:Urdu

The name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780 for Hindustani language, even though he himself also used Hindavi term in his poetry to define the language.{{Cite web |date=15 October 2022 |title=A Historical Perspective of Urdu {{!}} National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language |url=https://www.urducouncil.nic.in/council/historical-perspective-urdu |access-date=17 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221015162643/https://www.urducouncil.nic.in/council/historical-perspective-urdu |archive-date=15 October 2022 }} Ordu means army in the Turkic languages. In late 18th century, it was known as Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla {{lang|ur|{{nq|زبانِ اُرْدُوئے مُعَلّٰی}}}} means language of the exalted camp.{{Cite web |title=Meaning of urdu-e-mualla in English |url=https://www.rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-urdu-e-muallaa |access-date=17 October 2022 |website=Rekhta Dictionary |language=en}} Earlier it was known as Hindvi, Hindi and Hindustani.

{{Main|History of Hindustani}}

Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani language.Dua, Hans R. (1992). Hindi-Urdu is a pluricentric language. In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. {{ISBN|3-11-012855-1}}.{{Citation|last=Kachru|first=Yamuna|title=Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani|url=http://bookfi.org/dl/1463145/e4994d|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200124071450/http://bookfi.org/dl/1463145/e4994d|url-status=dead|archive-date=24 January 2020|page=82|year=2008|editor=Braj Kachru|series=Language in South Asia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-78653-9|author-link=Yamuna Kachru|editor2=Yamuna Kachru|editor3=S. N. Sridhar}}{{cite web|url=http://www.hamariboli.com/p/hamari-history.html|title=Hamari History|last1=Qalamdaar|first1=Azad|date=27 December 2010|publisher=Hamari Boli Foundation|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101227221213/http://www.hamariboli.com/p/hamari-history.html|archive-date=27 December 2010|quote=Historically, Hindustani developed in the post-12th century period under the impact of the incoming Afghans and Turks as a linguistic modus vivendi from the sub-regional apabhramshas of north-western India. Its first major folk poet was the great Persian master, Amir Khusrau (1253–1325), who is known to have composed dohas (couplets) and riddles in the newly-formed speech, then called 'Hindavi'. Through the medieval time, this mixed speech was variously called by various speech sub-groups as 'Hindavi', 'Zaban-e-Hind', 'Hindi', 'Zaban-e-Dehli', 'Rekhta', 'Gujarii. 'Dakkhani', 'Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla', 'Zaban-e-Urdu', or just 'Urdu'. By the late 11th century, the name 'Hindustani' was in vogue and had become the lingua franca for most of northern India. A sub-dialect called Khari Boli was spoken in and around the Delhi region at the start of the 13th century when the Delhi Sultanate was established. Khari Boli gradually became the prestige dialect of Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) and became the basis of modern Standard Hindi & Urdu.}} Some linguists have suggested that the earliest forms of Urdu evolved from the medieval (6th to 13th century) Apabhraṃśa register of the preceding Shauraseni language, a Middle Indo-Aryan language that is also the ancestor of other modern Indo-Aryan languages.Schmidt, Ruth Laila. "1 Brief history and geography of Urdu 1.1 History and sociocultural position." The Indo-Aryan Languages 3 (2007): 286.Malik, Shahbaz, Shareef Kunjahi, Mir Tanha Yousafi, Sanawar Chadhar, Alam Lohar, Abid Tamimi, Anwar Masood et al. "Census History of Punjabi Speakers in Pakistan." In the Delhi region of India the native language was Khariboli, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi (or Hindavi).{{cite book |last1=Taher |first1=Mohamed |title=Librarianship and Library Science in India: An Outline of Historical Perspectives |date=1994 |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |isbn=978-81-7022-524-9 |page=115 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Mody |first1=Sujata Sudhakar |title=Literature, Language, and Nation Formation: The Story of a Modern Hindi Journal 1900-1920 |date=2008 |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |page=7 |language=en |quote=...Hindustani, Rekhta, and Urdu as later names of the old Hindi (a.k.a. Hindavi).}}{{cite book |title=English-Urdu Learner's Dictionary |date=6 March 2021 |publisher=Multi Linguis |isbn=978-1-005-94089-8 |language=English |quote=** History (Simplified) ** Proto-Indo European > Proto-Indo-Iranian > Proto-Indo-Aryan > Vedic Sanskrit > Classical Sanskrit > Sauraseni Prakrit > Sauraseni Apabhramsa > Old Hindi > Hindustani > Urdu}}{{cite book |author1=Sisir Kumar Das |title=History of Indian Literature |date=2005 |publisher=Sahitya Akademi |isbn=978-81-7201-006-5 |page=142 |language=English |quote=The most important trend in the history of Hindi-Urdu is the process of Persianization on the one hand and that of Sanskritization on the other. Amrit Rai offers evidence to show that although the employment of Perso-Arabic script for the language which was akin to Hindi/Hindavi or old Hindi was the first step towards the establishment of the separate identity of Urdu, it was called Hindi for a long time. "The final and complete change-over to the new name took place after the content of the language had undergone a drastic change." He further observes: "In the light of the literature that has come down to us, for about six hundred years, the development of Hindi/Hindavi seems largely to substantiate the view of the basic unity of the two languages. Then, sometime in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the cleavage seems to have begun." Rai quotes from Sadiq, who points out how it became a "systematic policy of poets and scholars" of the eighteenth century to weed out, what they called and thought, "vulgar words." This weeding out meant "the elimination, along with some rough and unmusical plebian words, of a large number of Hindi words for the reason that to the people brought up in Persian traditions they appeared unfamiliar and vulgar." Sadiq concludes: hence the paradox that this crusade against Persian tyranny, instead of bringing Urdu close to the indigenous element, meant in reality a wider gulf between it and the popular speech. But what differentiated Urdu still more from the local dialects was a process of ceaseless importation from Persian. It may seem strange that Urdu writers in rebellion against Persian should decide to draw heavily on Persian vocabulary, idioms, forms, and sentiments. . . . Around 1875 in his word Urdu Sarf O Nahr, however, he presented a balanced view pointing out that attempts of the Maulavis to Persianize and of the Pandits to Sanskritize the language were not only an error but against the natural laws of linguistic growth. The common man, he pointed out, used both Persian and Sanskrit words without any qualms;}} It belongs to the Western Hindi group of the Central Indo-Aryan languages.{{cite web|url=http://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm|title=About Hindi-Urdu|last1=Taj|first1=Afroz|date=1997|publisher=The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815023328/http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|archive-date=15 August 2009|access-date=30 June 2019}}{{cite web|url=http://hindiurduflagship.org/about/two-languages-or-one/|title=Two Languages or One?|work=hindiurduflagship.org|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311230741/http://hindiurduflagship.org/about/two-languages-or-one/|archive-date=11 March 2015|access-date=29 March 2015|quote=Hindi and Urdu developed from the "khari boli" dialect spoken in the Delhi region of northern India.}} The contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures during the period of Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent (12th to 16th centuries) led to the development of Hindustani as a product of a composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.{{cite book |last1=King |first1=Christopher Rolland |title=One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-565112-6 |page=67 |language=en|quote=Educated Muslims, for the most part supporters of Urdu, rejected the Hindu linguistic heritage and emphasized the joint Hindu-Muslim origins of Urdu.}}{{cite book |last1=Dhulipala |first1=Venkat |title=The Politics of Secularism: Medieval Indian Historiography and the Sufis |date=2000 |publisher=University of Wisconsin–Madison |page=27 |language=en |quote=Persian became the court language, and many Persian words crept into popular usage. The composite culture of northern India, known as the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb was a product of the interaction between Hindu society and Islam.}}{{cite web |title=Women of the Indian Sub-Continent: Makings of a Culture - Rekhta Foundation |url=https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/women-of-the-indian-sub-continent-makings-of-a-culture-rekhta-foundation/dwJy7qboNi3fIg?hl=en |publisher=Google Arts & Culture |access-date=25 February 2020 |language=en |quote=The "Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb" is one such instance of the composite culture that marks various regions of the country. Prevalent in the North, particularly in the central plains, it is born of the union between the Hindu and Muslim cultures. Most of the temples were lined along the Ganges and the Khanqah (Sufi school of thought) were situated along the Yamuna river (also called Jamuna). Thus, it came to be known as the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, with the word "tehzeeb" meaning culture. More than communal harmony, its most beautiful by-product was "Hindustani" which later gave us the Hindi and Urdu languages.}}{{cite book |last1=Jain |first1=Danesh |last2=Cardona |first2=George |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-79711-9 |language=en |quote=The primary sources of non-IA loans into MSH are Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Turkic and English. Conversational registers of Hindi/Urdu (not to mentioned formal registers of Urdu) employ large numbers of Persian and Arabic loanwords, although in Sanskritised registers many of these words are replaced by tatsama forms from Sanskrit. The Persian and Arabic lexical elements in Hindi result from the effects of centuries of Islamic administrative rule over much of north India in the centuries before the establishment of British rule in India. Although it is conventional to differentiate among Persian and Arabic loan elements into Hindi/Urdu, in practice it is often difficult to separate these strands from one another. The Arabic (and also Turkic) lexemes borrowed into Hindi frequently were mediated through Persian, as a result of which a thorough intertwining of Persian and Arabic elements took place, as manifest by such phenomena as hybrid compounds and compound words. Moreover, although the dominant trajectory of lexical borrowing was from Arabic into Persian, and thence into Hindi/Urdu, examples can be found of words that in origin are actually Persian loanwords into both Arabic and Hindi/Urdu.}}

