{{Infobox Language
|name=
|nativename=}}
|familycolor=Indo-European
|pronunciation=[ˈʊrd̪uː]
|image=160px
|caption='''Ordu''' in Persian-Arabic script (Nasta`liq style)
|states= Pakistan, India
|region=South Asia<ref name="University of London-Urdu"></ref>
|rank=19–21 (native speakers), in a near tie with Italian and Turkish
|speakers=130 million native (2007)<br />270 million total (2007)
|fam2=Indo-Iranian
|fam3=Indo-Aryan
|fam4=Central zone
|fam5=Western Hindi<ref name="Ethno">[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_lang_family.asp?code=urd Linguistic Lineage for Urdu - Ethnologue]</ref>
|fam6=Khariboli
|script=Urdu alphabet (Nasta'liq script)
|nation= ;<br />  (Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh); <br />  (as Hindustani)
|agency=National Language Authority, (Pakistan); <br />[http://www.urducouncil.nic.in/ National Council for Promotion of Urdu language], (India) 
|iso1=ur|iso2=urd|iso3=urd}}

'''Urdu''' (, '''}}, trans. ''Urdū'', historically spelled '''Ordu''') is an Indo-Aryan language<ref name="Omniglot-Urdu"></ref><ref name="Ethno"/> of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It developed under Persian and to a lesser degree Arabic and Turkic influence on  apabhramshas during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD) in South Asia.<ref name="National Council for Promotion of Urdu language 2"></ref>
 	
Urdu is a standardised register of Hindustani,<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica-Urdu"></ref><ref name="Random House Dictionary-Urdu"></ref><ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica-Hindustani"></ref> termed the standard dialect Khariboli.<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica-Hindustani"></ref> The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard Urdu. In general, the term "Urdu" can encompass dialects of Hindustani other than the standardised versions.

Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages. It is the 23 official languages of India. 

Urdu is often contrasted with Hindi, another standardised form of Hindustani.<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica-Hindi"></ref> The main differences between the two are that Standard Urdu is conventionally written in Nastaliq calligraphy style of the Perso-Arabic script and draws vocabulary more heavily from Persian and Arabic than Hindi,<ref name="Language in India-Bringing Order to Linguistic Diversity: Language Planning in the British Raj"></ref>  while Standard Hindi is conventionally written in Devanāgarī and draws vocabulary from Sanskrit comparatively<ref name="Sikmirza"></ref> more heavily.<ref name="Random House Dictionary-Urdu"></ref> Some linguists nonetheless consider Urdu and Hindi to be two standardized forms of the same language;<ref name=UC Davis-Linguists"></ref><ref name="Ethnologue Report for Hindi"></ref> however, others classify them separately due to sociolinguistic differences.<ref name="South Asian Voice"></ref> 

== Speakers and geographic distribution ==

right|thumb|The phrase ''Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla'' ("The language of the exalted camp") written in [[Nasta'liq script.]] 	
There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard Urdu (''Khari Boli''). According to the SIL Mandarin, English, and Spanish.<ref name="Weber"></ref> 
	 	
Because of Urdu's similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can usually understand one another, if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. Indeed, linguists sometimes count them as being part of the same language diasystem. However, Urdu and Hindi are socio-politically different, and people who self-describe as being speakers of Hindi would question their being counted as native speakers of Urdu, and vice-versa.

In Hyderabad, Punjabi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Balochi, Siraiki, and Brahui. Urdu is the Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu. All of them will be called Urdu speaking. A very large number of newspapers are published in Urdu in Pakistan, including the Daily Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt, Millat, among many others (see List of newspapers in Pakistan).

In Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mysore, Patna, Ajmer, and Ahmedabad.<ref>[https://www.indiatravelite.com/holyplaces/ajmerint.htm India Travelite: Holy Places - Ajmer]</ref> Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams. Indian madrasahs also teach Arabic as well as Urdu. India has more than 29 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Sahara Urdu Daily Salar, Hindustan Express,  Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai (see List of newspapers in India).

Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centers of the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centers of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Norway and Australia.

Countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers:
{| valign=top
|
* India (51,536,111 [2001], 5.1%)<ref name="Census of India- Languages"></ref>
* Pakistan (10,800,000 [1993], 7%)<ref name="Ethnologue - Pakistan"></ref>
* United Kingdom (747,285 [2001], 1.3%) <ref>[http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273 United Kingdom: Population Size
7.9% from a minority ethnic group]</ref>
* Bangladesh (650,000, 0.4%)<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Bangladesh Ethnologue Report for Bangladesh]</ref>
* United Arab Emirates (600,000, 13%)
* Saudi Arabia (382,000, 1.5%)<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SA Ethnologue Report for Saudi Arabia]</ref>
* Nepal (375,000, 1.3%)
* United States  (350,000, 0.1%)
* Afghanistan (320,000, 8%)
* South Africa (170,000 South Asian Muslims, some of which may speak Urdu)<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=South+Africa Ethnologue Report for South Africa]</ref>
* Canada (156,415 [2006], 0.5%)<ref>[http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/analysis/language/tables/table2.htm Canada:The most common non-official mother tongues, 1971, 2001 and 2006]</ref>
* Oman (90,000, 2.8%)
* Bahrain (80,000, 11.3%)
* Mauritius (74,000, 5.6%)
* Qatar (70,000, 8%)
* Germany (40,000)
* Norway  (27,700 [2006])<ref>[http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/sa_innvand_en/arkiv/sa87/immigrant_population.pdf Statistics Norway]</ref>
* France (20,000)
* Spain (18,000 [2004])<ref>[http://www.pakistanlink.com/Letters/2004/July04/02/10.html Pakistan Link: Desi Salsa in Barcelona]</ref>
* Sweden (10,000 [2001])<ref>[http://www.answers.com/topic/demographics-of-sweden Answers.com: Demographics of Sweden]</ref>
* World Total: 60,503,578<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=urd Ethnologue Report for Urdu]</ref>
|}

From this list it becomes apparent that the largest relative concentration of native Urdu speakers isn't found in South Asia at all, but in minor Arab states (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain) where they exceed 10% of the total population. This is due to the large number of Pakistani and Indian migrants.

== Official status ==

Urdu is the national language of education, literature, office and court business,<ref>It should be noted that in the Supreme Court, both the proceedings and documents are in English.</ref> media, and in religious institutions. It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country.<ref name=”zia”>Zia, Khaver (1999), [http://www.cicc.or.jp/english/hyoujyunka/mlit4/7-10Pakistan/Pakistan2.html "A Survey of Standardization in Urdu". 4th Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing, (MLIT-4)], Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca in Pakistan.

Urdu is also one of the officially recognized languages in India<ref>see [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762510380/Urdu.html Urdu] at Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia</ref> and has official language status in the Indian states of Hindi, at universities in cities such as Hyderabad, Urdu is spoken, learned, and regarded as a language of prestige.

== Classification and related languages ==

Urdu is a member of the Indo-Aryan family of languages, which is in turn a branch of the Indo-Iranian group (which comprises the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian branches), which itself is a member of the Indo-European linguistic family. Urdu (along with Hindi) is considered to be a part of a dialect continuum which extends across eastern Iran, Afghanistan and modern Pakistan<ref>Phukan, 2000.</ref>—right into eastern India. These idioms all have similar grammatical structures and share a large portion of their vocabulary. Punjabi, for instance, is very similar to Urdu; Punjabi written in the Shahmukhi script can be understood by speakers of Urdu with little difficulty, but spoken Punjabi has a very different phonology (pronunciation system) and can be harder to understand for Urdu speakers.

== Dialects ==

Urdu has four recognised dialects: Dakhini, Pinjari, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region). Sociolinguists also consider Urdu itself one of the four major variants of the Hindi-Urdu dialect continuum.<ref name="Ethnologue Report for Hindi"></ref>  

Modern Vernacular Urdu is the form of the language that is least widespread and is spoken around Delhi and Lucknow while the Pakistani variant of the language spoken in Karachi and Lahore; it becomes increasingly divergent from the original form of Urdu as it loses some of the complicated Persian and Arabic vocabulary used in everyday terms.

Marathi and Telugu language, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "qāf" (ﻕ) as "kh" (ﺥ). Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of Maharashtra, Karnatka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states. 

In addition, Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.

