Gurmukhī is the most common script used for writing the Punjabi language. The Gurmukhi alphabet was devised during the 16th century by Guru Angad Dev, the Second Sikh guru. It was modelled on the Landa alphabet.  Gurmukhi is primarily used in the Eastern Punjab region of India, while the Shahmukhi script is officially used in the Punjab region of Pakistan..An abugida derived from the Laṇḍā script and ultimately descended from Brahmi, Gurmukhi was standardized by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad Dev, in the 16th century. The whole of the Guru Granth Sahib's 1430 pages are written in this script. The name Gurmukhi is derived from the Old Punjabi term "guramukhī", meaning "from the mouth of the Guru".

Modern Gurmukhi has forty-one consonants (vianjan), nine vowel symbols (lāga mātrā), two symbols for nasal sounds (bindī and ṭippī), and one symbol which duplicates the sound of any consonant (addak). In addition, four conjuncts are used: three subjoined forms of the consonants Rara, Haha and Vava, and one half-form of Yayya. Use of the conjunct forms of Vava and Yayya is increasingly scarce in modern contexts.

Gurmukhi is primarily used in the Eastern Punjab region of India, while the Shahmukhi script is officially used in the Punjab region of Pakistan. Gurmukhi has been adapted to write other languages, such as Braj Bhasha, Khariboli (and other Hindustani dialects), Sanskrit and Sindhi. Gurmukhi is the ecclesiastical script of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs. Gurus adopted the Proto-Gurmukhi script to write the Guru Granth Sahib, the religious scriptures of the Sikhs. Other contemporary scripts used in the Punjab were Takri and the Laṇḍā alphabets. Also Takri was a script that developed through the Devaseshastage of the Sharada script, and is found mainly in the Hill States, such as Chamba, where it is called Chambyali and in Jammu, where it is known as Dogri. The local Takri variants got the status of official scripts in some of the Punjab Hill States, and were used for both administrative and literary purposes until the 19th century. After 1948, when Himachal Pradesh was established as an administrative unit, the local Takri variants were replaced by Devanagari. The word Gurmukhi is commonly translated as "from the Mouth of the Guru". However, the term used for the Punjabi script has somewhat different connotations. The opinion given by traditional scholars is that as the Sikh holy writings, before they were scribed, were uttered by the Gurus, they came to be known as Gurmukhi or the "Utterance of the Guru". And consequently, the script that was used for scribing the utterance was also given the same name. However, the prevalent view among Punjabi linguists is that as in the early stages the Gurmukhi letters were primarily used by Gurmukhs, or the Sikhs devoted to the Guru, the script came to be associated with them.