In cities such as Delhi, the ancient language Old Hindi began to acquire many Persian loanwords and continued to be called "Hindi" and later, also "Hindustani".{{cite book |last1=Kesavan |first1=B. S. |title=History Of Printing And Publishing in India |date=1997 |publisher=National Book Trust, India |isbn=978-81-237-2120-0 |page=31 |language=en |quote=It might be useful to recall here that Old Hindi or Hindavi, which was a naturally Persian- mixed language in the largest measure, has played this role before, as we have seen, for five or six centuries.}}{{cite book |last1=Bhat |first1=M. Ashraf |title=The Changing Language Roles and Linguistic Identities of the Kashmiri Speech Community |date=2017 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-6260-8 |language=en|page=72|quote=Although it has borrowed a large number of lexical items from Persian and some from Turkish, it is a derivative of Hindvi (also called 'early Urdu'), the parent of both modern Hindi and Urdu. It originated as a new, common language of Delhi, which has been called Hindavi or Dahlavi by Amir Khusrau. After the advent of the Mughals on the stage of Indian history, the Hindavi language enjoyed greater space and acceptance. Persian words and phrases came into vogue. The Hindavi of that period was known as Rekhta, or Hindustani, and only later as Urdu. Perfect amity and tolerance between Hindus and Muslims tended to foster Rekhta or Urdu, which represented the principle of unity in diversity, thus marking a feature of Indian life at its best. The ordinary spoken version ('bazaar Urdu') was almost identical to the popularly spoken version of Hindi. Most prominent scholars in India hold the view that Urdu is neither a Muslim nor a Hindu language; it is an outcome of a multicultural and multi-religious encounter.}}{{cite book |last1=Strnad |first1=Jaroslav |title=Morphology and Syntax of Old Hindī: Edition and Analysis of One Hundred Kabīr vānī Poems from Rājasthān |date=2013 |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |isbn=978-90-04-25489-3 |language=en |quote=Quite different group of nouns occurring with the ending -a in the dir. plural consists of words of Arabic or Persian origin borrowed by the Old Hindi with their Persian plural endings.}}{{Cite book|url=http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/hindiurdu1.pdf|title=From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History|last=Rahman|first=Tariq|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-19-906313-0|pages=1–22|author-link=Tariq Rahman|access-date=7 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010094507/http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/hindiurdu1.pdf|archive-date=10 October 2014|url-status=dead}} An early literary tradition of Hindavi was founded by Amir Khusrau in the late 13th century,{{cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amir-Khosrow|title=Amīr Khosrow - Indian poet|newspaper=Encyclopedia Britannica }}{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=iUk5k5AN54sC&pg=PA10|title= Advanced Study in the History of Medieval India|author= Jaswant Lal Mehta|volume= 1|page= 10|publisher= Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd|year= 1980|isbn= 9788120706170}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZslAQAAIAAJ&q=father+of+Urdu+literature+amir+khusrow|title=Hazart Nizam-Ud-Din Auliya and Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chisti|last1=Bakshi|first1=Shiri Ram|last2=Mittra|first2=Sangh|date=2002|publisher=Criterion|isbn=9788179380222|language=en}}{{cite web|title=Urdu language|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Urdu-language|website=Encyclopædia Britannica|date=19 June 2023 }} who has been called "the father of Urdu literature".{{Cite book |last=Bhattacharya |first=Vivek Ranjan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKnXAAAAMAAJ&q=father+of+Urdu+literature+amir+khusrow |title=Famous Indian sages: their immortal messages |publisher=Sagar Publications |year=1982 |language=en}} After the conquest of the Deccan, and a subsequent immigration of noble Muslim families into the south, a form of the language flourished in medieval India as a vehicle of poetry, (especially under the Bahmanids),{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8pMXAwAAQBAJ&dq=tughlaq+urdu+immigration+daulatabad&pg=PA258 |title= Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern India |date= 2014 |publisher= Brill|isbn= 9789004264489 }} and is known as Dakhini, which contains loanwords from Telugu and Marathi.{{cite book |last1=Khan |first1=Abdul Rashid |title=The All India Muslim Educational Conference: Its Contribution to the Cultural Development of Indian Muslims, 1886-1947 |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-579375-8 |page=152 |language=en |quote=After the conquest of the Deccan, Urdu received the liberal patronage of the courts of Golconda and Bijapur. Consequently, Urdu borrowed words from the local language of Telugu and Marathi as well as from Sanskrit.}}{{cite book |last1=Luniya |first1=Bhanwarlal Nathuram |title=Life and Culture in Medieval India |date=1978 |publisher=Kamal Prakashan |page=311 |language=en |quote=Under the liberal patronage of the courts of Golconda and Bijapur, Urdu borrowed words from the local languages like Telugu and Marathi as well as from Sanskrit, but its themes were moulded on Persian models.}}{{cite book |last1=Kesavan |first1=Bellary Shamanna |title=History of Printing and Publishing in India: Origins of printing and publishing in the Hindi heartland |date=1985 |publisher=National Book Trust |isbn=978-81-237-2120-0 |page=7 |language=en |quote=The Mohammedans of the Deccan thus called their Hindustani tongue Dakhani (Dakhini), Gujari or Bhaka (Bhakha) which was a symbol of their belonging to Muslim conquering and ruling group in the Deccan and South India where overwhelming number of Hindus spoke Marathi, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.}}

