And now it’s time for another special symbol in Urdu - ‘tashdiid’ ( Devanagari: तश्दीद | IPA:  /t̪əʃd̪iːd̪/ | Pronunciation:  ).

Above: The tashdiid symbol

It is used to depict the “doubled” pronunciation of a letter in a word. Instead of writing the letter twice, the tashdiid is placed over a letter to lay emphasis on its sound.

For example, now let’s compare the word “pata” (पता), meaning “address” and the word “patta” (पत्ता) meaning “leaf” below:

Above: Comparative showing the emphasis created by the  tashdiid in the word “patta”

In the two words shown above, the only difference is the emphasis on the ‘t’ sound of the ‘te’ conveyed by the tashdiid placed over it, which changes the meaning of the word completely in the process.

Here’s another example - the word “nayaa” (नया), meaning “new” versus the word “nayyaa” (नय्या) meaning “boat”:

Above: Comparative showing the emphasis created by the  tashdiid in the word “nayyaa”

Here again, in the word “nayyaa”, the tashdiid is used to create emphasis over the ‘ya’ sound of the letter ‘chhoTii ye’.

13.3.1: Some more words

Here are a few more words with the tashdiid in there for you to learn.

Now that we’ve learnt about both the 'siin' group and the tashdiid, let’s move on to a quick quiz. Shall we?