Although the Punjabi sound system is similar to those of other Indo-Aryan languages, it has the distinction of being the only tonal Indo-European language.

Vowels
Punjabi has ten vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that make a difference in word meaning. Vowels can be short or long. Vowel length is marked by a macron. Vowels can be oral or nasal. Nasalization distinguishes word meaning.

In addition, there are two diphthongs: /ai/ and /au/.

Consonants
Punjabi consonants have the following distinguishing features which are also typical of other Indo-Aryan languages.

• There is a contrast between aspirated vs. unaspirated stops and affricates, e.g., p—p, t—t, k—k, Aspirated consonants are produced with a strong puff of air.
• Most consonants can be geminated (doubled).
• There is a contrast between apical and retroflex consonants, e.g., Apical consonants are produced with the tip of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth, whereas retroflex consonants are produced with the tongue curled, so that its underside comes in contact with the roof of the mouth.
• There are several nasal consonants, including m, n, (retroflex), ñ (as in canyon), and (as in sing).
• Consonant clusters are permitted mostly in medial and final positions. Initial clusters are infrequent and, for the most part, consist of a consonant + /r/.

..xx	.xx	Bilabial	Apico-dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveo-palatal	Velar
Stops voiceless	unaspirated	p	t	x		.x.x..	k
	aspirated	p	t	x		....xx	k
Stops voiced	x	b	d	x		x	[g]
Fricatives	voiceless	x	x	[s]	x		[x]
Affricates	voiceless	x	x	x	xx	t	x
	voiced	x	x	x	x	[d]	x
Nasals	x	m	n	x		ñ	.
Laterals	x	......x	l	x		x.....	...x
Flap	x	..x.... .x	r .	x		....	...x
Semi-vowels	.x	w	.xx	x	.x	j	.x

Tones
Punjabi is a tonal language. It has three tones: High, Mid, and Low. The tone of a word is a pitch pattern permanently associated with it. A change of tone changes the meaning of a word.

Stress
Stress in Punjabi can fall on any syllable of a word, and therefore can differentiate words that are otherwise identical. In general, however, stress falls on the penultimate (one before last) syllable unless the syllable ends in a short vowel. If so, then the stress fall on the antepenultimate (second from the end) syllable.

Click here to listen to Ajeet Cour, a Punjabi short story writer, read from her works in Punjabi.

Punjabi grammar is very much like that of other Indo-Aryan languages such as Gujarati. Like all these languages, Punjabi is agglutinative, i.e., it adds suffixes to roots to build words and to express grammatical relations.

Nouns
Punjabi nouns are marked for the following grammatical categories:

• number: singular and plural;
• gender: masculine, feminine;
• case: nominative, genitive, accusative-dative, instrumental, ablative, locative, and vocative; all cases, except vocative, are marked by postpositions; the vocative case may be marked by a vocative particle or term of address; .
• there are no definite or indefinite articles;
• adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender, number, and case;

Verbs
Verbs agree with their subjects (active voice), or with their objects (passive voice) in person, number and gender. Verbs are marked for the following categories:

• There are three persons: 1st, 2nd, 2nd honorific, 3rd.
• There are two numbers: singular and plural;
• There are three tenses: present, past, future.
• There are two aspects: imperfective and perfective.
• There are three moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, conditional
• There are two voices: active and passive.

Word order
The normal word order in Punjabi is Subject - Object - Verb. Modifiers precede the nouns they modify. Indirect objects precede direct objects.

The basic vocabulary of Punjabi is Sanskrit in origin, but over the years Punjabi has borrowed words from other languages. Eastern Punjabi has many Hindi and English loanwords, while Western Punjabi contains many borrowings from Persian, Arabic and Urdu.

Below are the Punjabi numerals 1-10 in Romanization.