From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century; the language now known as Urdu was called Hindi, Hindavi, Hindustani, Dehlavi,{{cite news|url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1127464/|title=Literary Notes: Common misconceptions about Urdu|author=Rauf Parekh|date=25 August 2014|work=dawn.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150125001926/http://www.dawn.com/news/1127464|archive-date=25 January 2015|access-date=29 March 2015|quote=Urdu did not get its present name till late 18th Century and before that had had a number of different names – including Hindi, Hindvi, Hindustani, Dehlvi, Lahori, Dakkani, and even Moors – though it was born much earlier.}} Dihlawi,{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=f-xtAAAAMAAJ&q=abul+fazl+hind+sind |title= Sind Quarterly:Volume 26, Issues 1-2|date=1998 |author=Mazhar Yusuf |page=36 }} Lahori, and Lashkari.Malik, Muhammad Kamran, and Syed Mansoor Sarwar. "Named entity recognition system for postpositional languages: urdu as a case study." International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications 7.10 (2016): 141-147. The Delhi Sultanate established Persian as its official language in India, a policy continued by the Mughal Empire, which extended over most of northern South Asia from the 16th to 18th centuries and cemented Persian influence on Hindustani.{{cite book|title=First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913–1936|publisher=Brill Academic Publishers|year=1993|isbn=9789004097964|page=1024|language=en|quote=Whilst the Muhammadan rulers of India spoke Persian, which enjoyed the prestige of being their court language, the common language of the country continued to be Hindi, derived through Prakrit from Sanskrit. On this dialect of the common people was grafted the Persian language, which brought a new language, Urdu, into existence. Sir George Grierson, in the Linguistic Survey of India, assigns no distinct place to Urdu, but treats it as an offshoot of Western Hindi.}} Urdu was patronised by the Nawab of Awadh and in Lucknow, the language was refined, being not only spoken in the court, but by the common people in the city—both Hindus and Muslims; the city of Lucknow gave birth to Urdu prose literature, with a notable novel being Umrao Jaan Ada.{{cite book |last1=Jasanoff |first1=Maya |title=Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850 |date=18 December 2007 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-307-42571-3 |language=en |quote=It was claimed that in Lucknow even everyday Urdu sppeech had been raised to its highest degree of perfection. "The masses and uneducated people" were said to "speak better Urdu than many poets...of other places," and outsiders were too intimidated to open their mouths. In the celebrated salons of Lucknow's noblewomen and courtesans, conversation flowed with such grace "it seemed as though 'flowers were dropping from their lips.'" Lucknow was buzzingly dynamic. In a self-conscious effort to echo the lost glory of Akbar's India, Asaf ud-Daula patronized writers, musicians, artists, craftsmen, and scholars on an imperial scale. Leading Urdu poets such as Mir Taqi Mir fled the crumbling Mughal capital and came to Lucknow instead, where they developed a distinctive style and school of poetry. Modern Urdu prose literature originated in Lucknow, and Persian, the language of status and learning, flourished. As a seat of Shiite scholarship, Lucknow rivaled the religious centers of Iran and eastern Iraq.}}{{cite journal |title=Not Just Urdu, But Lakhnawi Urdu |journal=Tornos |date=2014 |volume=8 |issue=6 |url=https://tornosindia.com/not-just-urdu-but-lakhnawi-urdu/ |quote=Urdu and that too Luckhnawi Urdu is a natural part of day to day conversation of the people of Lucknow, irrespective of their mother-tongue or their religion. A devout Hindu too in Lucknow would use this dialect without any in-habitations, while the grace and style of Urdu in Lucknow comes quite naturally to him as it would to a person of Muslim faith, all by virtue of being born and lived in Lucknow. Language of Lucknow was by all means superior to the languages of Delhi and Hyderabad that were other two seats of refinement, grace and style. Mirza Ghalib of Delhi could not resist the charm of Lucknow’s language and in spite of his refinements in language did accept being inferior to the refined dialect of Lucknow. After all what makes Lucknow’s language so very different? Difference between the Mughal culture and Awadhi culture lies in the fact that the royal dialect of the courts of Awadh came on the streets and in the lanes to evolve and flourish among the common subjects in Lucknow, while Mughal courts were like all other royal courts that had a difference in the culture and language of the courts and the common subjects.}}

File:Nuskaha-e-Hamidiyya.jpg, 1821]]

According to the Navadirul Alfaz by Khan-i Arzu, the "Zaban-e Urdu-e Shahi" [language of the Imperial Camp] had attained special importance in the time of Alamgir".{{cite book|title= A House Divided: The Origin and Development of Hindi/Hindavi |author1= Am.rta Rāya |author2=Amrit Rai |author3=Amr̥tarāya |date= 1984 |publisher= Oxford University Press |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BJGBAAAAIAAJ&q=From+all+available+evidence+,+imperial+Urdu+seems+to+have+started+being+given+a+shape+in+the+time+of+Shahjahan+and+to+have+acquired+it+substantially+by+the+end+of+Aurangzeb%27s+reign+.+This |page= 240 |isbn= 978-0-19-561643-9 }} By the end of the reign of Aurangzeb in the early 1700s, the common language around Delhi began to be referred to as Zaban-e-Urdu,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wawGFWNuHiwC&pg=PA383|title=Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations|last=Clyne|first=Michael G.|date=1992|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=9783110128550|pages=383|language=en}} a name derived from the Turkic word ordu (army) or orda and is said to have arisen as the "language of the camp", or "Zaban-i-Ordu" means "Language of High camps"{{Cite web |last=Dictionary |first=Rekhta |date=5 April 2022 |title=Meaning of Urdu |url=https://www.rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-urdu |access-date=5 April 2022 |website=Rekhta dictionary}} or natively "Lashkari Zaban" means "Language of Army"{{cite book|title=Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan|url=https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre|url-access=limited|author=Alyssa Ayres|page=[https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre/page/n32 19]|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521519311|date=23 July 2009}} even though term Urdu held different meanings at that time.{{cite web

| title = Urdu's origin: it's not a 'camp language' - Newspaper - DAWN.COM

| url = https://www.dawn.com/news/681263/urdusorigin-its-not-a-camp-language

| date = 17 May 2023

| archive-url = https://archive.today/20230517141136/https://www.dawn.com/news/681263/urdusorigin-its-not-a-camp-language

| archive-date = 17 May 2023 }} It is recorded that Aurangzeb spoke in Hindvi, which was most likely Persianized, as there are substantial evidence that Hindvi was written in the Persian script in this period.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xOGJAAAAMAAJ&q=aurangzeb+hindi+language |title= Language Problem in India |page= 138 |publisher= Institute of Objective Studies |date= 1997 |isbn= 9788185220413 }}

During this time period Urdu was referred to as "Moors", which simply meant Muslim,{{cite book |quote= The "Moor" of Camoens, meaning simply "Moslem", was used by a past generation of Anglo-Indians, who called the Urdu or Hindustani dialect "the Moors"|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=zGYCAAAAQAAJ&dq=moors+dialect+urdu&pg=PA573 |title= Camoens: his life and his Lusiads, a commentary: Volume 2|date= 1881 |author= sir Richard Francis Burton, Luis Vaz de Camoens |page= 573 |publisher= Oxford University }} by European writers.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_kWROaer5UsC&dq=british+moors+urdu&pg=PA1118 |title= Allied Chambers transliterated Hindi-Hindi-English dictionary |author1= Henk W. Wagenaar |author2=S. S. Parikh |author3=D. F. Plukker |author4=R. Veldhuijzen van Zanten |date= 1993 |publisher= Allied Publishers |isbn= 9788186062104 }} John Ovington wrote in 1689:{{cite book |title= A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689 |page= 147 |date= 1994 |publisher= Asian Educational Services |author= John Ovington }}

The language of the Moors is different from that of the ancient original inhabitants of India but is obliged to these Gentiles for its characters. For though the Moors dialect is peculiar to themselves, yet it is destitute of Letters to express it; and therefore, in all their Writings in their Mother Tongue, they borrow their letters from the Heathens, or from the Persians, or other Nations.

