Urdu

This article is about Modern Standard Urdu. For other uses, see Urdu (disambiguation).

Urdu
اُردُو
Urdu in Perso-Arabic script (Nastaliq style)
Pronunciation	IPA: [ˈʊrd̪u]
Native to	Pakistan and India
Native speakers	65 million (80% in India) (2007) Second language: 94 million in Pakistan (1999).
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Zone (Hindi) Western Hindi Hindustani Khariboli Urdu
Writing system	Extended Perso-Arabic (Urdu alphabet) Devanagari Indian Urdu Braille (Bharati) Pakistani Urdu Braille
Signed forms	Indian Signing System (ISS) Signed Urdu
Official status
Official language in	Pakistan India; in the following states and union territories: Bihar Delhi (Capital Territory) Jammu & Kashmir Uttar Pradesh Telangana
Regulated by	National Language Authority National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ur
ISO 639-2	urd
ISO 639-3	urd
Glottolog	urdu1245
Linguasphere	59-AAF-q (with Hindi, including 58 varieties: 59-AAF-qaa to 59-AAF-qil)
Areas where Urdu is official or co-official with local language   (Other) areas where only a regional language is official

Urdu (/ˈʊərduː/; Urdu: اُردُو‎ ALA-LC: [Urdū] ; IPA: [ˈʊrd̪uː], or Modern Standard Urdu) is a standardised and Persianised register of the Hindustani language. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and an official language of six states of India. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India.

Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the region of Hindustan. Apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, which is associated with the Hindu community. The Urdu language received recognition and patronage under British rule when the British replaced the Persian and local official languages with the Urdu and English languages in the North Indian regions of Jammu and Kashmir in 1846 and Punjab in 1849.

Origin

Main article: History of Hindustani

Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani. It evolved from the medieval (6th to 13th century) Apabhraṃśa register of the preceding Shauraseni language, a Middle Indo-Aryan language that is also the ancestor of other modern languages, including the Punjabi dialects. Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech. Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit.

Although the word Urdu itself is derived from the Turkic word ordu (army) or orda, from which English horde is also derived, Turkish borrowings in Urdu are minimal. Urdu words originating from Turkish and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ta' marbuta ( ة ) changes to he ( ه ) or te ( ت ).

Arabic influence in the region began with the late first millennium Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent. The Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries later by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of Mahmud of Ghazni. The Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate established Persian as its official language, a policy continued by the Mughal Empire, which extended over most of northern South Asia from the 16th to 18th centuries and cemented Persian influence on the developing Hindustani.

With the advent of the British Raj, Persian was no longer the language of administration but Hindustani, still written in the Persian script, continued to be used by both Hindus and Muslims. The name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi. The language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the official language in 1837 and was made co-official, along with English. Urdu was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian. This triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. Thus a new literary register, called "Hindi", replaced traditional Hindustani as the official language of Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus, a divide that was formalized with the division of India and Pakistan after independence (though there are Hindu poets who continue to write in Urdu to this day, with post-independence examples including Gopi Chand Narang and Gulzar). At independence, Pakistan established a highly Persianized literary form of Urdu as its national language.

There have been attempts to "purify" Urdu and Hindi, by purging Urdu of Sanskrit loan words, and Hindi of Persian loan words, and new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and from Sanskrit for Hindi. This has primarily affected academic and literary vocabulary, and both national standards remain heavily influenced by both Persian and Sanskrit. English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language.

Speakers and geographic distribution

See also: Languages of Pakistan and Languages of India

The phrase Zuban-i Urdū-yi Muʿallá ("The language of the exalted camp") written in Nastaʿlīq script.

There are between 60 and 70 million native speakers of Urdu: there were 52 million in India per the 2001 census, some 6% of the population; approximately 10 million in Pakistan or 7.57% per the 1998 census; and several hundred thousand in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United States, and Bangladesh (where it is called "Bihari"). However, a knowledge of Urdu allows one to speak with far more people than that, because Hindustani, of which Urdu is one variety, is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world, after Mandarin, English, and Spanish. Because of the difficulty in distinguishing between Urdu and Hindi speakers in India and Pakistan, as well as estimating the number of people for whom Urdu is a second language, the estimated number of speakers is uncertain and controversial.

Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan itself. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone changes and has lately incorporated and borrowed many words from regional languages like Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi and Balti as well as former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) Bengali language, thus allowing speakers of the language in Pakistan to distinguish themselves more easily and giving the language a decidedly Pakistani flavour. Similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni (Deccan) of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdu's similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can easily understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax (grammar), morphology, and the core vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one single language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons.

