Zubane, meaning languages, is a project about the threads that tie Hindi and Urdu to Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, English, and beyond. The premise is simple: people who discover how much vocabulary they already share stop seeing strangers and start seeing cousins. Language can bridge divides that politics cannot.
The app
Words that traveled
Browse words like kitaab, duniya, and dil in Devanagari and Nastaliq side by side — with their origins and the surprising list of languages that share them, from Turkish to Swahili to Indonesian.
The nuqta files
फ → फ़ ज → ज़ ख → ख़
One dot changes everything. A full script chart shows how Devanagari writes borrowed sounds with a single fragile dot while Nastaliq gives each its own letter — and why that difference may be quietly steering how millions of people speak.
True Nastaliq, daily words, practice
Urdu rendered in genuine Nastaliq. A word of the day with its etymology. Quick quiz rounds on meanings and origins. No account, no ads, no tracking — everything works offline.
Get in touch
hello@zubane.com — corrections, counterexamples, and recordings of your grandparents welcome.