Areas where Urdu is neither official nor co-official This article contains phonetic symbols. Without proper, you may see instead of characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see.This article contains. Without proper, you may see unjoined letters running left to right or other symbols instead of.Urdu (;: اُردُو‎: Urdū ( )) (also known as Lashkari, locally written لشکری lʌʃkɜ:i:)—or, more precisely, Modern Standard Urdu—is a of the. It is the official and of. In India, it is one of the 22 recognised in the, having official status in the of, and, as well as the national capital territory of.Apart from specialised, spoken Urdu is with, another recognised register of Hindustani.

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• What Language Is Spoken In Pakistan

The Urdu variant of Hindustani received recognition and patronage under when the replaced the local official languages with English and Hindustani written in, as the official language in. Religious, social, and political factors pushed for a distinction between Urdu and Hindi in India, leading to the.According to 2010 estimates, Urdu is the, with approximately 66 million speakers. According to 's 2017 estimates, Urdu, along with and the languages of the (as ), is the, with approximately 329.1 million native speakers, and 697.4 million total speakers.

Main article:Urdu, like, is a form of. It evolved from the medieval (6th to 13th century) register of the preceding, a that is also the ancestor of other modern Indo-Aryan languages. Around 75% of Urdu words have their etymological roots in and, and approximately 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit. Because Persian-speaking sultans ruled the Indian subcontinent for a number of centuries, Urdu was influenced by and to a lesser extent, which have contributed to about 25% of Urdu's vocabulary.Although the word is derived from the word (army) or, from which English is also derived, Turkic borrowings in Urdu are minimal and Urdu is also not to the. Urdu words originating from and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ( ة ) changes to ( ه ) or ( ت ).

Nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the, but from, a from Central Asia. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu and Turkish words.In northern India (what is historically known as the region of ), was the native language spoken there and it belongs to the language class of Central Indo-Aryan languages. Mughal rulers brought with them to India the Persian language. The Turko-Afghan established Persian as its official language, a policy continued by the, which extended over most of northern from the 16th to 18th centuries and cemented influence on the developing Hindustani.

In cities such as Delhi, Khariboli began to acquire some Persian loanwords and continued to be called 'Hindi' as well as 'Urdu'. While Urdu retained the grammar and core vocabularly of the local Hindi dialect Khariboli, it adopted the writing system.From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi.

( p1) The language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. ( pp21–22) The Perso-Arabic script form of this language underwent a standardisation process and further Persianization in the late Mughal period (18th century) and came to be known as Urdu, a name derived from the word ordu (army) or orda and is said to have arisen as the 'language of the camp', or ' Zaban-i-Ordu' (or natively ' Lashkari Zaban'). As a literary language, Urdu took shape in courtly, elite settings. The name Urdu was first used by the poet around 1780.

( p18) Hindustani in Persian script was used by Muslims and Hindus, but was current chiefly in Muslim-influenced society. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced as the official language in 1837 and was made co-official, along with English.

Hindustani 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 script. This literary standard called 'Hindi' replaced Urdu as the official language of in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of 'Urdu' for Muslims and 'Hindi' for Hindus, a divide that was formalised 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 and ).There have been attempts to 'purify' Urdu and Hindi, by purging Urdu of words, and Hindi of Persian loanwords, and new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and from Sanskrit for Hindi. English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. Speakers and geographic distribution. See also: andThere are over 100 million native speakers of Urdu in India and Pakistan together: there were 50.8 million Urdu speakers in India (4.34% of the total population) as per the 2011 census; approximately 16 million in Pakistan in 2006; and several hundred thousand in the, and (where it is called 'Bihari').

However, of which Urdu is one variety, is spoken much more widely, forming the third most commonly spoken language in the world, after and.Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localised wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone changes and has incorporated and borrowed many words from regional languages, 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 of South India, and Khariboli of the. Because of Urdu's similarity to, speakers of the two languages can easily understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialised vocabulary.