In Pakistan Urdu is mostly learned as a second or a third language as nearly 93% of Pakistan's population has a native language other than Urdu. Despite this, Urdu was chosen as a token of unity and as a lingua franca so as not to give any native Pakistani language preference over the other. Urdu is therefore spoken and understood by the vast majority in some form or another, including a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Jhang, Sargodha and Skardu. It is written, spoken and used in all provinces/territories of Pakistan despite the fact that the people from differing provinces may have different indigenous languages, as from the fact that it is the "base language" of the country. For this reason, it is also taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary school in both English and Urdu medium school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers from people whose native language is one of the State languages of Pakistan such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Potwari, Hindko, Pahari, Saraiki, Balti, and Brahui who can read and write only Urdu. It is absorbing many words from the regional languages of Pakistan. This variation of Urdu is sometimes referred to as Pakistani Urdu.

So although most of the population is conversant in Urdu, it is the first language of only an estimated 7% of the population who are mainly Muslim immigrants (known as Muhajir in Pakistan) from different parts of South Asia. The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. There are millions of Pakistanis whose native language is not Urdu, but because they have studied in Urdu medium schools, they can read and write Urdu along with their native language. Most of the nearly five million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu. With such a large number of people(s) speaking Urdu, the language has in recent years acquired a peculiar Pakistani flavour further distinguishing it from the Urdu spoken by native speakers and diversifying the language even further.

Autograph and a couplet of Last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah II, dated 29 April 1844

A great number of newspapers are published in Urdu in Pakistan, including the Daily Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt, Millat, among many others (see List of newspapers in Pakistan#Urdu language Newspapers).

In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities that were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra (Marathwada), Karnataka and cities such as Lucknow, Delhi, Bareilly, Meerut, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, Deoband, Moradabad, Azamgarh, Bijnor, Najibabad, Rampur, Aligarh, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Agra, Kanpur, Badaun, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mysore, Patna, Gulbarga, Parbhani, Nanded, Malegaon, Bidar, Ajmer, and Ahmedabad. Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams. Indian madrasahs also teach Arabic as well as Urdu. India has more than 3,000 Urdu publications including 405 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Neshat News Urdu, Sahara Urdu, Daily Salar, Hindustan Express, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, The Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in Bengaluru, Malegaon, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai (see List of newspapers in India).

Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centres of the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centres of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Australia. Along with Arabic, Urdu is among the immigrant languages with the most speakers in Catalonia, leading to fears of linguistic ghettos.

Official status

A trilingual signboard in the UAE

A multilingual New Delhi railway station board

Urdu is the national and one of the two official languages of Pakistan, along with English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, whereas the state-by-state languages (languages spoken throughout various regions) are the provincial languages. Only 7.57% of Pakistanis have Urdu as their mother language, but Urdu is understood all over Pakistan. It is used in education, literature, office and court business. It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country. Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca and national language of Pakistan. In practice English is used instead of Urdu in the higher echelons of government.

Urdu is also one of the officially recognized languages in India and has official language status in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir and the national capital, New Delhi.

In Jammu and Kashmir, section 145 of the Kashmir Constitution provides: "The official language of the State shall be Urdu but the English language shall unless the Legislature by law otherwise provides, continue to be used for all the official purposes of the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of the Constitution."

Dialects

Urdu has a few recognised dialects, including Dakhni, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region). Dakhni (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in Deccan region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Marathi and Konkani, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "qāf" (ق) as "k̲h̲e" (خ).

Urdu spoken in Indian state of Odisha is different from Urdu spoken in other areas; it is a mixture of Odia and Bihari.

Code Switching

Many Urdu speakers, being familiar with both Urdu and English, display code-switching (referred to as Urdish) in certain localities and between certain social groups.

On 14 August 2015, the Government of Pakistan launched the Ilm Pakistan movement, with a uniform curriculum in Urdish. Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Pakistan, said, “Now the government is working on a new curriculum to provide a new medium to the students which will be the combination of both Urdu and English and will name it Urdish.”

Comparison with Modern Standard Hindi

Urdu and Hindi on a road sign in India.

See also: Hindi–Urdu controversy, Hindustani phonology, and Hindustani grammar

Standard Urdu is often contrasted with Standard Hindi. Apart from religious associations, the differences are largely restricted to the standard forms: Standard Urdu is conventionally written in the Nastaliq style of the Persian alphabet and relies heavily on Persian and Arabic as a source for technical and literary vocabulary, whereas Standard Hindi is conventionally written in Devanāgarī and draws on Sanskrit. However, both have large numbers of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit words, and most linguists consider them to be two standardised forms of the same language, and consider the differences to be sociolinguistic, though a few classify them separately. Old Urdu dictionaries also contain most of the Sanskrit words now present in Hindi. Mutual intelligibility decreases in literary and specialized contexts that rely on educated vocabulary. Further, it is quite easy in a longer conversation to distinguish differences in vocabulary and pronunciation of some Urdu phonemes. As a result of religious nationalism since the partition of British India and continued communal tensions, native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert them to be distinct languages, despite the numerous similarities between the two in a colloquial setting.

