dewan Gul

Abstract

After the occupation of Sindh in 1843, the British colonial administration declared the Sindhi language as the official language and introduced the Arabic-Sindhi script in Sindh in 1853, which was already familiar to Sindhi society. This research paper sheds light on the introduction and organization of the Sindhi alphabet during the early years of British colonial administration in Sindh and discusses the early response and contributions to Sindhi writing by examining the work of Akhund Gul, the writer of Dewan Gul. The Sindhi alphabet is based on the Arabic script, which is arranged by the sequence of the shape of the letter and dots on a letter. Considering the order of aspirates and unaspirated sounds, the proper Sindhi letters comprising different sounds were added or combined in the middle or at the end. This paper highlights that Akhund Gul disagreed with the alphabet introduced in the British era. Notably, in 1858, he produced Divan Gul in which he presented an alphabet containing a different sequence and shaped letters, especially digraph letters (گهه جهه etc.). The basis of the Akhund Gul alphabet’s order was the Persian alphabet, which was also based on the Arabic script. Moreover, Akhund Gul added and combined Sindhi letters in the Persian alphabet. The arrangement of the alphabet introduced by Akhund Gul in 1858 was based on the Arabic script arranged by the shape of letters and dots, but when combining or mixing Sindhi letters to develop the Sindhi alphabet, more attention was drawn to the sound. This paper also highlights that changes in the Sindhi alphabet have occurred over periods for the easy understanding and learning of students. For instance, changes in the arrangement of letters in the Sindhi alphabet were introduced in 1935. Which have been proven to be easy for ordinary students to remember, read, and write.