The (grammar), and the 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 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,. It is written, spoken and used in all although 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 other, who can read and write only Urdu.

It is absorbing many words from the regional languages of Pakistan.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 in Pakistan) from different parts of. 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 of different ethnic origins (such as, and ) 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 acquired a peculiar Pakistani flavour further distinguishing it from the Urdu spoken by native speakers and diversifying the language even further. Many newspapers are published in Urdu in Pakistan, including the, among many others (see ).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, , and cities such as,. Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabi and exams. Indian also teach as well as Urdu. India has more than 3,000 Urdu publications, including 405 daily Urdu newspapers.

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Newspapers such as Neshat News Urdu, Sahara Urdu, Daily Salar, Hindustan Express, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, and Inqilab are published and distributed in, and (see ).Outside, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centres of the countries. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centres of the, the,. Along with, Urdu is among the immigrant languages with the most speakers in. Cultural identity and Islam Colonial IndiaReligious and social atmospheres in early nineteenth century India played a significant role in the development of the Urdu register. In addition to Islam, India was characterised by a number of other religions that represented different spiritual outlooks. Became the distinct register spoken by those who sought to construct a Hindu identity in the face of colonial rule.

As Hindi separated from Hindustani to create a distinct spiritual identity, Urdu was employed to create a definitive Islamic identity for the Muslim population in India.As Urdu and Hindi became means of religious and social construction for Muslims and Hindus respectively, each register developed its own script. According to Islamic tradition, the language spoken by the prophet and uttered in the revelation of the, holds spiritual significance and power. Because Urdu was intentioned as means of unification for Muslims in Northern India and later Pakistan, it adopted an Arabic script. PakistanUrdu continued its role in developing a Muslim identity as was established with the intent to construct a homeland for Islamic believers. Several languages and dialects spoken throughout the regions of Pakistan produced an imminent need for a uniting language.

Because Urdu was the symbol of Islamic identity in Northern India, it was selected as the national language for Pakistan. While Urdu and Islam together played important roles in developing the national identity of Pakistan, disputes in the 1950s (particularly those in East Pakistan), challenged the necessity for Urdu as a national symbol and its practicality as the lingua franca. The significance of Urdu as a national symbol was downplayed by these disputes when English and Bengali were also accepted as official languages in the former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).Official status.

A trilingual in, English and Urdu in theUrdu 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. Only 7.57% of Pakistanis have Urdu as their first language, but Urdu is mostly understood and spoken all over Pakistan as a second or third language. It is used in, office and court business. It holds in itself a repository of the and heritage of the country. Although English is used in most elite circles, and has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the and national language of Pakistan.

In practice English is used instead of Urdu in the higher echelons of government. Ge versapro 2.04. A multilingual railway station boardUrdu is also one of the officially recognised languages in and the official language of, one of the two official languages of and also has the status of 'additional official language' in the of, and the national capital,.In, 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.' DialectsUrdu has a few recognised dialects, including, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the dialect of the Delhi region). (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from and, as well as some vocabulary from, and that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of,. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India.

Further information:, andStandard Urdu is often with. Apart from religious associations, the differences are largely restricted to the: Standard Urdu is conventionally written in the of the and relies heavily on Persian and Arabic as a source for technical and literary vocabulary, whereas Standard Hindi is conventionally written in and draws on.

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, 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 specialised 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. As a result of religious nationalism since the and continued communal tensions, native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert them to be distinct languages.Urdu speakers by countryThe following table shows the number of Urdu speakers in some countries.CountryPopulationUrdu as a native language speakersNative speakers or very good speakers as a second languageTotal number of Urdu speakers207,862,51815,100,00094,000,000109,100,0001,296,834,04250,772,63112,151,71562,924,34629,717,587691,546-691,54634,940,837-1,048,2251,048,225Phonology. The Urdu alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabetsUrdu is written right-to left in an extension of the, which is itself an extension of the. Urdu is associated with the of, whereas is generally written in the or 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, is still published daily in.A highly Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in, 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, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of and and ordered the exclusive use of, a popular script used for both Urdu. Kaithi's association with Urdu and was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.More recently in India, Urdu speakers have adopted for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark Urdu 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 ( ), 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.