== Phonology ==

{|
|-
|
:{|class="wikitable" border="2"
!
! colspan="2" | Bilabial
! colspan="2" | Labio-<br>dental
! colspan="2" | Dental/<br>Alveolar
! colspan="2" | Retroflex
! colspan="2" | Post-alv./</br>Palatal
! colspan="2" | Velar
! colspan="2" | Uvular
! colspan="2" | Glottal
|- align=center
! Nasal
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
! Plosive
| 
| 
| colspan="2" |
| 
| 
| 
| 
| colspan="2" |
| 
| 
| 
|&nbsp;
| colspan="2" |
|-align=center
! Affricate
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" | 
| 
| 
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
! Fricative
| colspan="2" |
| 
|
| 
| 
| colspan="2" |
| 
|
| 
| 
|
|
|
| 
|- align=center
! Tap or Flap
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|- align=center
! Approximant
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" | 
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
| colspan="2" |
|} 
|
{|
|-
|+'''Vowels'''
|
200px 
|}
|}
== Grammar ==

== Levels of formality == 
Urdu in its less formalised register has been referred to as a ''rekhta'' (ریختہ, ), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as ''zabān-e-Urdu-e-mo'alla'' (زبانِ اردوِ معلہ, ), the "Language of Camp and Court".

The Hindustani origins, while the latter is used formally and poetically, being of Persian origin.

If a word is of Persian or Persian or Arabic grammar constructs, such as the izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is inherited from Sanskrit, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal.<ref name="University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"></ref> 

That distinction has likenesses with the division between words from a French or Old English origin while speaking English.

=== Politeness ===

Urdu is supposed to be a subtle and polished language; a host of words are used in it to show respect and politeness. This emphasis on politeness, which is reflected in the vocabulary, is known as '''adab''' and to some extent as  '''takalluf''' in Urdu. These words are generally used when addressing elders, or people with whom one is not acquainted. For example, the English pronoun 'you' can be translated into three words in Urdu the singular forms ''tu'' (informal, extremely intimate, or derogatory) and ''tum'' (informal and showing intimacy called "apna pan" in Urdu) and the plural form ''āp'' (formal and respectful). Similarly, verbs, for example, "come," can be translated with degrees of formality in three ways: 
# '''آ‏ئے''' āiye/ or '''آ‏ئیں''' āe<sup>n</sup>/ (formal and respectful)
# '''آ‏و''' āo/ (informal and intimate with less degree) 
# '''آ''' ā/ (extremely informal, intimate and potentially derogatory).

== Vocabulary ==

Urdu has a vocabulary rich in words with Indic and Persian and Arabic.<ref name="Infoplease"></ref> There are also a small number of borrowings from Turkish, Portuguese, and more recently English. Many of the words of Arabic origin have different nuances of meaning and usage than they do in Arabic.

== Writing system ==

thumb|265px|The Urdu Nasta’liq alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabets

Nowadays, Urdu is generally written right-to left in an extension of the Nasta’liq'' style of Arabic calligraphy, whereas Arabic is generally written in the modernized ''Naskh'' style. ''Nasta’liq'' is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as ''katib'' or ''khush-navees'', until the late 1980s.

Historically, Urdu was also written in the Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of Bengal and Bihar and ordered the exclusive use of Kaithi, a popular script used for both Urdu and Hindi.<ref>King, 1994.</ref> Kaithi's association with Urdu and Hindi was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.

More recently in India, Urdu speakers have adopted Devanagari for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark Urdū in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi in Devanagari.<ref>Ahmad, R., 2006.</ref> The popular Urdu monthly magazine, महकता आंचल (''Mahakta Anchal''), is published in Delhi in Devanagari in order to target the generation of Muslim boys and girls who do not know the Persian script. Such publishers have introduced new orthographic features into Devanagari for the purpose of representing Urdu sounds. One example is the use of अ (Devanagari ''a'') with vowel signs to mimic contexts of ع (''‘ain''). To Urdu publishers, the use of Devanagari gives them a greater audience, but helps them to preserve the distinct identity of Urdu when written in Devanagari.

A list of the Urdu alphabet and pronunciation is given below. Urdu contains many historical spellings from Arabic and Persian, and therefore has many irregularities. The Arabic letters ''yaa'' and ''haa'' are split into two in Urdu: one of the ''yaa'' variants is used at the ends of words for the sound [i], and one of the ''haa'' variants is used to indicate the aspirated consonants. The retroflex consonants needed to be added as well; this was accomplished by placing a superscript ط (''to'e'') above the corresponding dental consonants. Several letters which represent distinct consonants in Arabic are conflated in Persian, and this has carried over to Urdu.National Language Authority, Pakistan has finalised the list and colting order of Urdu letters,i.e.58, including alif mud , noon ghunna and gole teh on its website[nla.gov.pk].   