The barrier created between the Hindi and Urdu is eroding: Hindi-speakers are comfortable with using Persian-Arabic borrowed words and Urdu-speakers are also comfortable with using Sanskrit terminology.

Phonology

See also: Hindustani phonology

Consonants

Urdu consonant phonemes

		Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	plain	m	n			ŋ
	voiced aspirated	(mʱ)	(nʱ)
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t̪	ʈ	tʃ	k	q	(ʔ)
	voiceless aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ	ʈʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	dʒ	ɡ
	voiced aspirated	bʱ	d̪ʱ	ɖʱ	dʒʱ	ɡʱ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s		ʃ	x
	voiced		z		ʒ	ɣ		ɦ
Flap	plain		ɾ	ɽ
	voiced aspirated		(ɾʱ)	ɽʱ
Approximant	plain	ʋ	l		j
	voiced aspirated		(lʱ)

Notes

• Marginal and non-universal phonemes are in parentheses.
• /ɣ/ is post-velar.

Vowels

The oral vowel phonemes of Urdu according to Ohala (1999:102)

Urdu vowels

		Front		Central		Back
		short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	oral	ɪ	iː			ʊ	uː
	nasal	ɪ̃	ĩː			ʊ̃	ũː
Close-mid	oral	(e)	eː	ə		(o)	oː
	nasal		ẽː	ə̃			õː
Open-mid	oral	(ɛ)	ɛː			(ɔ)	ɔː
	nasal		ɛ̃ː				ɔ̃ː
Open	oral		æː				ɑː
	nasal						ɑ̃ː
Diphthongs	oral	ɪeː   ɪɑː   iːoː   iːɑː ʊiː   ʊeː   ʊoː   ʊɑː eːoː   əiː   əuː   əeː oiː   oeː   oːɪ   oːiː   oːeː   oːɑː ɑːɪ   ɑːiː   ɑːʊ   ɑːuː   ɑːeː   ɑːoː
	nasal	ɪũː   iːũː   ɪːɑ̃ː ʊĩː   ʊõː   ʊɑ̃ː   əĩː oːĩː   oːũː   oːẽː ɑːĩː   ɑːũː   ɑːẽː   ɑːõː
Triphthongs	oral	oəiː   oəuː   oːiːeː   ɑːiːeː
	nasal	ʊɑːẽː   ʊɑːõ

Note

• Marginal and non-universal vowels are in parentheses.

Vocabulary

See also: Hindustani etymology

The language's Indo-Aryan base has been enriched by borrowing from Persian and Arabic. There are also a smaller number of borrowings from Chagatai, Portuguese, and more recently English. Many of the words of Arabic origin have been adopted through Persian and have different pronunciations and nuances of meaning and usage than they do in Arabic.

Levels of formality

Urdu in its less formalised register has been referred to as a rek̤h̤tah (ریختہ, [reːxt̪aː]), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as zabān-i Urdū-yi muʿallá (زبانِ اُردُوئے معلّٰى [zəbaːn eː ʊrd̪u eː moəllaː]), the "Language of the Exalted Camp", referring to the Imperial army.

The etymology of the word used in the Urdu language for the most part decides how polite or refined one's speech is. For example, Urdu speakers would distinguish between پانی pānī and آب āb, both meaning "water"; the former is used colloquially and has older Indic origins, whereas the latter is used formally and poetically, being of Persian origin.

If a word is of Persian or Arabic origin, the level of speech is considered to be more formal and grand. Similarly, if Persian or Arabic grammar constructs, such as the izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is inherited from Sanskrit, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal. This distinction is similar to the division in English between words of Latin, French and Old English origins.

Politeness

Urdu syntax and vocabulary reflect a three tiered system of politeness called ādāb. With its emphasis on politeness and propriety, Urdu has always been considered an elevated, somewhat aristocratic, language in South Asia. It continues to conjure a subtle, polished affect in South Asian linguistic and literary sensibilities and thus continues to be preferred for song-writing and poetry, even by non-native speakers.

