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Urdu (اردو) is
an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family that developed under Persian,
Turkish, Hindi, and Arabic influence in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate
and Mughal Empire (1200-1800).
Taken by itself,
Urdu is approximately the twentieth most populous natively spoken
language in the world, and is the national language of Pakistan as well as one
of the 24 national languages of India.
There are between 60 and 80 million native Urdu speakers. Overall, besides the
more than 160 million who speak Urdu in Pakistan, there is a considerable Indian
population who communicate in Urdu everyday.
In Pakistan, Urdu is spoken and understood by a majority of urban
dwellers in such cities as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar,
Quetta, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan and Sukkur. Urdu is
used as the official language in all provinces of Pakistan. It is also taught as
a compulsory language up to high school in both the English and Urdu medium
school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers whose mother tongue
is one of the regional languages of Pakistan such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto,
Gujarati, Kashmiri, Balochi, Siraiki, and Brahui. Urdu is the lingua franca of
Pakistan and is absorbing many words from regional languages of Pakistan. The
regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. Most of the
nearly five million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pakhtun,
Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five
years have also become fluent in Urdu.
In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim
majorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These
include parts of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bhopal, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore,
and Mysore. 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 2900 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Daily Salar,
Daily Pasban, Siast Daily, Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and
distributed in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.
Urdu is also spoken in Kashmir and urban Afghanistan. Outside South Asia,
it is spoken by large numbers of workers in the major urban centers of the
Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of
immigrants and their children in the major urban centers of the United Kingdom,
the United States, Canada, Norway and Australia.
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