INTRODUCTION

A consonant cluster is a group of two or more consonant sounds that are written together in a word without a vowel between them. For example, in the English words - “dust”, “chart ", “street", “spring” etc. and Hindi words such as “dard” (दर्द), “darj” (दर्ज) etc.

In Urdu, when such a cluster of two or more consonants is to be read together, a diacritic called jazm (Devanagari: जज़्म  ) is placed above them.

IMPORTANT

The jazm, like the diacritics zabar, zer & pesh, is almost always self-implied in common practise. For the sake of clarity, we’ll use it in as many examples till we’re a bit more comfortable with the language.

Let’s take the word “abr” (अब्र):

Without the implication of the jazm, the word “abr” (अब्र) may very well be interpreted as “abar” (अबर). Here’s a comparison showing the difference created by the placement of the jazm:

Above: An illustrative example showing the difference created by the jazm

NOTE

The example shown here is hypothetical and is used only to illustrate the implication of the jazm. The word “abr” (अब्र), meaning “cloud” is a commonly used word in Urdu and is always shown without the jazm and understood as such.

Therefore, by that logic, here’s a case of the word “dard” (दर्द):

Above: The word “dard” with and without the jazm

Similarly, here’s the word “zard” (ज़र्द):

Above: The word “zard” with and without the jazm

And, the word “darj” (दर्ज):

Above: The word “darj” with and without the jazm

Now that we’re equipped with this new knowledge, let’s move on ahead and see how the ‘do chashmii he’ works with the re group. By the time we’re done with this, we should have another huge bag of words we can read, and possibly write, in Urdu.