HITORY

Speakers and geographic distribution
See also: Languages of Pakistan and Languages of India


The phrase Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla ("The language of the exalted camp") written in Nasta'liq script.
There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard Urdu (Khari Boli). According to the SIL Ethnologue (1999 data), Urdu/Hindi is the fifth most spoken language in the world.[15] According to George Weber’s article Top Languages: The World’s 10 Most Influential Languages in Language Today, Hindi/Urdu is the fourth most spoken language in the world, with 4.7 percent of the world's population, after Mandarin, English, and Spanish.[16]
Because of Urdu's similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can usually understand one another, if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. Indeed, linguists sometimes count them as being part of the same language diasystem. However, Urdu and Hindi are socio-politically different, and people who describe themselves as being speakers of Hindi would question being counted as native speakers of Urdu, and vice-versa. Due to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localised in many different parts and regions of the world it is spoken in, including Pakistan iteself. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone small changes and has lately incorporated and borrowed many words from Pakistani languages like Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashto, thus allowing speakers of the language in Pakistan to distinguish themselves more easily. Similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni (Deccan) of South-India and Khariboli of Punjab region since the recent years.
In Pakistan, Urdu is initially spoken and understood by everyone, including a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Abbottabad, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Sargodha. It is written, spoken and used in all Provinces/Territories of Pakistan despite the fact that the people from state-to-state may have different mother-tongues, 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 mother tongue is one of the State languages of Pakistan such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Pothohari, Hindko, Pahari, Siraiki, and Brahui. It is absorbing many words from the regional languages of Pakistan. This variety of Urdu is now called Pakistani Urdu. This facet changes the basis of language censuses, i.e. An Urdu speaker is one who speaks Urdu, though he may be a native speaker of other indigenous languages. The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. There are millions of Pakistanis whose mother tongue is not Urdu, but since they have studied in Urdu medium schools, they can read and write Urdu along with their native language. Most of the nearly five million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pathan, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) 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 in recent years acquired a peculiar Pakistani flavour further distinguishing it from the Urdu spoken by native speakers and diversifying the language even further.
A great number of newspapers are published in Urdu in Pakistan, including the Daily Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt, Millat, among many others (see List of newspapers in Pakistan).
In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of Uttar Pradesh (namely Lucknow), Delhi,Moradabad,Bijnore, Rampur, Aligarh, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Bangaluru, Kolkata, Mysore, Patna, Ajmer, and Ahmedabad.[17] 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 3,000 Urdu publications including 405 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Sahara Urdu, Daily Salar, Hindustan Express, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in Bangaluru, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai (see List of newspapers in India).
Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian 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 centres of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Norway and Australia.
Countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers:
Pakistan (10,800,000 [1993], 7%)[18] (Only refers to Pakistanis with Urdu as first language , i.e people who do not additionally speak the State languages of Pakistan including Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi as mother tongues- See Muhajir)
India (51,536,111 [2001], 5.1%)[19]
United Kingdom
Bangladesh (650,000, 0.4%)[20]
United Arab Emirates (600,000, 13%[citation needed])
Saudi Arabia (382,000, 1.5%)[21]
Nepal (375,000, 1.3%)
United States (350,000, 0.1%)
Afghanistan (320,000, 8%)
South Africa (170,000 South Asian Muslims, some of which may speak Urdu)[22]
Canada (156,415 [2006], 0.5%)[23]
Oman (90,000, 2.8%)
Bahrain (80,000, 11.3%[citation needed])
Mauritius (74,000, 5.6%)
Qatar (70,000, 8%)
Germany (50,000)
Norway (27,700 [2006])[24]
France (20,000)
Spain (18,000 [2004])[25]
Sweden (10,000 [2001])[26]
World Total: 60,503,578[27]
[edit] Official status
Urdu is the national and one of the two official languages (Qaumi Zabaan) of Pakistan, the other being English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, while the state-by-state languages (languages spoken throughout various regions]] are the provincial languages. It is used in education, literature, office and court business.[28] It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country.[29] Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca in Pakistan.
Urdu is also one of the officially recognised languages in India[30] and has official language status in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar,[31] Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh, and the national capital, New Delhi.
See also: States of India by Urdu speakers
The importance of Urdu in the Muslim world is visible in the Holy cities of Makkah and Medinah-Al-Munawarah (Saudi Arabia), where most of the Information Signboards are written in Arabic, English & Urdu.
[edit] Dialects
Urdu has four recognised dialects: Dakhini, Pinjari, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region). Sociolinguists also consider Urdu itself one of the four major variants of the Hindi-Urdu dialect continuum.[13]
Dakhini (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in Deccan region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Marathi and Telugu language, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "qāf" (ﻕ) as "kh" (ﺥ). Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of Maharashtra, Karnatka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states.
Modern Vernacular Urdu is the form of the language that is least widespread and is spoken around Delhi and Lucknow while the Pakistani variant of the language spoken in Karachi and Lahore; it becomes increasingly divergent from the original form of Urdu as it loses some of the complicated Persian and Arabic vocabulary used in everyday terms.
In addition, Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.