{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Letter !! Name of letter !! Phonemic representation (in IPA)
|-
|  || ''alif'' ||  depending on diacritical marks
|-
|  || ''be'' ||  
|-
|  || ''pe'' || 
|-
|  || ''te'' ||  (dental)
|-
|  ||  ||  (retroflex)
|-
|  || ''se'' || 
|-
|  || ''jīm'' || 
|-
|  || ''ce'' ||  
|-
|  ||  ||  
|-
|  || ''khe'' || 
|-
|  || ''dāl'' ||  (dental)
|-
|  ||  ||  (retroflex)
|-
|  || ''zāl'' || 
|-
|  || ''re'' || 
|-
|  ||  ||  (retroflex flap)
|-
|  || ''ze'' || 
|-
|  || ''zhe'' || 
|-
|  || ''sīn'' || 
|-
|  || ''shīn'' || 
|-
|  || ''su'ād'' || 
|-
|  || ''zu'ād'' || 
|-
|  || ''to'e'' ||  (dental)
|-
|  || ''zo'e'' || 
|-
|  || ''‘ain'' ||  after a consonant; otherwise , , or silent.
|-
|  || ''ghain'' || 
|-
|  || ''fe'' || 
|-
|  || ''qāf'' || 
|-
|  || ''kāf'' || 
|-
|  || ''gāf'' || 
|-
|  || ''lām'' || 
|-
|  || ''mīm'' || 
|-
|  || ''nūn'' ||  or a nasal vowel
|-
|  || ''vā'o'' || 
|-
|  ||  ||  at the end of a word, otherwise  or silent
|-
|  || ''do cashmī he'' || indicates that the preceding consonant is aspirated () or murmured (). 
|-
|  || ''hamzah'' ||  or silent
|- 
|  ||  || 
|-
|  ||  || 
|}

== Software ==

The Daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper to be typeset digitally in ''Nasta’liq'' by computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Urdu software programs. The mostly used Nastaliq Software called "InPage".Pak Nastaleeq font released by Center of Excellence for Urdu Informatics is unicode based, workable in MSword ,having Ghost Characters Theory, recognised by UTC in 2008.

=== Transliteration In English===

Urdu is occasionally also written in the Roman script. Roman Urdu has been used since the days of the British Raj, partly as a result of the availability and low cost of Roman movable type for printing presses. The use of Roman Urdu was common in contexts such as product labels. Today it is regaining popularity among users of text-messaging and Internet services and is developing its own style and conventions. Habib R. Sulemani says, ''"The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world are using Romanised Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. A person from Islamabad chats with another in Delhi on the Internet only in Roman Urdū. They both speak the same language but with different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population."''<ref>[http://mailgate.dada.net/soc/soc.culture.punjab/msg21165.html The News, Karachi, Pakistan: Roman Urdu by Habib R Sulemani]</ref>
 	
Roman Urdu also holds significance among the Christians of South Asian film industries, Bollywood and Lollywood, are also noteworthy for their use of Roman Urdū for their movie titles. 

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin alphabet. It should be noted that a comprehensive system has emerged with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but it can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu, Persian, or Arabic for letters such as: or  and Hindi for letters such as . This script may be found on the Internet, and it allows people who understand the language but without knowledge of their written forms to communicate with each other.

