Generate Punjabi subtitles for your Urdu videos

From right-to-left Urdu into Punjabi

Urdu runs right to left and Punjabi runs left to right, so the subtitle file reverses direction relative to the speech. Nothing needs configuring for that, but it is worth previewing once before you publish.

Mixed passages — a Latin-script brand name or number inside a right-to-left line — are where rendering most often looks wrong, and they are worth checking in the player you actually publish to rather than in a text editor.

How Urdu audio becomes Punjabi subtitles

Audio in Urdu (اردو) is transcribed first, then translated into Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ). Because the translation runs on the transcript rather than on the audio, the Punjabi subtitle file keeps the timings of the original Urdu speech — each line appears at the moment it was actually said.

From Nastaliq to Gurmukhi

Urdu is written in Perso-Arabic, in the Nastaliq style and Punjabi in Gurmukhi, so the exported file uses a different writing system from the audio that produced it. The subtitle formats handle that — SRT and VTT are plain text and carry any script — but the font in whatever plays the file has to cover it.

This is the most common reason a Punjabi subtitle track looks correct in an editor and shows boxes or blanks on a device. Test on the target platform before you publish a batch.

Why translate Urdu video into Punjabi

Urdu is spoken principally in Pakistan and northern India; Punjabi in Indian Punjab, and in Pakistan where it is written in Shahmukhi. A Punjabi subtitle track is what lets one recording reach both audiences without re-recording, re-editing or dubbing it.

Because subtitles are a separate file rather than part of the picture, you can attach several language tracks to the same video and let viewers pick.

About the Urdu audio

Urdu and Hindi are close to identical in speech and quite different on the page — the same sentence transcribes into Nastaliq here and Devanagari under Hindi. Pick by the script you need the subtitle file in, not by how the audio sounds. Nastaliq is right-to-left, and most players handle it correctly from an SRT without any extra configuration.

About the Punjabi subtitles

Transcription here produces Gurmukhi, the script used in Indian Punjab. Punjabi spoken in Pakistan is conventionally written in the Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi script instead — the speech is largely mutually intelligible, but the two scripts are not interchangeable in a subtitle file.

What a Urdu to Punjabi subtitle file looks like

Four lines of Urdu speech, transcribed and translated, as they come out of the exported SRT. The timings are the Urdu speaker's — translation does not move them, which is why the file drops onto the original video unchanged.

1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,240
ਸਾਰਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਸ਼ੁਭ ਸਵੇਰ।

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:06,120
ਆਉਣ ਲਈ ਸਾਰਿਆਂ ਦਾ ਧੰਨਵਾਦ।

3
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,300
ਮੈਂ ਥੋੜ੍ਹੀ ਦੇਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਵੇਰਵੇ ਸਾਂਝੇ ਕਰਾਂਗਾ।

4
00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:12,040
ਅਗਲੀ ਵਾਰ ਮਿਲਾਂਗੇ।

What to check before publishing

• Names and places, which translation handles less reliably than ordinary prose.
• Idiom — a phrase that is natural in Urdu may need loosening to read well in Punjabi.
• That Gurmukhi renders in your player, not just in the editor you exported from.
• Timing on fast exchanges, where two speakers overlap.