Any verb can be conjugated as per three or four different tiers of politeness. For example, the verb to speak in Urdu is bolnā (بولنا) and the verb to sit is baiṭhnā (بیٹھنا). The imperatives "speak!" and "sit!" can thus be conjugated five different ways, each marking subtle variation in politeness and propriety. These permutations exclude a host of auxiliary verbs and expressions that can be added to these verbs to add even greater degree of subtle variation. For extremely polite, formal or ceremonial situations, nearly all commonly used verbs have equivalent Persian/Arabic synonyms (last row below).

Disparaging/Extremely casual	[tū] bol!	!تُو] بول]	[tū] baiṭh!	!تُو] بیٹھ]
Casual and intimate	[tum] bolo.	تُم] بولو۔]	[tum] baiṭho.	تُم] بیٹھو۔]
Polite and intimate	[āp] bolo.	آپ] بولو۔]	[āp] baiṭho.	آپ] بیٹھو۔]
Formal yet intimate	[āp] boleṉ.	آپ] بولیں۔]	[āp] baiṭheṉ.	آپ] بیٹھیں۔]
Polite and formal	[āp] boli'e.	آپ] بولئے۔]	[āp] baiṭhi'e.	آپ] بیٹھئے۔]
Ceremonial / Extremely formal	[āp] farmā'iye.	آپ] فرمائیے۔]	[āp] tashrīf rakhi'e.	‏[آپ] تشریف رکھئے۔

Similarly, nouns are also marked for politeness and formality. For example, us kī wālidah, "his mother" is a politer way of saying us kī ammī. Us kī wālidah-yi muḥtarmah is an even more polite reference, whereas saying us kī māṉ would be construed as derogatory. None of these forms are slang or shortenings, and all are encountered in writing.

Expressions are also marked for politeness. For example, the expression "no" could be na, nahīṉ, nahīṉ jī or jī nahīṉ in order of politeness. Similarly, "yes" can be hāṉ, jī, hāṉ jī or jī hāṉ in order of politeness.

Writing system

Main articles: Urdu alphabet and Urdu braille

Further information: Hindustani orthography

The Urdu Nastaʿliq alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabets

Urdu script

Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the Arabic alphabet. Urdu is associated with the Nastaʿlīq style of Persian calligraphy, whereas Arabic is generally written in the Naskh or Ruq'ah styles. Nasta’liq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as kātib or khush-nawīs, until the late 1980s. One handwritten Urdu newspaper, The Musalman, is still published daily in Chennai.

Kaithi script

Urdu was also written in the Kaithi script. A highly Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in Bengal, Bihar, and the North-West Provinces & Oudh. Until the late 19th century, all proceedings and court transactions in this register of Urdu were written officially in the Persian script. In 1880, Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of Bengal and Bihar and ordered the exclusive use of Kaithi, a popular script used for both Urdu and Hindi. Kaithi's association with Urdu and Hindi was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.

Devanagari script

More recently in India, Urdu speakers have adopted Devanagari for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark Urdū in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi in Devanagari. Such publishers have introduced new orthographic features into Devanagari for the purpose of representing the Perso-Arabic etymology of Urdu words. One example is the use of अ (Devanagari a) with vowel signs to mimic contexts of ع (‘ain), in violation of Hindi orthographic rules. For Urdu publishers, the use of Devanagari gives them a greater audience, whereas the orthographic changes help them preserve a distinct identity of Urdu.

Roman script

Main article: Roman Urdu

Urdu is occasionally written in the Roman script. Roman Urdu has been used since the days of the British Raj, partly as a result of the availability and low cost of Roman movable type for printing presses. The use of Roman Urdu was common in contexts such as product labels. Today it is regaining popularity among users of text-messaging and Internet services and is developing its own style and conventions. Habib R. Sulemani says,

"The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world, especially Pakistan, are using Romanised Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. Typically, in that sense, a person from Islamabad in Pakistan may chat with another in Delhi in India on the Internet only in Roman Urdū. They both speak the same language but would have different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population."

Roman Urdu holds significance among the Christians of Pakistan and North India. Urdū was the dominant native language among Christians of Karachi and Lahore in present-day Pakistan and Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh Rajasthan in India, during the early part of the 19th and 20th century, and is still used by Christians in these places. Pakistani and Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdū. Thus Roman Urdū was a common way of writing among Pakistani and Indian Christians in these areas up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urdū Bibles that enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urdū. However, the usage of Roman Urdū is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states.

Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani romanization

Main article: Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization

Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization is another system for Hindustani. It was proposed by Syed Fasih Uddin (late) and Quader Unissa Begum (late). As such is adopted by The First International Urdu Conference (Chicago) 1992, as "The Modern International Standard Letters of Alphabet for URDU-(HINDUSTANI) - The INDIAN Language script for the purposes of hand written communication, dictionary references, published material and Computerized Linguistic Communications (CLC)".

