You may be able to recall from earlier (....) that the Urdu script is cursive, i.e; when forming a word, most letters join with other letters to form words.

For this purpose Urdu letters are divided into two groups called non-connectors and connectors.

Non-connectors are letters that join only the preceding letter but do not join the subsequent letter ie they join the letter on their right but not the letter on their left (remember that Urdu is written right to left).

To make things clearer, Connectors are those letters that join with the letters on either side, both preceding them and following them.(remember that Urdu is written right to left).

It is important to note that connectors assume a shortened form when joining with the subsequent letter in a word. At the end of a word they retain their full shape as there is no following letter. You will see how this happens in the next unit.

(This may appear complicated right now but is really very simple once you get the hang of it. There is also an easy way to remember which letters are non-connectors and we shall tell you about that in a later lesson.) 

Of the letters we have seen so far, alif is a non-connector and all the letters of the 'be' group are connectors.

Summary:

urdu words are divided into non-connectors and connectors

non-connectors do not join the letters that follow them in any word

connectors join both preceding and subsequent letters and take a shortened shape except when appearing at the end of a word.

Now let us get to what you’ve been waiting for - We shall see how these apply to Urdu letters that we have learnt so far and start creating our first words in the Urdu script. Sounds fun, right?