In 1715, a complete literary Diwan in Rekhta was written by Nawab Sadruddin Khan.{{cite book |title= The Reign Of Muhammad Shah 1919-1748 |author= Zahiruddin Malik |date= 1977 |url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.131341/page/n397/mode/2up }} An Urdu-Persian dictionary was written by Khan-i Arzu in 1751 in the reign of Ahmad Shah Bahadur.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1eANAAAAYAAJ&q=Navadirul+Alfaz |title= Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft:Volume 119 |date=1969|author= Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft |page=267 |publisher= Kommissionsverlag F. Steiner }} The name Urdu was first introduced by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780.{{Citation|last=Faruqi|first=Shamsur Rahman|title=A Long History of Urdu Literary Culture Part 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ak9csfpY2WoC|page=806|year=2003|editor=Sheldon Pollock|series=Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions From South Asia|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-22821-4|author-link=Shamsur Rahman Faruqi}} As a literary language, Urdu took shape in courtly, elite settings.{{Cite book|url=http://www.overstock.com/Books-Movies-Music-Games/Global-Connections-Politics-Exchange-and-Social-Life-in-World-History-Hardcover/9911619/product.html#more|title=Global Connections: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World History|last=Coatsworth|first=John|publisher=Cambridge Univ Pr|year=2015|isbn=9780521761062|location=United States|pages=159}}{{Cite journal|author=Tariq Rahman|author-link=Tariq Rahman|date=2011|title=Urdu as the Language of Education in British India|url=http://www.nihcr.edu.pk/Latest_English_Journal/1.%20URDU%20AS%20THE%20LANGUAGE,%20Tariq%20Rahman%20FINAL.pdf|journal=Pakistan Journal of History and Culture|publisher=NIHCR|volume=32|issue=2|pages=1–42}} While Urdu retained the grammar and core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the local Indian dialect Khariboli, it adopted the Perso-Arab writing system, written in the Nastaleeq style.{{cite book |last1=Delacy |first1=Richard |last2=Ahmed |first2=Shahara |title=Hindi, Urdu & Bengali |date=2005 |publisher=Lonely Planet |pages=11–12 |quote=Hindi and Urdu are generally considered to be one spoken language with two different literary traditions. That means that Hindi and Urdu speakers who shop in the same markets (and watch the same Bollywood films) have no problems understanding each other -- they'd both say yeh kitne kaa hay for 'How much is it?' -- but the written form for Hindi will be यह कितने का है? and the Urdu one will be یہ کتنے کا ہے؟ Hindi is written from left to right in the Devanagari script, and is the official language of India, along with English. Urdu, on the other hand, is written from right to left in the Nastaliq script (a modified form of the Arabic script) and is the national language of Pakistan. It's also one of the official languages of the Indian states of Bihar and Jammu & Kashmir. Considered as one, these tongues constitute the second most spoken language in the world, sometimes called Hindustani. In their daily lives, Hindi and Urdu speakers communicate in their 'different' languages without major problems. ... Both Hindi and Urdu developed from Classical Sanskrit, which appeared in the Indus Valley (modern Pakistan and northwest India) at about the start of the Common Era. The first old Hindi (or Apabhransha) poetry was written in the year 769 AD, and by the European Middle Ages it became known as 'Hindvi'. Muslim Turks invaded the Punjab in 1027 and took control of Delhi in 1193. They paved the way for the Islamic Mughal Empire, which ruled northern India from the 16th century until it was defeated by the British Raj in the mid-19th century. It was at this time that the language of this book began to take form, a mixture of Hindvi grammar with Arabic, Persian and Turkish vocabulary. The Muslim speakers of Hindvi began to write in the Arabic script, creating Urdu, while the Hindu population incorporated the new words but continued to write in Devanagari script.}} – which was developed as a style of Persian calligraphy.{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Islam|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1977|isbn=0-521-29138-0|editor-last=Holt|editor-first=P. M.|location=Cambridge|page=723|editor-last2=Lambton|editor-first2=Ann K. S.|editor-last3=Lewis|editor-first3=Bernard}}

{{anchor|Names of Urdu Language}}

Throughout the history of the language, Urdu has been referred to by several other names: Hindi, Hindavi, Rekhta, Urdu-e-Muallah, Dakhini, Moors and Dehlavi.

In 1773, the Swiss French soldier Antoine Polier notes that the English liked to use the name "Moors" for Urdu:{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=71h7DgAAQBAJ&dq=follow+theme+in+their+conversation,+even+though+i+have+a+deep+knowledge+%5Bje+possede+a+fond%5D+of+the+common+tongue+of+India,+called+Moors+by+the+English,+and+Ourdouzebain+by+the+natives+of+the+land.&pg=PA259 |title= Europe's India: Words, People, Empires, 1500–1800 |author= Sanjay Subrahmanyam |date= 2017|publisher= Harvard University Press |isbn= 9780674977556 }}

I have a deep knowledge [je possède à fond] of the common tongue of India, called Moors by the English, and Ourdouzebain by the natives of the land.

Several works of Sufi writers like Ashraf Jahangir Semnani used similar names for the Urdu language. Shah Abdul Qadir Raipuri was the first person who translated The Quran into Urdu.{{cite book |last1=Christine Everaert |title=Tracing the Boundaries Between Hindi and Urdu |year=2010 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004177314 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqZ-6QRKc7wC&q=hindi+was+used+for+urdu&pg=PA242}}

During Shahjahan's time, the Capital was relocated to Delhi and named Shahjahanabad and the Bazar of the town was named Urdu e Muallah.{{cite book |title=G. A. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GHBjAAAAMAAJ&q=the+Bazaar+of+the+town+was+named+as+Urdu+e+Mualla.|last1 = Varma| first1 = Siddheshwar|year = 1973}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jWpNBAAAQBAJ&q=the+Bazaar+of+the+town+was+named+as+Urdu+e+Mualla.&pg=PA179| title=Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide: African Heritage, Mesopotamian Root | last1 = Khan| first1 = Abdul Jamil| isbn = 9780875864372| year = 2006| publisher=Algora }}

In the Akbar era, the word Rekhta was used to describe Urdu for the first time. It was originally a Persian word that meant "to create a mixture". Amir Khusrau was the first person to use the same word for Poetry.{{Cite news |last=Khan |first=Abdullah |date=4 June 2011 |title=The mystic poet |work=The Hindu |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/the-mystic-poet/article2076364.ece |access-date=22 July 2023 |issn=0971-751X}}

Before the standardisation of Urdu into colonial administration, British officers often referred to the language as "Moors" or "Moorish jargon". John Gilchrist was the first in British India to begin a systematic study on Urdu and began to use the term "Hindustani" what the majority of Europeans called "Moors", authoring the book The Strangers's East Indian Guide to the Hindoostanee or Grand Popular Language of India (improperly Called Moors).{{cite book |title= Genealogies of Orientalism: History, Theory, Politics |publisher= Nebraska Paperback |date= July 2008 |author= David Prochaska, Edmund Burke III }}

