Urduorigin

Urdu originated as an Indo-Aryan language that developed in northern India during the medieval period, principally in military and courtly environments in the Delhi region. It arose as a lingua franca that blended local vernaculars with Persian, Arabic, and Turkish elements, driven by administration, culture, and trade under successive Islamic rulers. The name Urdu is often linked to the Turkish word ordu, meaning army, reflecting its origin in multilingual camp languages where soldiers and administrators interacted. The early form is sometimes referred to as Rekhta.

From the 16th to the 18th centuries, Hindustani varieties in the Mughal heartland absorbed substantial Persian and Arabic vocabulary, producing a literary register that came to be called Urdu. In script it adopted the Perso-Arabic alphabet written in Nastaliq; literary activity flourished in the courts and cities such as Delhi, Lucknow, and Hyderabad. The distinction from Hindi emerged more clearly in the 19th century, with Urdu favoring Persian-Arabic lexicon and script, while Hindi relied more on Devanagari and Sanskrit-derived vocabulary. Nevertheless, both share a single phonological base and formed a continuous spectrum of speech.

Today Urdu is a major language of South Asia. In Pakistan it is the national language and a lingua franca across provinces; in India it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and is widely used in education, media, and literature. It remains mutually intelligible with Hindi in speech, though the written forms and lexicons differ. The language has a global diaspora and continues to evolve, maintaining a rich literary tradition in poetry and prose.