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Jul 1, 2024 · Urdu is spoken as a first language by nearly 70 million people and as a second language by more than 100 million people, predominantly in Pakistan and India. It is the official state language of Pakistan and is also officially recognized, or “scheduled,” in the constitution of India.
- Allophone
allophone, one of the phonetically distinct variants of a...
- Nastaʿlīq
nastaʿlīq script, predominant style of Persian calligraphy...
- Retroflex
Retroflex, in phonetics, a consonant sound produced with the...
- Hindawi
Other articles where Hindawi is discussed: South Asian arts:...
- Hindustani
Hindustani language, lingua franca of India. Two variants of...
- Allophone
Urdu is the national language and the lingua franca of Pakistan, and while sharing official status with English, it is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups.
Urdu is spoken as a first language by nearly 70 million people and as a second language by more than 100 million people, predominantly in Pakistan and India. It is the official state language of Pakistan and is also officially recognized, or "scheduled," in the constitution of India.
- A Brief History of Urdu
- Mutual Intelligibility with Hindi
- The Modern History
- A Language Beyond Faith
Urdu started developing sometime between the 6th and 13th Centuries AD. It became a common tongue spoken by both those in modern India and Pakistan. It developed heavily through literature and is perhaps most well-known for its usage in poetry. The dialect began to get noticed by the British, with various linguists, who called the spoken language a...
The mutual intelligibility of Urdu with Hindi also has helped with the general acceptance of Urdu as a viable language in Pakistan. In general spoken form, Urdu speakers and Hindi speakers should be able to understand each other. However, Urdu uses a different written script, with some differences. It is called “Nastaliq” – a modified form of Persi...
There is a common understanding that has been repeated by Pakistanis online and in conversations about why Urdu became the national language. This is that no one ethnic group was to be favoured, so the national language had to be generally neutral. It is a sentiment echoed by the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Bengali was also seen as a con...
We have seen different faith groups making claims to Urdu. There is a theorised connection to Islam due to its Persian and Arabic roots. It is Pakistan’s most followed religion. But whilst there was influence from faiths, it is not the full picture to say that it is connected to any faith. For one, there is a recorded history of the intertwining of...
Mar 25, 2022 · The 1973 Constitution officially recognizes Urdu as Pakistan’s only national language (Kamran, 2019). Urdu being adopted as a national language has a wider range of applicability and transmissibility across several countries in Asia and South Asia ( Maqbool et al., 2018 ).
- Tahira Begum
Sep 11, 2015 · Pakistan is adopting Urdu as its official language, but with many people not speaking it, the move is proving divisive, as the BBC's Ilyas Khan reports.
Jan 28, 2022 · Urdu was designated as Pakistan’s national language despite there being hardly any native speakers of the language there in 1947. The man who made that fateful decision was Mohammed Ali Jinnah...
