Sindhi has adopted many words from Arabic and Persian, most of which are vocabulary related to government, education and religion. Many of these borrowed words include letters that represent distinct sounds in Arabic or Persian that are not present in Sindhi. For example, the letter  is used for the sound [t] in most Sindhi words, but in words borrowed from Arabic the letter  may also be used to represent the same [t] sound in Sindhi. In Arabic these two "t" sounds are distinct (though the distinct pronunciations would not be familiar to an English speaker), but Sindhi speakers pronounce them both the same way. The inclusion of these special Arabic letters in Sindhi means that sometimes the Sindhi spelling can't be predicted from the pronunciation of a word. For example, if you hear the Sindhi word toto 'parrot', there's no way to know in advance that it's spelled with the Arabic letter ( ) and not the more common letter , unless you happen to already
know that the word is borrowed from Arabic. For this reason you must check the spelling of a new word, especially if it contains a sound such as [t] that corresponds to one of the special Arabic letters. Here is a list of the letters that occur only in Arabic or Persian borrowed words, paired with their sounds in Sindhi and with the more common Sindhi letter for the same sound, when there is one. |
, 
, 
, 
