Urdu
Language spoken in India and Pakistan / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Urdu (/ˈʊərduː/; اُردُو, Urdu: [ʊɾduː] ⓘ; ALA-LC: Urdū) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia.[10][11] It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English.[12] In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India;[13][14] and it also has an official status in several Indian states.[note 1][12] In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect[15] and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.
Urdu | |
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Pronunciation | [ʊɾduː] ⓘ |
Region |
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Speakers | L1: 70 million (2011–2017)[4] L2: 170 million (2020)[4] |
Early forms | |
Dialects | |
| |
Indian Signing System | |
Official status | |
Official language in |
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Recognised minority language in | South Africa (protected language)[9] |
Regulated by | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | ur |
ISO 639-2 | urd |
ISO 639-3 | urd |
Glottolog | urdu1245 |
Linguasphere | 59-AAF-q |
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Urdu has been described as a Persianised register of the Hindustani language;[16][17] Urdu and Hindi share a common Sanskrit- and Prakrit-derived vocabulary base, phonology, syntax, and grammar, making them mutually intelligible during colloquial communication.[18][19][20] While formal Urdu draws literary, political, and technical vocabulary from Persian,[21] formal Hindi draws these aspects from Sanskrit; consequently, the two languages' mutual intelligibility effectively decreases as the factor of formality increases.[22]
In 1837, Urdu became an official language of the British East India Company, replacing Persian across northern India during Company rule; Persian had until this point served as the court language of various Indo-Islamic empires.[23] Religious, social, and political factors arose during the European colonial period that advocated a distinction between Urdu and Hindi, leading to the Hindi–Urdu controversy.[24]
According to 2022 estimates by Ethnologue and The World Factbook, produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Urdu is the 10th-most widely spoken language in the world, with 230 million total speakers, including those who speak it as a second language.[25][26]