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Standard Urdu

Urdu
اُردُو
Urdu example.svg
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).
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated by
Language codes
ISO 639-1 ur
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3
Glottolog urdu1245
Linguasphere 59-AAF-q
Urdu official-language areas.png
  Areas where Urdu is either official or co-official
  Areas where Urdu is neither official nor co-official
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Urdu (/ˈʊərd/; Urdu: اُردُوALA-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 six 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.

Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the northern Indian subcontinent. 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.


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