Urdu was promoted in colonial India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian, and the language also gained official status in colonial India because it was the language of the Muslim elite (such as Nawabs and Zamindars).{{cite journal|last=Rahman|first=Tariq|author-link=Tariq Rahman|year=2000|title=The Teaching of Urdu in British India|url=http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/06rahmant.pdf|url-status=live|journal=The Annual of Urdu Studies|volume=15|page=55|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021011359/http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/06rahmant.pdf|archive-date=21 October 2014}} In colonial India, "ordinary Muslims and Hindus alike spoke the same language in the United Provinces in the nineteenth century, namely Hindustani, whether called by that name or whether called Hindi, Urdu, or one of the regional dialects such as Braj or Awadhi.{{cite book |last1=Hutchinson |first1=John |last2=Smith |first2=Anthony D. |title=Nationalism: Critical Concepts in Political Science |date=2000 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-20112-4 |language=en|quote=In the nineteenth century in north India, before the extension of the British system of government schools, Urdu was not used in its written form as a medium of instruction in traditional Islamic schools, where Muslim children were taught Persian and Arabic, the traditional languages of Islam and Muslim culture. It was only when the Muslim elites of north India and the British decided that Muslims were backward in education in relation to Hindus and should be encouraged to attend government schools that it was felt necessary to offer Urdu in the Persian-Arabic script as an inducement to Muslims to attend the schools. And it was only after the Hindi-Urdu controversy developed that Urdu, once disdained by Muslim elites in north India and not even taught in the Muslim religious schools in the early nineteenth century, became a symbol of Muslim identity second to Islam itself. A second point revealed by the Hindi-Urdu controversy in north India is how symbols may be used to separate peoples who, in fact, share aspects of culture. It is well known that ordinary Muslims and Hindus alike spoke the same language in the United Provinces in the nineteenth century, namely Hindustani, whether called by that name or whether called Hindi, Urdu, or one of the regional dialects such as Braj or Awadhi. Although a variety of styles of Hindi-Urdu were in use in the nineteenth century among different social classes and status groups, the legal and administrative elites in courts and government offices, Hindus and Muslims alike, used Urdu in the Persian-Arabic script.}} Elites from Muslim communities, as well as a minority of Hindu elites, such as Munshis of Hindu origin,{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0iY__P2Y5dQC&dq=hindu+munshis+urdu&pg=PA342 |title= The Hindustan Review: Volume 23 |date= 1911 |author= Sachchidananda Sinha |publisher= University of Wisconsin- Madison |page= 243}} wrote the language in the Perso-Arabic script in courts and government offices, though Hindus continued to employ the Devanagari script in certain literary and religious contexts.{{citation|last=McGregor|first=Stuart|title=Literary cultures in history: reconstructions from South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xowUxYhv0QgC&q=0520228219&pg=RA1-PA912|page=912|year=2003|publisher=University of California Press |contribution=The Progress of Hindi, Part 1|isbn=978-0-520-22821-4}} in Pollock (2003) Through the late 19th century, people did not view Urdu and Hindi as being two distinct languages, though in urban areas, the standardised Hindustani language was increasingly being referred to as Urdu and written in the Perso-Arabic script.{{Cite news |last=Bilal |first=Maaz Bin |date=5 November 2021 |title=Till the late 19th century, people were hardly aware of Urdu and Hindi as being two distinct languages |language=en |work=The Hindu |url=https://www.thehindu.com/society/hindustani-we-spoke-how-urdu-and-hindi-evolved-from-a-common-language/article37337191.ece |access-date=19 December 2022 |issn=0971-751X}} Urdu and English replaced Persian as the official languages in northern parts of India in 1837.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wvUUjCRAUT0C&pg=PA33|title=The Right Hon'ble Syed Ameer Ali: Political Writings|last=Ali|first=Syed Ameer|date=1989|publisher=APH Publishing|isbn=978-81-7024-247-5|pages=33|language=en}} Hindus in northwestern India, under the Arya Samaj agitated against the sole use of the Perso-Arabic script and argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ieMgAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA385|title=Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations|last=Clyne|first=Michael|date=24 May 2012|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-088814-0|language=en}} which triggered a backlash against the use of Hindi written in Devanagari by the Anjuman-e-Islamia of Lahore.

Advocacy for a standardized Hindi, based on "Khari boli" speech, which would have equal official recognition did not begin until the 1860s,{{cite book|last = Mody|first = Sujata S. |title=The Making of Modern Hindi: Literary Authority in Colonial North India|location=New Delhi|publisher=Oxford University Press| year = 2018| isbn=978-0-19-948909-1|pages=2–3|quote=From the mid-1860s onwards, advocates for Khari Boli Hindi, current in and around Delhi and written in the Devanagari script, had vied for equal recognition with the officially recognized Urdu.}} Proponents of Hindi over Urdu as an authorized language also had to take into account the existence of numerous provincial languages such as Awadhi, Braj Bhasha, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, and Maithili, which were considered a part of older Hindi, but which would problematize dialogues for an official, modern standard Hindi.{{cite book|last = Mody|first = Sujata S. |title=The Making of Modern Hindi: Literary Authority in Colonian North India|location=New Delhi|publisher=Oxford University Press| year = 2018| isbn=978-0-19-948909-1|pages=2–3|quote= Advocates of Hindi over Urdu as official language had also to contend internally with multiple regional languages such as Awadhi, Braj Bhasha, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, and Maithili, among others, all included within the rubric of a premodern Hindi, but which would complicate discussions of an official, modern standard Hindi.}} Modern Standard Hindi did not emerge before the 20th century.{{cite book|last=Cort|first=John E.|author-link=John E. Cort|chapter = When Is the 'Early Modern'?: North Indian Digambar Jain Literary Culture|pages=15–62; 24, 28|title=Literary Cultures in Early Modern North India: Current Research|editor1-last=Bangha|editor1-first=Imre|editor2-last=Stasik|editor2-first=Danuta|location=Oxford and New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2024|isbn=978-0-19-288934-8|quote=(page 24) I start by contrasting two Digambar Jain authors at the early-modern/modern transition: Parasdas Nigotya (fl. 1838–74, d. 1879) of Jaipur and Nathuram Premi (1881–1960) of Bombay ... (page=28) Premi started out writing in Brajbhasa; but that he also wrote verse in Urdu indicates that he located himself in a linguistically wider and more cosmopolitan literary milieu. Premi soon abandoned the older languages and committed himself to writing and propagating Khari Boli Hindi, which in his lifetime became Modern Standard Hindi.}}{{cite book|last=Cort|first=John E.|author-link=John E. Cort|chapter = When Is the 'Early Modern'?: North Indian Digambar Jain Literary Culture|pages=15–62; 24, 50|title=Literary Cultures in Early Modern North India: Current Research|editor1-last=Bangha|editor1-first=Imre|editor2-last=Stasik|editor2-first=Danuta|location=Oxford and New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2024|isbn=978-0-19-288934-8|quote=(page 24) I start by contrasting two Digambar Jain authors at the early-modern/modern transition: Parasdas Nigotya (fl. 1838–74, d. 1879) of Jaipur and Nathuram Premi (1881–1960) of Bombay ... (page 50) Parasdas reminds us that language use in early modern north India involved complex interactions between more localized written, spoken, and sung language usage and transregional usage of languages such as Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Maru-Gurjar, Brajbhasa, and Urdu. Premi's pronounced break with both Brajbhasa and Urdu in favour of the newly developing trensgressional prestige language of Modern Standard Hindi involved a conscious choice of language}} The recognition of the Hindi script as an official script of courts in North India in 1900 was a key juncture in the evolution of Hindi-based language nationalism.{{cite book|last=Mani|first=Preetha|title=The Idea of Indian Literature: Gender, Genre, and Comparative Method|location=Evanston|publisher=Northwestern University Press|year=2022|isbn=9780810145016|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-FuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25|quote=In the North, the recogniton in 1900 of Devanagari alongside Nastaliq as an official script of the court constituted a pivotal moment in the development of Hindi nationalism.}} Hindi, which was still not altogether standardized by the 1910s,{{cite book|last=Mani|first=Preetha|title=The Idea of Indian Literature: Gender, Genre, and Comparative Method|location=Evanston|publisher=Northwestern University Press|year=2022|isbn=9780810145016|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-FuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25|quote= Yet, no sense of Hindi as a standardized language distinct from Urdu existed even in the 1910s.}} and which had hitherto been considered an unrefined language was strictly patrolled to deliver a Sanskritic lexicon that did not permit influence of Urdu to be evident,{{cite book|last=Goulding|first=Gregory|editor1-last=Anjaria|editor1-first=Ulka|editor2-last=Nerlekar|editor2-first=Anjali|title=The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures|year = 2024|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780197647912|chapter=Urban Space Across Genre: The Cities of Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh|pages=531–545; 533|quote=Before and after independence, many of the most important ideas of urban culture in northern India, such as the literary traditions of Lucknow and Delhi, were strongly associated with Urdu; Hindi, by contrast, was at times portrayed as an uncouth, undeveloped language. In response to this, from the 1910s onward, Hindi was rigorously policed to produce a standard, Sanskritic language that did not allow for the influence of Urdu or of the many languages, now considered dialects, that were spoken in the regions of northern India.}} Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi notably preparing the spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary of Modern Standard Hindi.{{cite book|last=Mani|first=Preetha|title=The Idea of Indian Literature: Gender, Genre, and Comparative Method|location=Evanston|publisher=Northwestern University Press|year=2022|isbn=9780810145016|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-FuEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT25|quote=Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi's editorship of the Hindi journal Saraswati from 1903 to 1920—through which Dwivedi carefully crafted the spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and genres now asociated with Khari Boli (equated today with modern standard Hindi)—provided an avenue for expressions of Hindi language to emerge.}}