Pakistan History, Language and Culture History of PakistanThe territory of present day Pakistan has witnessed the rise and fall of countless empires, which have contested this land from as early as 550BCE, when controlled vast swathes of Asia, Arabian and Northern Africa.By 323BCE the marauding Macedonian, Alexander the Great, had staked his claim to Pakistan, setting a trend for conquering that continued for the next 2000 years.lasted longest and helped develop the region economically. Agriculture, art and commerce flourished during Mughal rule, which left behind a sophisticated administration and a wealth of architecture that still wows visitors today.The British arrived in the region in the early 1800s and in 1849 the territory now known as Pakistan was incorporated into British India. It was not until 1947, as a result of a violent partition from India, that Pakistan acquired nationhood.Under pressure from Indian Muslims led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah - who is considered to be the 'father of the nation' - the British created a separate Muslim state consisting of two parts; East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (now a single unitary state), which were separated by 1,600km (1,000 miles) of Indian territory.Political and religious disputes between the territories resulted in a civil war, which lasted for most of 1971. It was brought to an end by the intervention of India, which forced Pakistan to surrender and recognise the independence of modern day Bangladesh.Pakistan’s relationship with India remains fraught. Both nations lay claim to Kashmir and have fought wars over the territory. Pakistan presently occupies one-third of the disputed territory and India occupies the other two-thirds.

The Kashmiris themselves have become weary of both sides and there is a growing appetite for independence.In contrast to India, democracy failed to take root in Pakistan, which suffered prolonged periods of military rule. After decades of revolving-door politics followed by incompetence, nepotism and corruption, tackling Pakistan's huge political and economic problems remains tougher than ever.Although the country has struggled to maintain a foothold on political stability, Pakistan remains a politically aware nation, with a culture broadly based around family, Islam and an acceptance of different ethnic groups living throughout the country.Did you know?. Pakistan is home to the highest paved road in the world. Perched 4,693m (15,397ft) above sea level, the Karakoram Highway links China with Pakistan. The name Pakistan means ‘land of the pure’ in Persian and Urdu.

Pakistan has the world’s largest volunteer ambulance service, founded by Sattar Edhi. Pakistan Culture Religion in Pakistan97% Muslim (77% Sunni, 20% Shi'a), the remainder are Ismaili Muslims (who follow the Aga Khan as their spiritual leader), Hindu or Christian. Social Conventions in PakistanThe right hand is used both for shaking hands (the usual form of greeting) and for passing or receiving things. Mutual hospitality and courtesy are of great importance at all levels, whatever the social standing of the host. Visitors must remember that most Pakistanis are Muslim and should respect their customs and beliefs.Smoking is prohibited in some public places and it is polite to ask permission before lighting a cigarette.

It is common for visiting businesspeople to be entertained in hotels and restaurants. If invited to a private home, a gift or national souvenir is welcome.

Informal dress is acceptable for most occasions. Women should avoid wearing tight clothing and both men and women should ensure that their arms and legs are covered. Pakistani society is divided into classes and within each group there is a subtle social grading. The Koran is the law for Muslims and it influences every aspect of daily life.Photography: Do not take photographs at military establishments, airports or of any infrastructure, including dams and bridges or from aircraft. The penalties can be severe. Language in PakistanUrdu is the official language, though it is only used by 8% of Pakistanis. English is widely spoken.

Regional languages include Punjabi, which is spoken by 48% of the population, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki and Balochi. There are numerous local dialects. About The World Travel GuideThe World Travel Guide (WTG) is the flagship digital consumer brand within the Columbus Travel Media portfolio. A comprehensive guide to the world’s best travel destinations, its print heritage stretches back more than 30 years, with the online portal reaching its 20-year anniversary in 2019.

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What Language Is Spoken In Pakistan

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