Sindhi transliteration

{{Short description|Ways to convert text between Arabic and Sindhi language}}

Sindhi is a language broadly spoken by the people of the historical Sindh region in the Indian subcontinent. Modern Sindhi is written in an extended Perso-Arabic script in Sindh province of Pakistan{{Cite web|date=2016-10-03|title=Sindhi gains national status|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/1192917/sindhi-gains-national-status|access-date=2021-07-02|website=The Express Tribune|language=en}} and (formally) in extended-Devanagari by Sindhis in partitioned India.{{cite web |url=http://www.rajbhasha.nic.in/en/languages-included-eighth-schedule-indian-constution |title=Languages Included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian {{as written|Constu|tion [sic]}} |publisher=Department of Official Language, Ministry of Home Affairs |access-date=2018-04-09}} Historically, Sindhi was written in various forms of Landa scripts and various other Indic scripts.{{Cite web|last=Lakhani|first=Rakesh|date=2013-06-06|title=Forgotten Sindhi Script – Waranki|url=https://hindusofsindh.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/forgotten-sindhi-script-waranki/|access-date=2021-07-02|website=Indigenous Sindhis|language=en}}

Sindhi Transliteration is essential to convert between Arabic and Devanagari so that speakers of both the countries can read the text of each other.{{Cite web|date=2014-09-18|title=Transcending barriers: Software to break down the wall within the Sindhi language|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/764134/transcending-barriers-software-to-break-down-the-wall-within-the-sindhi-language|access-date=2021-07-02|website=The Express Tribune|language=en}} In modern day, Sindhi script colloquially just refers to the Perso-Arabic script since majority of Sindhis are from Pakistan. It is also important to note that the Sindhi script is not same as the Urdu-Shahmukhi script,{{cite news|title=The Imposition Of Urdu|url=http://nation.com.pk/editorials/10-Sep-2015/the-imposition-of-urdu|access-date=12 September 2015|publisher=NAWAIWAQT GROUP OF NEWSPAPERS|date=September 10, 2015}} hence one cannot use script conversions like Hindi-Urdu Transliteration.

Technically, a direct one-to-one mapping or rule-based script conversion is not possible between Pakistani and Indian Sindhi, majorly since Devanagari is an abugida script and Arabic-Sindhi is an abjad script, and also other constraints like multiple similar characters from Perso-Arabic which map onto a single character in Devanagari.{{Cite journal|last1=Leghari|first1=Mehwish|last2=U Rahman|first2=Mutee|date=2015-10-30|title=Towards Transliteration between Sindhi Scripts Using Roman Script|ssrn=3820433|language=en|journal=Linguistics and Literature Review |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=95–104|doi=10.32350/llr.12.03|doi-access=free}} Hence it is preferred to use dictionary-based or machine learning-based transliteration between the Sindhi scripts.{{Cite journal|last1=Lehal|first1=Gurpreet Singh|last2=Saini|first2=Tejinder Singh|date=December 2014|title=Sangam: A Perso-Arabic to Indic Script Machine Transliteration Model|url=https://aclanthology.org/W14-5135|language=en-us|pages=232–239}} For colloquial usage in the digital space where writing Sindhi in Latin script is prevalent, Romanisation of Sindhi is used.{{Cite journal|last1=Sodhar|first1=Irum Naz|last2=Jalbani|first2=Akhtar Hussain|last3=Channa|first3=Muhammad Ibrahim|last4=Hakro|first4=Dil Nawaz|date=2021-04-01|title=Romanized Sindhi Rules for Text Communication|url=https://publications.muet.edu.pk/index.php/muetrj/article/view/2082|journal=Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology|language=en|volume=40|issue=2|pages=298–304|doi=10.22581/muet1982.2102.04|bibcode=2021MURJE..40..298S |issn=2413-7219|doi-access=free}}

In addition to Sindhi, there have been attempts to design Indo-Pakistani transliteration systems for digraphic languages like Punjabi (written in Gurmukhi in East Punjab and Shahmukhi in West Punjab), Saraiki (written in an extended-Shahmukhi script in Saraikistan and unofficially in Sindhi-Devanagari script in India) and Kashmiri (written in extended Perso-Arabic by Kashmiri Muslims and extended-Devanagari by Kashmiri Hindus).{{Cite web|title=Perso-Arabic To Indic Script Transliteration|url=http://sangam.learnpunjabi.org/|access-date=2021-04-07|website=sangam.learnpunjabi.org}}{{Cite web|title=Saraiki - Devanagari Machine Transliteration System - SDMTS|url=http://www.sanlp.org/saraikiMT/index.html|access-date=2021-08-09|website=www.sanlp.org}}

{{Cite journal|last1=Lawaye|first1=Aadil|last2=Kak|first2=Aadil|last3=Mehdi|first3=Nali|date=January 2010|title=Building a Cross Script Kashmiri Converter: Issues and Solutions|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320547275|journal=Proceedings of Oriental COCOSDA}}