The Urdu language is one of the major languages of Pakistan and India. The total number of Urdu speakers currently exceeds 50 million people. It is one of the two official languages of Pakistan (along with English). The Pakistani constitution proclaims Urdu to be a national language, which means that it is supposed to function as an instrument of national integration and as an exponent of the Muslim identity of Pakistani society.
In India, Urdu is one of the 15 languages recognized by the constitution as the main languages of the country. It is one of the official languages in several Indian states, including Uttar-Pradesh (along with Hindi), Bihar (along with Hindi), Andhra-Pradesh (along with Telugu), and the Delhi union territory (along with Hindi and Punjabi). Jammu and Kashmir is the only Indian state where Urdu is the main official language.
Both in Pakistan and in the above-mentioned territories of India, Urdu is used in literature, mass media, and education. In Pakistan, it is the main literary language, while English is predominant in certain other spheres of life, such as international contacts, business, higher education, and science. In administration, politics, and the press, the two languages function alongside one another.
The Urdu language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Aryan group of the Indo-European language family. The earliest representative of this branch is Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India. Its most archaic form, called Vedic Sanskrit, is attested in the Rigveda, a collection of religious hymns, usually dated back to the 7th - 10th century BC. The Indo-Aryan languages of today are most often called New Indo-Aryan languages, and they include Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Bengali, Nepali, and many others. Hindi displays the closest relationship with Urdu. The grammar and the basic vocabulary of the two languages are almost identical, the principal differences being only in the script and in the sources of borrowed words. These differences are characteristic only for the written language and for the formal style of the spoken language. The colloquial style is the same for Hindi and Urdu, which is why some scholars are inclined to consider them as the two literary forms of one colloquial language. Usually, this language is called Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu.
Urdu literature is very rich. The beginning of its history is traditionally dated back to the 16th century AD, when an Indo-Aryan language very close to Urdu started to be regularly used for literary purposes by the court poets in the Muslim kingdoms situated on the Deccan plateau (Central India). Much later, this language came to be called Dakhini, i.e. 'southern' or 'pertaining to Deccan' (as opposed to the literary Urdu of Delhi, which was used in Northern India). Dakhini was brought to Central India by numerous Muslim immigrants from the North and North-West. Dialects of Dakhini are still spoken by the Muslim population of Deccan, which now lies within the bounds of the Andhra-Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra states of India. Dakhini authors employed a modified Perso-Arabic script and quite freely borrowed words from Persian.
At the end of the 17th century, Dakhini literature was very popular in Northern India. Under its strong influence, literature began to be created in the dialect of Delhi and adjoining territories. This dialect, called Khari-boli, is the basis of modern standard Urdu. Despite being unquestionably close to Dakhini, Khari-boli differs from it in certain respects, primarily in grammar. On the other hand, Dakhini dialects show some significant points of resemblance with dialects of Punjabi.
At first, the literary form of Khari-boli was called Hindavi ('Indian') or Dahlavi ('the language of Delhi'). The word 'Urdu' became widely used in the late 18th century. The original meaning of this word was 'army' or 'army camp'. It became the official name of the language because the Khari-boli dialect was the main medium of communication among the soldiers in Northern India.
During the British rule, the Urdu language was encouraged by the colonial authorities. It was an auxiliary language of administration throughout Northern India and parts of Central India. It also became the main literary language of Muslims in those parts of the country. Simultaneously, the Khari-boli dialect began to be used in literature by Hindus, who employed Indian Devanagari script for writing it. Another characteristic feature of the "Hindu" literary style was a very large number of Sanskrit loanwords. This style of Khari-boli was the basis of modern Hindi - one of the two official languages of India.
After the partition of British India in 1947 and the establishment of Pakistan as the state of Indian Muslims, Urdu was declared the official language of the country. Nevertheless, for the great majority of Pakistanis, Urdu is a second language, not a native language. Only around 11 million people (slightly more than 7.5% of the total population) speak Urdu as their mother tongue. Almost all the native-speakers of Urdu in Pakistan belong to the community of the so-called "muhajirs" (literally: 'refugees'). These are the descendants of Muslim refugees from India who left their homeland after the partition. Nowadays, muhajirs are concentrated mainly in the major cities: Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Multan. The Karachi district of the Sindh province is the only administrative unit of Pakistan where the majority of the population is Urdu-speaking.
In India, Urdu is spoken by around 46 million people (nearly 5% of the population). Most of them are North-Indian Muslims living in the Uttar-Pradesh and Bihar states and in the union territory of Delhi. Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra-Pradesh have considerable Muslim populations who speak Dakhini but using standard Urdu for official and literary purposes. In Jammu and Kashmir, the number of Urdu native speakers is negligible, although in this state Muslims are the great majority and a lot of people speak Urdu freely as a second language. The main centers of Urdu literature and press in India are Delhi, Aligarh, Lakhnau (all in Uttar-Pradesh) and Hyderabad (in Andhra-Pradesh).
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