The Hindi-Urdu controversy in 1867, highlighted the linguistic and cultural divide between Hindus and Muslims in British India, with Urdu emerging as a symbol of the linguistic patriotism of Indian Muslims. This division played an important role in the political movement of Muslims, eventually leading to the formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906, whose formation eventually resulted in the creation of Pakistan, as a separate Muslim state in the Indian subcontinent.{{cite web|title=Role of Urdu Language in Pakistan Movement: A Historical Review|url=https://www.muslim-perspectives.com/Publication-Detail?publication=85/Role-of-Urdu-Language-in-Pakistan-Movement:-A-Historical-Review|website=MUSLIM PERSPECTIVES}} The controversy began to emerge when certain Hindu leaders and organizations, including the Banaras Institute and the Allahabad Institute, advocated for replacing Urdu with Hindi as the official language. This firm stance contributed to prompting Sir Syed Ahmed Khan—who was an advocate of the Hindu-Muslim unity, but later known as the 'Father of Two-Nation Theory'—to advocate for the use of Urdu.{{cite web|title=Literary Notes: Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani and Moulvi Abdul Haq|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1640826|date=16 August 2021|author=Rauf Parekh|website=DAWN}} He regarded Urdu as a lingua franca of the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, since Urdu was the secondary language to Persian, which was serving as the official language of the Mughal court. Sir Syed also considered Urdu "a common legacy of Hindus and Muslims",Muslim Politics and Leadership in the South Asian Sub-continent, Yusuf Abbasi, 1981, page 65-66 and supported the use of Urdu through his writings. Under Sir Syed, the Scientific Society of Aligarh translated Western works only into Urdu. The Urdu movement, which was a sociopolitical movement aimed at making Urdu as the universal lingua-franca of Muslims was fuelled by Aligarh movement of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. This movement strongly influenced the Muslim League and the Pakistan Movement.

During the 1937 Lucknow session of the All-India Muslim League, the Raja of Mahmudabad, Mohammad Amir Ahmed Khan encouraged Urdu-speaking communities in British India to actively support and safeguard the Urdu language using all possible means.{{cite book|title=Trek to Pakistan|isbn=9789699988998|author=Ahmad Saeed, Kh. Mansur Sarwar}}

Liaquat Ali Khan, who was later the first prime minister of Pakistan, stated in 1939: 'We left Arabic language for this India and for the Hindus, we left Turkish language and adopted a language which came into existence and made progress in this country - a language which is not spoken anywhere else. Now, it is demanded of us that we should speak the language of Balmeek. We have taken many steps forward for the sake of Hindu-Muslim unity. We shall not now take another step forward. We are standing at the edge of our limit. Anyone who wishes to meet us should come here'.Farman Fatehpuri, Hindi-Urdu Tanaza, Islamabad, 1976, p.441 On December 31, 1939, Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi, while delivering his presidential address at the Urdu Muslim Conference in Calcutta, said, "In the brightness of the modern-daylight, something darkly unfair is being done and which is that every government official from top to bottom is engaged in doing his utmost in promoting the cause of Hindi. In my opinion, it is a disfavour to the Congress rather than a favour; it is reinforcing the misconception in the minds of the Muslims that it is what we can do with half the powers, what else we will do with full powers; as a result of which the country will be divided into two parts".Sayyid Suleman Nadvi, Nuqoosh-e-Sulaimani, Karachi, 1967, pp.163-165 A renowned Congressite, Tufail Ahmad Manglori, once acknowledged that the passage of a resolution against Urdu in the United Provinces caused deep distress among Muslims. He noted that the Hindi-Urdu controversy contributed to increasing divisions between the two communities, which continued to widen over time.Musalmanon Ka Roshan Mustaqbil, p. 333. Before the establishment of Pakistan, many Muslims of colonial India actively supported Urdu as their national language, and the language emerged as a symbol of unity during the Pakistan Movement by demonstrating that it possessed all the essential traits to affirm the need for a separate state for the Muslims of colonial India.{{cite web|title=Experts discuss role of Urdu language in Pakistan Movement|url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/2460198/experts-discuss-role-of-urdu-language-in-pakistan-movement|website=THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE|date=March 22, 2024|author=}}

British language policy played a role in shaping political developments that eventually led to the partition of colonial India into India and Pakistan. This outcome was paralleled by the linguistic divide of the Hindi-Urdu continuum, with the emergence of Sanskritized Hindi and Urdu adopting more Persian influences.{{cite book |last1=King |first1=Christopher Rolland |title=One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-565112-6 |page=78|language=en|quote=British language policy both resulted from and contributed to the larger political processes which eventually led to the partition of British India into India and Pakistan, an outcome almost exactly paralleled by the linguistic partition of the Hindi-Urdu continuum into highly Sanskritized Hindi and highly Persianized Urdu.}}

Urdu had been used as a literary medium for British colonial Indian writers from the Bombay, Bengal, Orissa,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I2QmPHeIowoC&pg=PA119|title=Geography of the South Asian Subcontinent: A Critical Approach|last=Ahmad|first=Aijazuddin|date=2009|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-8069-568-1|pages=119|language=en}} and Hyderabad State as well.{{Cite book |last=Tariq |first=Rahman |url=https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/30566/06-Rahman.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |title=Urdu in Hyderabad State |publisher=The Annual of Urdu Studies}}

Before independence, Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah advocated the use of Urdu, which he used as a symbol of national cohesion in Pakistan.{{Cite journal |last=Rahman |first=Tariq |date=1997 |title=The Urdu-English Controversy in Pakistan |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/312861 |journal=Modern Asian Studies |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=177–207 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X00016978 |jstor=312861 |s2cid=144261554 |issn=0026-749X}} Like other Muslim religious and political leaders, The scholar and linguist Maulvi Abdul Haq, who has been called Baba-e-Urdu (Father of Urdu), also demanded that Urdu be the national language of Pakistan, calling it the lingua franca and a unifying force of the country.{{cite news|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1278009 |title=Homage paid to Baba-e-Urdu on his 55th death anniversary|newspaper= Dawn newspaper|date= 17 August 2016|access-date=25 December 2023}} Abdul Haq also stated: "Urdu Language placed the first brick in the foundation of Pakistan."{{cite web|title=Lecture-5 Factors Leading to Muslim S eparatism|url=https://www.studocu.com/row/document/university-of-engineering-and-technology-taxila/pakistan-studies/lecture-5-factors-leading-to-muslim-s-eparatism/9491351|website=StuDocu}}

