Khowar orthography is derived from
Urdu alphabet, with additional letters created to represent sounds unique to Khowar. Similar to Urdu, Khowar is typically written in the
calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script. From the end of the 19th century onwards, literaturists and rulers of
Chitral princely state have put in much effort to popularize literacy, reading, and writing in Khowar. Initially,
Mirza Muhammad Shakur and
Prince Tajumal Shah Mohfi adopted
Persian alphabet, used in neighbouring
Afghanistan. However, Persian alphabet did not have letters for many unique sounds in Khowar. By the early 20th century, as under British Colonial rule, Urdu education and literacy became ever more popular among Indian Muslims (see
Hindi–Urdu controversy), Chitrali literaturists, namely
Sir Nasir ul-Mulk and
Mirza Muhammad Ghafran saw Urdu script as a better fit for Khowar. Nonetheless, Urdu also lacked sounds that existed in Chitrali. Thus, new letters were proposed and created. But the process of settling on a standard Khowar script continued for decades into the 1970s. This process was not without controversy either. Some literaturists were advocating for keeping the number of letters to a minimum, or in other words removing Arabic letters that do not represent distinct sounds in Khowar and are homophone with other letters (for example , being homophone with respectively). In total, 6 new letters were added to the 37-letter Urdu Alphabet, to create the 43-letter Khowar script. ==Grammar==