There are significant advantages to this transcription system:

• It provides a standard that is based on the original works undertaken at the Fort William College, Calcutta, India (established 1800), under John Borthwick Gilchrist (1789–1841), which has become the de facto standard for Hindustani during the late 1800.
• There is a one-to-one representation for each of the original Urdu-Hindustani characters.
• Vowel sounds are written rather than being assumed as they are in the Urdu alphabet.
• Unlike Gilchrist’s alphabet, which used many special non-ASCII characters, the proposed alphabet only utilizes ASCII.
• Because it is ASCII based, more resources and tools are available.
• Liberate Urdu–Hindustani language to be written and communicated utilizing all of the available standards and free us from Unicode conversion drudgery.
• Urdu–Hindustani with this character set fully utilizes paper and electronic print media.

Differences with Persian alphabet

Main article: Persian and Urdu

The Persian alphabet has been extended for Urdu with additional letters ٹ ,ڈ ,ڑ (ṭ, ḍ, ṛ). In order to make the language suitable for the people of South Asia (mainly Pakistan & North India), two letters ه (h) and ی (y) were split into two letters each, to add dimensions in use. ه (h) is used independently, as any other letter, in words such as ہم (ham—we) and باہم (bāham—mutual). As an extended use, a variant of ه (h), ھ (h) is used to denote uniquely defined phonetics of South Asian origin: here it is referred to as do-cashmī he (two-eyed h). Examples of such words are دهڑکن (dhaṛkan—heartbeat) and بھارت (Bhārat—India). Similarly, ی is used in two vowel forms: Choṭī yē (ی—small y) and Baṙī yē (ے—big y). "Small y" denotes the vowel sound similar to "ea" in the English word "heat", as in the word ساتھی (sāthī—companion) and is also used for the Urdu semi-vowel "y", as in word یار (yār—friend). "Big y" gives the sound similar to "a" in the word "late" (full vowel sound—not like a diphthong), as in the word کے (ke—of). However, in the written form, both "big y" and "small y" are the same when the vowel falls in the middle of a word and the letters need to be joined according to the rules of Urdu grammar. "Big y" is also used for the sound "a" as in the English word "apple", as in the word مے (mai—wine). Similarly the letter و is used to denote the vowel sound "oo" as in the word "food", as in لوٹ (lūṭ—loot); "o" similar to the sound in the word "vote", as in دو (do—two), and is also used as a consonant "w" similar to that in the word "war", as in وظیفہ (waz̤īfah—stipend). It is also used to represent the "au" sound as in the word "caught", as in کون (kaun—who). و is silent in many words of Persian origin such as خواب (dream) and خواہش (desire). It has a diminutive sound similar to "ou" in "would" and "could", as in the words خود (self) and خوش (happy). The vowel/accent marks (اعراب) mainly support the core Arabic vowels. Non-Arabic vowels such as -o- in mor مور- (peacock) and the -e- as in Estonia (ایسٹونیا) are referred as مجہول (alien/ignorant phonetics) and hence are not supported by the vowel/accent marks (اعراب). A description of these vowel marks and the word formation in Urdu can be found at the ukindia.com website.

Encoding Urdu in Unicode

Like other writing systems derived from the Arabic script, Urdu uses the 0600–06FF Unicode range. Certain glyphs in this range appear visually similar (or identical when presented using particular fonts) even though the underlying encoding is different. This presents problems for information storage and retrieval. For example, the University of Chicago's electronic copy of John Shakespear's "A Dictionary, Hindustani, and English" includes the word 'بهارت' (India). Searching for the string "بھارت" returns no results, whereas querying with the (identical-looking in many fonts) string "بهارت" returns the correct entry. This is because the medial form of the Urdu letter do chashmi he (U+06BE)—used to form aspirate digraphs in Urdu—is visually identical in its medial form to the Arabic letter hāʾ (U+0647; phonetic value /h/). In Urdu, the /h/ phoneme is represented by the character U+06C1, called gol he (round he), or chhoti he (small he).

Confusable glyphs in Urdu and Arabic script

Characters in Urdu	Characters in Arabic
ہ (U+06C1), ھ (U+06BE)	ه (U+0647)
ی (U+06CC)	ى (U+0649), ي (U+064A)
ک (U+06A9)	ک (U+06A9), ك (U+0643)

In 2003, the Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP)—a research organisation affiliated with Pakistan's National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences—produced a proposal for mapping from the 1-byte UZT encoding of Urdu characters to the Unicode standard. This proposal suggests a preferred Unicode glyph for each character in the Urdu alphabet.