In the early years of Pakistan, the finance departments, bureaucracy, and other major institutions of the country were mostly managed by Urdu-speaking population of the country.{{cite web|title=How Urdu-Speaking Muhajir Domination Shaped Pakistan|url=https://mypluralist.com/2022/12/18/urdu-speaking-muhajir-domination-pakistan/|website=MyPluralist|date=18 December 2022 |quote=Urdu-speaking Muhajirs accounted for 3.5% of united Pakistan’s population in the 1960s but they occupied 21% of the positions in the civil services that helped them shape the country in its infancy including through the adoption of their mother tongue as the national language}}{{Sfn|Lieven|2011|p=311}} After the Bengali language movement and the separation of former East Pakistan,{{Cite journal |last=Oldenburg |first=Philip |date=1985 |title="A Place Insufficiently Imagined": Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=711–733 |doi=10.2307/2056443 |jstor=2056443 |s2cid=145152852 |issn=0021-9118|doi-access=free }} Urdu was recognised as the sole national language of Pakistan in 1973, although English and regional languages were also granted official recognition.{{Cite web|url=http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153737|title=The case for Urdu as Pakistan's official language|last=Raj|first=Ali|date=30 April 2017|website=Herald Magazine|language=en|access-date=3 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028222041/https://herald.dawn.com/news/1153737|archive-date=28 October 2019|url-status=dead}} When the 1972 language violence in Sindh occurred, the poet Rais Amrohvi, who played a significant role in promoting Urdu and supporting the Urdu-speaking population of Pakistan,{{cite news|url=https://www.brecorder.com/news/4022427|title=Rais Amrohvi's 24th death anniversary observed|newspaper=BUSINESS RECORDER|date=23 September 2012}} wrote his famous poem Urdu ka janaza hai zara dhoom say niklay (It's Urdu's funeral, make it befitting!) as a tribute to the language.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FddJQi1dQ30C&pg=PA53 |title=Speakin Like a State-page.53|via= Google Books|date=23 July 2009|isbn=9780521519311|accessdate=10 September 2014|last1=Ayres |first1=Alyssa |publisher=Cambridge University Press }} Following the 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and subsequent arrival of millions of Afghan refugees who have lived in Pakistan for many decades, many Afghans, including those who moved back to Afghanistan,{{Cite web|url=http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/asia_8.pdf|title=Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures|last=Hakala|first=Walter|date=2012|website=Afghanistan: Multidisciplinary Perspectives}} have also become fluent in Hindi-Urdu, an occurrence aided by exposure to the Indian media, chiefly Hindi-Urdu Bollywood films and songs.{{cite magazine|url=http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/asia_8.pdf|title=Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures|last=Hakala|first=Walter N.|year=2012|magazine=National Geographic|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=In the 1980s and '90s, at least three million Afghans--mostly Pashtun--fled to Pakistan, where a substantial number spent several years being exposed to Hindi language media, especially Bollywood films and songs, and being educated in Urdu-language schools, both of which contributed to the decline of Dari, even among urban Pashtuns.}}{{cite web|url=http://www.gatewayhouse.in/kabul-diary-discovering-the-indian-connection/|title=Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection|last=Krishnamurthy|first=Rajeshwari|date=28 June 2013|publisher=Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.}}{{Cite magazine |last1=Achakzai |first1=Malik |date=11 October 2018 |url=https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/who-can-be-pakistani/ |title=Who Can Be Pakistani? |magazine=The Diplomat |access-date=1 February 2024}}

There have been attempts to purge Urdu of native Prakrit and Sanskrit words, and Hindi of Persian loanwords – new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and from Sanskrit for Hindi.{{cite book |last1=Vanita |first1=R. |title=Gender, Sex, and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India, 1780-1870 |date=2012 |publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-137-01656-0 |language=en |quote=Desexualizing campaigns dovetailed with the attempt to purge Urdu of Sanskrit and Prakrit words at the same time as Hindi literateurs tried to purge Hindi of Persian and Arabic words. The late-nineteenth century politics of Urdu and Hindi, later exacerbated by those of India and Pakistan, had the unfortunate result of certain poets being excised from the canon.}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSGiAwAAQBAJ&q=urdu+increasing+persianized&pg=PA71|title=Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India: Moving Lines|last=Zecchini|first=Laetitia|date=31 July 2014|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9781623565589|language=en}} English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language.{{citation|last=Rahman|first=Tariq|title=Pakistani English|url=http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/scholorly_articles/pak_english.pdf|page=9|year=2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022010344/http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/scholorly_articles/pak_english.pdf|publisher=Quaid-i-Azam University=Islamabad|access-date=18 October 2014|archive-date=22 October 2014|author-link=Tariq Rahman|url-status=dead}} According to Bruce (2021), Urdu has adapted English words since the eighteenth century.Bruce, Gregory Maxwell. "2 The Arabic Element". Urdu Vocabulary: A Workbook for Intermediate and Advanced Students, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 55-156. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474467216-005 A movement towards the hyper-Persianisation of an Urdu emerged in Pakistan since its independence in 1947 which is "as artificial as" the hyper-Sanskritised Hindi that has emerged in India;{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0X1jAAAAMAAJ&q=%E2%80%9CHyper-persianized%E2%80%9D|title=Hindi and Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader|last=Shackle|first=C.|year=1990|publisher=Heritage Publishers|isbn=9788170261629|language=en}} hyper-Persianisation of Urdu was prompted in part by the increasing Sanskritisation of Hindi.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2v_2Ce_xf1IC&q=urdu+persianization|title=A History of Indian Literature: Struggle for freedom: triumph and tragedy, 1911–1956|date=1991|publisher=Sahitya Akademi|isbn=9788179017982|language=en}}{{page needed|date=July 2020}} However, the style of Urdu spoken on a day-to-day basis in Pakistan is akin to neutral Hindustani that serves as the lingua franca of the northern Indian subcontinent.{{cite book |last1=Kachru |first1=Braj |title=Collected Works of Braj B. Kachru: Volume 3 |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-3713-5 |language=en |quote=The style of Urdu, even in Pakistan, is changing from "high" Urdu to colloquial Urdu (more like Hindustani, which would have pleased M.K. Gandhi).}}{{cite book |last1=Ashmore |first1=Harry S. |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica: a new survey of universal knowledge, Volume 11 |date=1961 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |page=579 |language=en |quote=The everyday speech of well over 50,000,000 persons of all communities in the north of India and in West Pakistan is the expression of a common language, Hindustani.}}

