Alif Bay Jeem Dal

If you go through a few dictionaries of Urdu (by individuals like Platts, Shakespeare, etc. and by organizations like Ferozesons, Urdu Dictionary Board, Muqtadara Qaumi Zaban (National Language Authority), etc.) you will quickly find out that there is a significant variation in the character set and the sequence of these characters.

Here are a few questions for the Urdu speakers out there. Let’s see how good an Urdu-daan you are?

1. How many characters of Urdu are there?
2. Is Alif Mad a character of Urdu? If yes, does it come before or after Alif?
3. Is Gol-Tay a character of Urdu? If not, is it a Tay or a Hay? Where does Gol-Tay come, before or after Tay or Gol-Hay?
4. Is Do-Chashmey-Hay a character of Urdu? If not, what is it? If yes, where does it come?
5. What about Noon-Ghunna, is it a character of Urdu or a variation of Noon? If it is a character, should it be before or after Noon?
6. Is there aerab (zer, zabar, pesh) on Bay in ’bol’ ("talk")? If yes, what is it?
7. Is the Yay in ’bail’ ("ivy/creeper") Chhoti-Yay or BaRi-Yay, or neither, or both (?) ?
8. Before eRay used to be written as ray with a small-Toay on it in Urdu, how was it written?
9. Is Hamza a character or part of the set of aerab or both?
10. How many Urdu speakers are there in the world?

Please post your replies. I will post the answers soon.