3.
“I’m bored – can I go home now?”, Michala
said.
3.
Colons, semi-colons and ellipsis:
Colons are used in almost the same way as
in English. Semi-colon and ellipsis are
not generally used in Urdu. However, we
can see their use sometimes because Urdu
is still evolving and is influenced by English.
Section
Three – Measurements and Abbreviations
1.
Measurements:
Mostly the metric system is used. But the
transition is not yet complete. For computer
monitors, inner diameter of pipes/tubes,
nautical miles, size of computer disks,
size of refrigerators, etc., imperial measurements
are still used.
To
separate thousands in 4-digit numbers, normally
a comma is used. “ء” had previously been
used instead of a decimal point but the
use of a decimal point is common now.
Time:
The following examples show how the time
is written in Urdu.
10.30
am
Noon
4.30
pm
Midnight
Date:
Similarly, the following examples show how
to write the date in varying formats in
Urdu.
20
February 2004
20th
February 2004
20/02/2004
20-2-2004
February
20
There
should be no space between a number and
a measurement, including percentages and
degrees Celsius, so 50% and 30°C.
Currency:
The Pakistani currency is Rupees (Rs.).
Rs. 20 is written as: 
£230
/ 230 pounds sterling / €45 / 45 euro /
$98 billion / 98 billion Dollars would be
written as:
2.
Abbreviations:
N/a
Not widely used but we can write 
No. (nos.)
e.g.
WxLxHxD
No corresponding abbreviation.
1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th
Mr. / Mrs.
Messrs.
Miss
Dear Sir / Madam
m (for metre)
cm (for centimetre)
lb (for pound weight)
g (for gram)
km (for kilometre)
yr (for year)
k (for 1000)
EMEA
(Europe, Middle-East & Asia)
No corresponding abbreviation.
Days of the week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs,
Fri, Sat, Sun
No corresponding abbreviation. Always written
in full.
Months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul,
Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
No corresponding abbreviation. Always written
in full.
Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
(not normally abbreviated in English)
No corresponding abbreviation. Always written
in full.
However,
please note that abbreviation is not very
common in Urdu.
Section
Four – Hyphenation
Hyphens
and dashes are not used in Urdu.
Section
Five – Miscellaneous Peculiarities
Tonal
marks are used to distinguish between the
meanings of various words and also to help
pronounce a word in the right way.
Some
place names are different in Urdu.
People’s
names are always written in this sequence:
first, middle, last. There is no upper case
or lower case in Urdu.
Re
stylistic forms, Italics are not used in
Urdu, but bold is used in the same sense
as in English.
Section
Six – Geographic Distribution
Urdu
is the national language of Pakistan. It
is also widely spoken in India, Afghanistan,
Bahrain, Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa,
Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand,
Qatar, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Apart
from Urdu, regional languages like Punjabi,
Pushto, Sindhi, Balochi, etc. are spoken
by large populations. For official matters,
English is mainly used. Urdu is the second
official language but its use is very rare
in that capacity. English is taught from
the first day in school. All professional
college and university education is in English.
Urdu,
at the beginning, was a mixed language in
which most of the words were from Hindi.
It was later influenced by Persian, Arabic,
Punjabi and English at various times. Now
we see that Urdu is a conglomerate of all
these languages. It is an evolving language
and new terms (especially English ones)
are being added to it all the time.
Section Seven - Character Set
The
Urdu character set has 36 characters. Urdu
has the same right-to-left script as Arabic
and Farsi/Persian have. The majority of
the letters can have 3 possible shapes depending
upon where they occur in a word (in the
beginning, in the middle or at the end).
There is no upper or lower case.
Shortcut:
Unicode (Hex), ALT+X