Sample text

The following is a sample text in Urdu, of the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):

Urdu text

دفعہ ۱: تمام انسان آزاد اور حقوق و عزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پیدا ہوئے ہیں۔ انہیں ضمیر اور عقل ودیعت ہوئی ہے۔ اس لئے انہیں ایک دوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا سلوک کرنا چاہئے۔

Transliteration (ALA-LC)

Dafʿah 1: Tamām insān āzād aur ḥuqūq o ʿizzat ke iʿtibār se barābar paidā hūʾe haiṉ. Unheṉ ẓamīr aur ʿaql wadīʿat hūʾī hai. Is liʾe unheṉ ek dūsre ke sāth bhāʾī cāre kā sulūk karnā cāhiʾe.

IPA transcription

d̪əfɑː eːk: t̪əmɑːm ɪnsɑːn ɑːzɑːd̪ ɔːr hʊquːq oː ɪzzət̪ keː et̪ɪbɑːr seː bərɑːbər pɛːd̪ɑː ɦuːeː ɦɛ̃ː. ʊnɦẽː zəmiːr ɔːr əql ʋəd̪iːət̪ huːiː hɛː. ɪs lieː ʊnɦẽː eːk d̪uːsreː keː sɑːt̪ʰ bʱaːiː t͡ʃɑːreː kɑː sʊluːk kərnɑː t͡ʃɑːɦieː.

Gloss (word-for-word)

Article 1: All humans free[,] and rights and dignity *('s) consideration from equal born are. Them to conscience and intellect endowed is. This for, they one another *('s) with brotherhood *('s) treatment do should.

Translation (grammatical)

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Note: *('s) represents a possessive case that, when written, is preceded by the possessor and followed by the possessed, unlike the English "of".

Literature

Main article: Urdu literature

Urdu has become a literary language only in recent centuries, as Persian was formerly the idiom of choice for the Muslim courts of North India. However, despite its relatively late development, Urdu literature boasts of some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus.

Prose

Urdu afsana is a kind of Urdu prose in which much experiments have been done by the short story writers from Munshi Prem Chand to Naeem Baig.

Religious

Urdu holds the largest collection of works on Islamic literature and Sharia. These include translations and interpretation of the Qur'an as well as commentary on Hadith, Fiqh, history, spirituality, Sufism and metaphysics. A great number of classical texts from Arabic and Persian have also been translated into Urdu. Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a lingua franca among Muslims of South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in Urdu far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language. Popular Islamic books are also written in Urdu.

It is interesting to note that a treatise on Astrology was penned in Urdu by Pandit Roop Chand Joshi in the eighteenth century. The book, known as Lal Kitab, is widely popular in North India among astrologers and was written at a time when Urdu was very much spoken in the Brahmin families of that region.

Literary

Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres. The dāstān, or tale, a traditional story that may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.

The afsāna or short story is probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known afsāna writers, or afsāna nigār, in Urdu are Munshi Premchand, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Krishan Chander, Qurratulain Hyder (Qurat-ul-Ain Haider), Ismat Chughtai, Ghulam Abbas, and Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi. Towards the end of last century Paigham Afaqui's novel Makaan appeared with a reviving force for Urdu novel resulting into writing of novels getting a boost in Urdu literature and a number of writers like Ghazanfer, Abdus Samad, Sarwat Khan and Musharraf Alam Zauqi have taken the move forward. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the afsāna, though some contend that his were not technically the first as Sir Ross Masood had already written many short stories in Urdu. Novels form a genre of their own, in the tradition of the English novel. Other genres include saférnāma (travel story), mazmoon (essay), sarguzisht (account/narrative), inshaeya (satirical essay), murasela (editorial), and khud navvisht (autobiography).

Poetry

Main article: Urdu poetry

Further information: Urdu poets

Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810) (Urdu: میر تقی میر‎) was the leading Urdu poet of the 18th century in the courts of Mughal Empire and Nawabs of Awadh

