اردو

Urdu
اُردُو
Urdu in Perso-Arabic script (Nastaliq style)
Pronunciation	[ˈʊrd̪u]
Region	Pakistan and India
Native speakers	65 million (2007) Second language: 94 million in Pakistan (1999).
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Zone (Hindi) Western Hindi Hindustani Khariboli Urdu
Writing system	Extended Perso-Arabic (Urdu alphabet) Indian Urdu Braille (Bharati) Pakistani Urdu Braille
Signed forms	Indian Signing System (ISS) Signed Urdu
Official status
Official language in	Pakistan  India* *The state of Jammu and Kashmir; it is also an "additional official language" in the states of Bihar, Delhi, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh
Recognised minority language in	Bangladesh  Mauritius    Nepal
Regulated by	National Language Promotion Department National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ur
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog	urdu1245
Linguasphere	59-AAF-q
Areas where Urdu is either official or co-official   Areas where Urdu is neither official nor co-official
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Urdu (/ˈʊərduː/; Urdu: اُردُو‎ ALA-LC: Urdū; IPA: [ˈʊrd̪uː], or Modern Standard Urdu) is a persianized and standardized register of the Hindustani language. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and an official language of five states of India. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India. Hyderabad, Rampur, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India.

Apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. The Urdu variant of Hindustani received recognition and patronage under British rule when the British replaced the local official languages with English and Hindustani written in Perso-Arabic script, as the official language in north and northwestern India.