In India, since at least 1977,{{Cite book |last= |first= |date=1977 |title=Oh Calcutta, Volume 6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lwpDAAAAYAAJ&q=urdu+%22dying+language%22 |location= |publisher= |page=15 |isbn= |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=It is generally admitted that Urdu is a dying language. What is not generally admitted is that it is a dying National language. What used to be called Hindustani, the spoken language of the largest number of Indians, contains more elements of Urdu than Sanskrit academics tolerate, but it is still the language of the people.}} some commentators, such as journalist Khushwant Singh, have characterized Urdu as a 'dying language.' However, others, such as Indian poet and writer Gulzar—who is popular in both countries and both language communities but writes only in Urdu (script) and has difficulties reading Devanagari, so he lets others transcribe his work—disagree with this assessment and state that Urdu 'is the most alive language and moving ahead with times' in India.{{cite web |title=Urdu Is Alive and Moving Ahead With Times: Gulzar |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/urdu-is-alive-and-moving-ahead-with-times-gulzar/930302 |publisher=Outlook |access-date=20 September 2021 |language=English |date=13 February 2006}}{{cite web |author1=Gulzar |title=Urdu is not dying: Gulzar |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/urdu-is-not-dying-gulzar/story-aEHNoUFysqZaXmvTxDNMKP.html |publisher=The Hindustan Times |language=English |date=11 June 2006}}{{cite web |last1=Daniyal |first1=Shoaib |title=The death of Urdu in India is greatly exaggerated – the language is actually thriving |url=https://scroll.in/article/809102/the-death-of-urdu-in-india-is-greatly-exaggerated-the-language-is-actually-thriving |publisher=Scroll.in |access-date=19 September 2021 |language=English |date=1 June 2016}}{{Cite book |last1=Mir |first1=Ali Husain |last2=Mir |first2=Raza |date=2006 |title=Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KYbGBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT118 |location=New Delhi |publisher=Roli Books Private Limited |page=118 |isbn=9789351940654 |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=Phrases like 'dying language' are often used to describe the condition of Urdu in India and indicators like 'the number of Urdu-medium schools' present a litany of bad news with respect to the present conditions and future of the language.}}{{Cite book |last= |first= |date=1996 |title=Journal of the Faculty of Arts, Volume 2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sH5D1FkXMDIC&q=urdu+dying+language |location= |publisher=Aligarh Muslim University |page=42 |isbn= |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=Arvind Kala is not much off the mark when he says 'Urdu is a dying language (in India), but it is Hindi movie dialogues which have heightened appreciation of Urdu in India. Thanks to Hindi films, knowledge of Urdu is seen as a sign of sophistication among the cognoscent of the North.'}}{{Cite book |last=Singh |first=Khushwant |date=2011 |title=Celebrating the Best of Urdu Poetry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4V5CDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |location= |publisher=Penguin UK |pages=9–10 |isbn=9789386057334 |access-date=1 August 2021}} This phenomenon pertains to the decrease in relative and absolute numbers of native Urdu speakers as opposed to speakers of other languages;{{Cite web |url=https://livewire.thewire.in/politics/the-burden-of-urdu-must-be-shared/ |title=The Burden of Urdu Must Be Shared |author=Hanan Irfan |work=LiveWire |date=15 July 2021 |access-date=1 August 2021}}{{Cite web |url=https://scroll.in/article/884754/surging-hindi-shrinking-south-indian-languages-nine-charts-that-explain-the-2011-language-census |title=Surging Hindi, shrinking South Indian languages: Nine charts that explain the 2011 language census |author=Shoaib Daniyal |work=Scroll.in |date=4 July 2018 |access-date=1 August 2021}} declining (advanced) knowledge of Urdu's Perso-Arabic script, Urdu vocabulary and grammar;{{Cite web |url=https://www.pide.org.pk/pdf/Working%20Paper/WorkingPaper-2020-29.pdf |title=The Fall of Urdu and the Triumph of English in Pakistan: A Political Economic Analysis |author=John Willoughby & Zehra Aftab |work=PIDE Working Papers |publisher=Pakistan Institute of Development Economics |date=2020 |access-date=1 August 2021}} the role of translation and transliteration of literature from and into Urdu; the shifting cultural image of Urdu and socio-economic status associated with Urdu speakers (which negatively impacts especially their employment opportunities in both countries), the de jure legal status and de facto political status of Urdu, how much Urdu is used as language of instruction and chosen by students in higher education, and how the maintenance and development of Urdu is financially and institutionally supported by governments and NGOs. In India, although Urdu is not and never was used exclusively by Muslims (and Hindi never exclusively by Hindus), the ongoing Hindi–Urdu controversy and modern cultural association of each language with the two religions has led to fewer Hindus using Urdu.{{Cite book |last=Brass |first=Paul R. |date=2005 |title=Language, Religion and Politics in North India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SylBHS8IJAUC&pg=PA136 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=136 |isbn=9780595343942 |access-date=1 August 2021 |quote=The third force leading to the divergence between Hindi and Urdu was the parallel and associated development of Hindu and Muslim revivalisms and communal antagonism, which had the consequence for the Hindi–Urdu conflict of reinforcing the tendency to identify Urdu as the language of Muslims and Hindi as the language of Hindus. Although objectively this is not entirely true even today, it is undeniable historical tendency has been in this direction. (...) Many Hindus also continue to write in Urdu, both in literature and in the mass media. However, Hindu writers in Urdu are a dying generation and Hindi and Urdu have increasingly become subjectively separate languages identified with different religious communities.}} In the 20th century, Indian Muslims gradually began to collectively embrace Urdu (for example, 'post-independence Muslim politics of Bihar saw a mobilisation around the Urdu language as tool of empowerment for minorities especially coming from weaker socio-economic backgrounds'), but in the early 21st century an increasing percentage of Indian Muslims began switching to Hindi due to socio-economic factors, such as Urdu being abandoned as the language of instruction in much of India, and having limited employment opportunities compared to Hindi, English and regional languages. The number of Urdu speakers in India fell 1.5% between 2001 and 2011 (then 5.08 million Urdu speakers), especially in the most Urdu-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh (c. 8% to 5%) and Bihar (c. 11.5% to 8.5%), even though the number of Muslims in these two states grew in the same period. Although Urdu is still very prominent in early 21st-century Indian pop culture, ranging from Bollywood to social media, knowledge of the Urdu script and the publication of books in Urdu have steadily declined, while policies of the Indian government do not actively support the preservation of Urdu in professional and official spaces. Because during the partition, Urdu became the national language of Pakistan, the Indian state and some religious nationalists began in part to regard Urdu as a 'foreign' language, to be viewed with suspicion. Urdu advocates in India disagree whether it should be allowed to write Urdu in the Devanagari and Latin script (Roman Urdu) to allow its survival,{{Cite book |last=Everaert |first=Christine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LqZ-6QRKc7wC&pg=PA78 |title=Tracing the Boundaries Between Hindi and Urdu: Lost and Added in Translation Between 20th Century Short Stories |date=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004177314 |location=Leiden |pages=77–79 |access-date=1 August 2021}} or whether this will only hasten its demise and that the language can only be preserved if expressed in the Perso-Arabic script. There are some Hindu poets in India who continue to write in Urdu after the partition, including Gopi Chand Narang and Gulzar Dehlvi.{{cite book |last1=Ahmad |first1=Irfan |title=Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace |date=20 November 2017 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1-4696-3510-1 |language=en|quote=There have been and are many great Hindu poets who wrote in Urdu. And they learned Hinduism by readings its religious texts in Urdu. Gulzar Dehlvi—who nonliterary name is Anand Mohan Zutshi (b. 1926)—is one among many examples.}} Throughout India, various states have established an Urdu Academy to promote the use of Urdu and Urdu literature.{{cite book |last1=S.H |first1=Patil |title=The Constitution, Government and Politics in India |date=2016 |publisher=Vikas Publishing House |isbn=978-93-259-9411-9 |page=566 |language=en}}

For Pakistan, Urdu originally had the image of a refined, elite language of the Enlightenment, progress, and emancipation, and the language contributed to the success of Pakistan’s independence movement. But after the 1947 Partition, when it was chosen as the national language of Pakistan to unite all inhabitants with one linguistic identity, it faced serious competition primarily from Bengali (spoken by 56% of the total population, mostly in East Pakistan until that attained independence in 1971 as Bangladesh), and after 1971 from English. Both pro-independence elites that formed the leadership of the Muslim League in Pakistan and the Hindu-dominated Congress Party in India had been educated in English during the British colonial period, and continued to operate in English and send their children to English-medium schools as they continued dominate both countries' post-Partition politics. Although the Anglicized elite in Pakistan has made attempts at Urduisation of education with varying degrees of success, no successful attempts were ever made to Urduise politics, the legal system, the army, or the economy, all of which remained solidly Anglophone. Even the regime of general Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1988), who came from a middle-class Punjabi family and initially fervently supported a rapid and complete Urduisation of Pakistani society (earning him the honorary title of the 'Patron of Urdu' in 1981), failed to make significant achievements, and by 1987 had abandoned most of his efforts in favour of pro-English policies. Since the 1960s, the Urdu lobby and eventually the Urdu language in Pakistan has been associated with religious Islamism and political national conservatism (and eventually the lower and lower-middle classes, alongside regional languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, and Balochi), while English has been associated with the internationally oriented secular and progressive left (and eventually the upper and upper-middle classes). Despite governmental attempts at Urduisation of Pakistan, the position and prestige of English only grew stronger in the meantime.

{{See also|Languages of Pakistan|Languages of India}}

File:Geographical distribution of Urdu in India and Pakistan.png

There are over 100 million native speakers of Urdu in India and Pakistan together: there were 50.8 million Urdu speakers in India (4.34% of the total population) as per the 2011 census;{{r|indiacensus}} and approximately 16 million in Pakistan in 2006.{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/tables/POPULATION%20BY%20MOTHER%20TONGUE.pdf|title=Government of Pakistan: Population by Mother Tongue|publisher=Pakistan Bureau of Statistics|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010134307/http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/tables/POPULATION%20BY%20MOTHER%20TONGUE.pdf|archive-date=10 October 2014}} There are several hundred thousand in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United States, and Bangladesh. However, Hindustani, of which Urdu is one variety, is spoken much more widely, forming the third most commonly spoken language in the world, after Mandarin and English.{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/hindustani|title=Hindustani|work=Columbia University press|publisher=encyclopedia.com|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170729004822/http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/hindustani|archive-date=29 July 2017}} The syntax (grammar), morphology, and the core vocabulary of Urdu and Hindi are essentially identical – thus linguists usually count them as one single language, while some contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons.e.g. {{Harvcoltxt|Gumperz|1982|p=20}}

Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localised wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan. Though Urdu is spoken by many Muhajirs in its original form. In some areas, it has borrowed words from regional languages, giving the language a peculiar regional flavor. Similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects such as the Standard Urdu of Lucknow and Delhi, as well as the Dakhni (Deccan) of South India. Because of Urdu's similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can easily understand one another if both sides refrain from using literary vocabulary.

File:Urdu-speakers by Pakistani District - 2017 Census.svg in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census