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Sindhi phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about Sindhi
What does this Sindhi page cover?
Twenty-two functional categories with Sindhi examples: the four-form copula (آھي for present, ھو for past, ھيو for past-of-existence, plus gendered shapes), tense and aspect (imperfective for habits, perfective with gendered participles, the progressive in پيو), modality (سگھڻ for ability, گھرجي for need), negation (ناهي, نه), questions (ڪير, ڇا, ڪٿي, ڪڏھن), the possessive particle جو/جي/جا, comparison, and 14 others.
How does the agreeing possessive work?
Sindhi's possessive particle changes shape with the possessed noun, not the possessor. منهنجو ڪتاب 'my book' uses جو because ڪتاب is masculine singular; منهنجي ڇوڪري 'my girl' uses جي because ڇوڪري is feminine; منهنجا ڪتاب 'my books' uses جا for plural. The possessor itself stays the same; the linker tracks what's being possessed. Hindi and Urdu work the same way with their کا/کی/کے.
Why are there four copula forms?
Sindhi distinguishes تعلق (relation/identity) from وجود (existence) and present from past, and each combination has its own copula form. آھي āhī covers present existence and identity; ھو ho is the simple past; ھيو is the past of existence in some uses. Examples in the Existence and Possession sections lay out the full grid.
What are 'implosive consonants' and why do they matter?
Sindhi has four implosive consonants — ɓ, ɗ, ʄ, ɠ — produced with inward airflow, which gives them a distinctive hollow quality. They contrast with regular plain and aspirated consonants, so they carry meaning differences. Most Indo-Aryan languages don't have implosives at all; learning to produce them is one of Sindhi's distinctive challenges. The page marks them in IPA-style romanization.
Is this Sindhi written in Arabic script or Devanagari?
Arabic-script Sindhi (the most widely used standard, official in Sindh, Pakistan, and used in Indian Sindhi publications). A Devanagari Sindhi convention also exists in India. The grammar shown here is the same in either script; phrases use the Arabic-script tradition with romanization that works for either reading style.
Sources for Sindhi
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Trumpp, Ernest (1872). "Grammar of the Sindhi Language." Trübner and Co., London. — Consulted directly: noun gender (pp.31-41), plural (pp.104-111), cases (pp.111-128), compound verbs Ch.XVII (pp.338-344, PDF pp.410-416).
- Yegorova, R. P. (1971). "The Sindhi Language." Nauka Publishing, Moscow. — Consulted directly: noun gender/case (pp.36-43), pronouns (pp.56-68), verbs (pp.74-91), Past Perfective paradigm of halaṇu (pp.88-89: 1SG.M haliuse, 2SG.M halē), compound nominal verbs (pp.107-108).
- Khubchandani, Lachman M. (2003). "Sindhi." In George Cardona & Dhanesh Jain (eds.), "The Indo-Aryan Languages." Routledge. — Consulted directly: §4.3.2 nouns, §4.3.3 pronouns Table 17.5, §4.4.2 moods, Table 17.6 (subjunctive), Table 17.7 (verb in indicative mood: 1SG.M -UsI, 2SG.M -ẽ), §4.4.3 compound verbs, §5.5 bound-pronouns Table 17.8.
- Cole, R. A. (1904). "An Elementary Sindhi Grammar." Oxford University Press.