== Examples ==

{| class="wikitable" style="width: 80%"
|-
! English
! Urdu
! Transliteration
! Notes
|-
| Hello
| السلام علیکم
| 
| ''lit.'' "Peace be upon you." (from Arabic)
|-
| Hello
| و علیکم السلام
| 
| ''lit.'' "And upon you, peace."  Response to  (from Arabic)
|-
| Hello
| (آداب (عرض ہے
| 
| ''lit.'' "Regards (are expressed)", a very formal secular greeting
|-
| Good Bye
| خدا حافظ
| 
| ''lit.'' "May God be your Guardian" (from Persian). Standard and commonly used by Muslims and non-Muslims, or ''al vida'' formally spoken all over
|-
| yes
| ہاں
| 
| casual
|-
| yes
| جی
| 
| formal
|-
| yes
| جی ہاں
| 
| confident formal
|-
| no
| نا
| 
| casual
|-
| no
| نہیں، جی نہیں    
| 
| formal;jī nahī<sup>n</sup> is considered more formal 
|-
| please
| مہربانی
| 
| 
|-
| thank you
| شکریہ
| 
| 
|-
| Please come in
| تشریف لائیے
| 
| ''lit.'' "Bring your honour"
|-
| Please have a seat
| تشریف رکھیئے
| 
| 
|-
| I am happy to meet you
| اپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوئی
| 
|  
|-
| Do you speak English?
| کیا اپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟
| 
| ''lit.'' "Do you speak English?"
|-
| I do not speak Urdu.
| میں اردو نہیں بولتا/بولتی 
| 
| ''boltā'' is masculine, ''boltī'' is feminine
|-
| My name is ...
| میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے
| 
| 
|-
| Which way to Lahore?
| لاھور کس طرف ہے؟
| 
| 
|-
| Where is Lucknow? 
| لکھنئو کہاں ہے؟
| 
|-
| Urdu is a good language.
| اردو اچھی زبان ہے
| 
|}

=== Sample text ===

The following is a sample text in  (formal Urdu), of the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):

====Urdu text====
:'''دفعہ 1:''' تمام انسان آزاد اور حقوق و عزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پیدا ہوۓ ہیں۔ انہیں ضمیر اور عقل ودیعت ہوئی ہی۔ اسلۓ انہیں ایک دوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا سلوک کرنا چاہیۓ۔

====Transliteration (ALA-LC)====
:.

====IPA Transcription====
:.

====Gloss (word-for-word)====
:'''Article 1:''' All humans free[,] and rights and dignity *('s) consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another *('s) brotherhood *('s) treatment do must.
ahmed Nawaz Khan Jadoon <blockquote>
Block quote
</blockquote<sup>Image:Superscript text</sup>>

====Translation (grammatical)====
:'''Article 1:''' All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

'''Note:''' ''*('s) represents a possessive case which when written is preceded by the possessor and followed by the possessed, unlike the English 'of'.''

== Literature ==

Urdu has only become a literary language in recent centuries, as Persian and Arabic were formerly the idioms of choice for "elevated" subjects. However, despite its late development, Urdu literature boasts some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus. 

=== Prose ===
====Religious====

Urdu holds the largest collection of works on Islamic literature and Persian, have also been translated into Urdu. Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a lingua franca among Muslims of South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in Urdu far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language.  Popular Islamic books, originally written in Urdu, include Qasas-ul-Anbia, Fazail-e-Amal, Bahishti Zewar  the Bahar-e-Shariat.

====Literary====

Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres.

The ''dāstān'', or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse. 

The ''afsāna'', or short story, probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known ''afsāna'' writers, or ''afsāna nigār'', in Urdu are Saadat Hasan Manto, Qurratulain Hyder (Qurat-ul-Ain Haider), Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chughtai, Krishan Chander, Ghulam Abbas, Banu Qudsia and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the ''afsāna'', though some contend that his were not technically the first as Sir Ross Masood had already written many short stories in Urdu.

Novels form a genre of their own, in the tradition of the English novel.

{{Картка:Мова
| Назва = Урду
| Поширена_в=Індія, Пакистан.
| Регіон=
| Кількість_мовців=~ 175 000 000
| Місце=19-21 (рідна мова)
| Класифікація=Індо-Європейська<br>
&nbsp;Індоіранська<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;Індоарійська
| Державна=Пакистан
| Офіційна=
| Регулює=
| ISO_639=ur
| ISO_639-2=urd
| SIL=URD
|}}

'''Урду́''' (اردو) —  індоєвропейська мова, що виникла в  18 столітті.

Урду є офіційною мовою в  Пакистані. Урду — одна з 23 офіційних мов  Індії, якою користуються близько 48 мільйонів людей. Загалом у світі урду є рідною мовою приблизно для 60 мільйонів людей, а близько 150— 200 мільйонів уміють на ньому розмовляти.

Писемність на основі арабського алфавіту.

cv:Урду

dv:އުރުދޫ

eo:Urduo
es:Urdu

ga:Urdais