Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India. It also has an official status in several Indian states.
Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan, and functioning as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared, which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.
In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, for representing the spoken word, and combinations of both. Transcription methods can be subdivided into phonemic transcription, which records the phonemes or units of semantic meaning in speech, and more strict phonetic transcription, which records speech sounds with precision.
Urdu poetry is a tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the culture of India and Pakistan. According to Naseer Turabi, there are five major poets of Urdu: Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, Mir Anees, Muhammad Iqbal and Josh Malihabadi. The language of Urdu reached its pinnacle under the British Raj, and it received official status. All famous writers of Urdu language including Ghalib and Iqbal were given British scholarships. Following the Partition of India in 1947, it found major poets and scholars were divided along the nationalistic lines. However, Urdu poetry is cherished in both the nations. Both the Muslims and Hindus from across the border continue the tradition.
Kauravi, also known as Khaṛībolī, is a dialect of Hindustani descended from Shauraseni Prakrit that is mainly spoken in northwestern Uttar Pradesh, outside of Delhi.
Nastaliq, also romanized as Nastaʿlīq or Nastaleeq, is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script and it is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Kashmiri, Punjabi and Urdu. It is often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, but rarely for Arabic. Nastaliq developed in Iran from naskh beginning in the 13th century and remains widely used in Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art.
Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdu language written with the Latin script, also known as Roman script.
Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.
The Persian language and Urdu have had an intricate relationship throughout the history of the latter. Persian historically played a significant role in the formation and development of the modern Urdu, and today acts as its prestige language.
The Urdu Wikipedia, started in January 2004, is the Standard Urdu-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia. As of 23 January 2025, it has 216,810 articles, 189,616 registered users and 7,483 files, and it is the 54th largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and ranks 20th in terms of depth among Wikipedias with over 150,000 articles. There were 6 million page views in January 2024. On 7 January 2024, the Urdu Wikipedia became the first South Asian-language Wikipedia to surpass 200,000 articles.
The Hindi–Urdu controversy arose in 19th-century colonial India out of the debate over whether Modern Standard Hindi or Standard Urdu should be chosen as a national language.
Hindustani has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script of Ancient India. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years, the Latin script has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons. Historically, Kaithi script has also been used.
The Urdu Defence Association was an organisation developed by Mohsin-ul-Mulk, starting in 1900, for the advocacy of Urdu as the lingua franca of the Muslim community of India. The association is regarded as an offshoot of the Aligarh Movement.
The Urdu movement was a socio-political movement aimed at making Urdu, as the universal lingua-franca and symbol of the cultural and political identity of the Muslim communities of the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. The movement began with the fall of the Mughal Empire in the mid-19th century, fuelled by the Aligarh movement of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It strongly influenced the All India Muslim League and the Pakistan movement.
Old Hindi or Khariboli was the earliest stage of the Hindustani language, and so the ancestor of today's Hindi and Urdu. It developed from Shauraseni Prakrit and was spoken by the peoples of the region around Delhi, in roughly the 10th–13th centuries before the Delhi Sultanate.
Aaj News is a 24-hour Pakistani news television channel. It is a privately owned Urdu language TV station which covers national and international news. The channel started out as hybrid channel, but later separated its entertainment programming to sister channel, Aaj Entertainment, and became a news channel.
Saturn is a progressive rock band from Islamabad, Pakistan, formed in 2003. The group was founded by lead guitarist and songwriter Salman Zaidi and vocalist & lyricist Shahbaz Zaidi, who were later joined by bassist Aashir, drummer Shahbaz Asad, and rhythm guitarist Usman Ahmad Khan. The band is well known for being one of the pioneering progressive rock groups in Pakistan. Saturn became famous after releasing their debut track "Raakh" which is Urdu for "Ashes". They later gained more popularity for their energetic performances and stage presence. Saturn is known as one of the loudest bands of Pakistan. Their debut album Naya Din was released on April 7, 2013.
Modern Standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu, the national and official language of Pakistan. Both are standard registers of the Hindustani language. As a result of linguistic and cultural similarities, Hindi has had notable influences in Pakistan and is taught as an academic subject in some institutions; before the partition of colonial India, Hindi was taught at major universities in the provinces that came to form Pakistan. While Hindi and Urdu both have a predominantly Indic (Indo-Aryan) base, Hindi uses more Sanskrit words in its educated vocabulary while Urdu incorporates more Arabic, Persian, and a few Turkic words for the same. Most poetry, ghazals, qawalis & lyrics use many Urdu words.
Jashn-e-Rekhta is the world's largest Urdu language literary festival. It is a three-day event held in New Delhi that celebrates Urdu language. This event was the flagship event of the Rekhta Foundation. The festival showcases Urdu poetry, Urdu literature, Qawwali, and Islamic calligraphy, with performances such as Ghazal, Sufi music, recitations, panel discussions, debates, conversations on films, and calligraphy workshops. It also includes shopping and food festivals. It provides a platform for Urdu lovers to share their poetry and stories in various open forums. The slogan of the festival is "Celebrating Urdu", and it is attended by a huge number of Urdu enthusiasts, younger people
Nighat Chaudhry is a Kathak classical dancer who was born on 24 February 1959, in Lahore, Pakistan. She moved to London with her parents when she was one year old. She studied ballet and contemporary dance; but when she was 14, she met Nahid Siddiqui, one of the greatest Kathak dancers, and began training with her. Inspired to learn the classical forms of her own culture, she abandoned ballet. In order to understand and absorb the nuances of the Indian style, she wished to be closer to its origins; and she moved back to Pakistan. She eventually became a trained Sufi & Mystique Kathak classical dancer and has been active as a professional Kathak dancer for over three decades.