An illustrated manuscript of one of Amir Khusrau's (1253–1325 CE) Persian poems

Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan

Urdu has been one of the premier languages of poetry in South Asia for two centuries, and has developed a rich tradition in a variety of poetic genres. The Ghazal in Urdu represents the most popular form of subjective music and poetry, whereas the Nazm exemplifies the objective kind, often reserved for narrative, descriptive, didactic or satirical purposes. Under the broad head of the Nazm we may also include the classical forms of poems known by specific names such as Masnavi (a long narrative poem in rhyming couplets on any theme: romantic, religious, or didactic), Marsia (an elegy traditionally meant to commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and his comrades of the Karbala fame), or Qasida (a panegyric written in praise of a king or a nobleman), for all these poems have a single presiding subject, logically developed and concluded. {However, these poetic species have an old world aura about their subject and style, and are different from the modern Nazm, supposed to have come into vogue in the later part of the nineteenth century. Probably the most widely recited, and memorised genre of contemporary Urdu poetry is nāt—panegyric poetry written in praise of Muhammad. Nāt can be of any formal category, but is most commonly in the ghazal form. The language used in Urdu nāt ranges from the intensely colloquial to a highly Persified formal language. The great early 20th century scholar Ala Hazrat, Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, who wrote many of the most well known nāts in Urdu (the collection of his poetic work is Hadaiq-e-Baqhshish), epitomised this range in a ghazal of nine stanzas (bayt) in which every stanza contains half a line each of Arabic, Persian, formal Urdu, and colloquial Hindi.

Another important genre of Urdu prose are the poems commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala, called noha (نوحہ) and marsia. Anees and Dabeer are famous in this regard.

Terminology

[As̱ẖʿār] (اشعار, verse, couplets): It consists of two hemistiches (lines) called [Miṣraʿ] (مصرع); first hemistich (line) is called مصرعِ اولٰى ([Miṣraʿ-i ūlá] ) and the second is called (مصرعِ ثانی) ([Miṣraʿ-i s̱ānī] ). Each verse embodies a single thought or subject (singular) شِعر [[Sher (poem)|[shiʿr] ]].

In the Urdu poetic tradition, most poets use a pen name called the [takhalluṣ] . This can be either a part of a poet's given name or something else adopted as an identity. The traditional convention in identifying Urdu poets is to mention the [takhalluṣ] at the end of the name. Thus Ghalib, whose official name and title was Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan, is referred to formally as Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, or in common parlance as just Mirza Ghalib. Because the [takhalluṣ] can be a part of their actual name, some poets end up having that part of their name repeated, such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

The word [takhalluṣ] is derived from Arabic, meaning "ending". This is because in the ghazal form, the poet would usually incorporate his or her pen name into the final couplet ([maqt̤aʿ] ) of each poem as a type of "signature".

Urdu poetry example

This is Ghalib's famous couplet in which he compares himself to his great predecessor, the master poet Mir:

	ریختہ کے تمہی استاد نہیں ہو غاؔلب		؎
	کہتے ہیں اگلے زمانہ میں کوئی میرؔ بهی تها

Transliteration

Reḵẖtah ke tumhī ustād nahīṉ ho G̱ẖālib

Kahte haiṉ agle zamānih meṉ ko'ī Mīr bhī thā

Translation

You are not the only master of Rekhta, Ghalib

(They) say that in the past there also was someone (named) Mir.

Phrases

English	Urdu	Transliteration	Notes
(Hello) Peace be upon you.	السلامُ علیکم۔	As-Salām-u ʿalaikum.	lit. "Peace be upon you." (from Arabic). Often shortened to 'Salām'.
(Reply to Salam) Peace be upon you, too.	و علیکم السلام۔	Wa ʿalaikum as-Salām.	lit. "And upon you, peace." Response to assalāmu alaikum.
Hello.	آداب (عرض ہے)۔	Ādāb (ʿarẓ hai).	lit. "Regards (are expressed).", a very formal secular greeting.
Goodbye.	خدا حافظ، اللّٰہ حافظ۔	Khudā Ḥāfiz̤, Allāh Ḥāfiz̤.	lit. "May God be your Guardian". "Khuda" from Persian for "God", "Allah" from Arabic for "God".
Yes.	ہاں۔	Hāṉ.	casual.
Yes	جی۔	Jī.	formal.
Yes.	جی ہاں۔	Jī hāṉ.	confident formal.
No.	نا۔	Nā.	rare.
No.	نہیں۔	Nahīṉ.	informal.
No.	نہیں، جی نہیں۔	Nahīṉ, jī nahīṉ.	casual; Jī nahīṉ is formal.
Please	‏(آپ کی) مہربانی/برائے مہربانی/براہِ کرم۔	(Āp kī) maharbānī/Barāʾe maharbānī/Barāh-i karam.	lit. "(Your) kindness" Also used for "thank you".
Thank you.	شکریہ۔	Shukriyah.	from Arabic shukran.
Please, come in.	تشریف لائیے۔	Tashrīf laʾiye.	lit. "(Please) bring your honour".
Please, have a seat.	تشریف رکهئے۔	Tashrīf rakhiʾe.	lit. "(Please) place your honour".
I am happy to meet you.	آپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوئی۔	Āp se mil kar khushī hūʾī.	lit. "(I) felt happiness (after) meeting you".
Do you speak English?	کیا آپ انگریزی بولتے/بولتی ہیں؟	Kyā āp angrezī bolte/boltī haiṉ?	"bolte" is for a male addressee, "boltī" is for female.
I do not speak Urdu.	میں اردو نہیں بولتا/بولتی۔	Main Urdū nahīṉ boltā/boltī.	boltā is for masculine speaker, boltī is for feminine.
My name is __ .	میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے۔	Merā nām __ hai.
Which way to Karachi?	کراچی کس طرف/اور ہے؟	Karachi kis taraf/or hai?	lit. "Which direction is Karachi (in)?"
Where is Lucknow?	لکھنؤ کہاں ہے؟	Lakhnaʾū kahāṉ hai?
Urdu is a good language.	اردو اچھی زبان ہے۔	Urdū achhī zubān hai.

Software

The Daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper to be typeset digitally in Nasta’liq by computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Urdu software programmes, the most widespread of which is InPage Desktop Publishing package. Microsoft has included Urdu language support in all new versions of Windows and both Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 are available in Urdu through Language Interface Pack support. Most Linux Desktop distributions allow the easy installation of Urdu support and translations as well. Apple implemented the Urdu language keyboard across Mobile devices in its iOS 8 update in September 2014.

See also

• Hindi–Urdu controversy
• List of Urdu-language poets
• List of Urdu-language writers
• National Translation Mission (NTM)
• Persian and Urdu
• States of India by Urdu speakers
• Urdu in the United Kingdom
• Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization
• Urdu Digest
• Urdu in Aurangabad
• Urdu Informatics
• Urdu keyboard
• Glossary of the British Raj

Further reading

• the University of Michigan
• the University of Michigan
• Oxford University
• Oxford University
• the New York Public Library
• Oxford University
• Ahmad, Rizwan. 2006. "Voices people write: Examining Urdu in Devanagari"
• Alam, Muzaffar. 1998. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317–349.
• Asher, R. E. (Ed.). 1994. The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
• Azad, Muhammad Husain. 2001 [1907]. Aab-e hayat (Lahore: Naval Kishor Gais Printing Works) 1907 [in Urdu]; (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 2001. [In English translation]
• Azim, Anwar. 1975. Urdu a victim of cultural genocide. In Z. Imam (Ed.), Muslims in India (p. 259).
• Bhatia, Tej K. 1996. Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11087-4 (Book), 0415110882 (Cassettes), 0415110890 (Book & Cassette Course)
• Bhatia, Tej K. and Koul Ashok. 2000. "Colloquial Urdu: The Complete Course for Beginners." London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13540-0 (Book); ISBN 0-415-13541-9 (cassette); ISBN 0-415-13542-7 (book and casseettes course)
• Chatterji, Suniti K. 1960. Indo-Aryan and Hindi (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
• Dua, Hans R. 1992. "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language". In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
• Dua, Hans R. 1994a. Hindustani. In Asher, 1994; pp. 1554.
• Dua, Hans R. 1994b. Urdu. In Asher, 1994; pp. 4863–4864.
• Durrani, Attash, Dr. 2008. Pakistani Urdu.Islamabad: National Language Authority, Pakistan.
• Hassan, Nazir and Omkar N. Koul 1980. Urdu Phonetic Reader. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.
• Kelkar, A. R. 1968. Studies in Hindi-Urdu: Introduction and word phonology. Poona: Deccan College.
• Khan, M. H. 1969. Urdu. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 5). The Hague: Mouton.
• King, Christopher R. 1994. One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
• Koul, Ashok K. 2008. Urdu Script and Vocabulary. Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
• Koul, Omkar N. 1994. Hindi Phonetic Reader. Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
• Koul, Omkar N. 2008. Modern Hindi Grammar. Springfield: Dunwoody Press.
• Narang, G. C. and D. A. Becker. 1971. Aspiration and nasalization in the generative phonology of Hindi-Urdu. Language, 47, 646–767.
• Ohala, M. 1972. Topics in Hindi-Urdu phonology. (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
• "A Desertful of Roses", a site about Ghalib's Urdu ghazals by Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
• Phukan, S. 2000. The Rustic Beloved: Ecology of Hindi in a Persianate World, The Annual of Urdu Studies, vol 15, issue 5, pp. 1–30
• The Comparative study of Urdu and Khowar. Badshah Munir Bukhari National Language Authority Pakistan 2003.
• Rai, Amrit. 1984. A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-561643-X.
• Snell, Rupert Teach yourself Hindi: A complete guide for beginners. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC
• Pimsleur, Dr. Paul, "Free Urdu Audio Lesson"
• The poisonous potency of script: Hindi and Urdu, ROBERT D. KING

External links

• Directory of Urdu websites.