Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR)

URDU

718 Eigenmann Hall, 1900 East 10th Street, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406Phone: (812) 856-1230 Fax: (812) 856-1206E-mail : celcar@indiana.eduWeb site: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar

1. Urdu and Hindi make up the language Hindustani, which is spoken the same way but written using two different writing styles. So Urdu speakers can understand spoken Hindi, but cannot read it.

2. With over 497 speakers, Hindustani is the 10th most frequently spoken language in the world.

3. A member of the Indo-Iranian language family, Urdu shares many structural similarities to other Indo-Iranian languages such as word order structure, the way verbs are inflected, postpositions, and declensions.

4. Most Bollywood movies (the most prolific film industry in the world) are filmed in Hindustani.

5. If you like Indian food, you can impress your friends by ordering in Urdu the next time you go for some curry!

A B O U T U S The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR) at Indiana University develops materials for learning and teaching a wide variety of Central Asian languages. For more information, go to www.iub.edu/~celcar

F I V E R E A S O N S W H Y Y O U S H O U L D L E A R N M O R E A B O U T U R D U

S O M E U S E F U L P H R A S E S I N U R D Uخوش آمديد./khush amdid./ Welcome.آپ کيسے ہيں؟/ آپ کيسی ہيں؟/ap kaise hain?/(m) /ap kaisi hain?/(f) How are you?ميں ٹھيک ہوں، شکریہ! اور آپ؟/main thik hun, shukriya! aur ap?/ I’m fine, thanks. And you?آپ كا نام كيا ہے؟/apka nam kya hai?/ What’s your name?ميرا نام ... ہے./mera nam ... hai./ My name is….آپکا تعلق کہاں سے ہے؟/ap ka taluq kahan se hai?/ Where are you from?ميرا تعلق ... سے ہے./mera taluq ... se hai./ I am from…(بہت) شكريه!/(bahut) shukriya!/ Thank you!کوی بات نہيں !/koi baat nahin!/ No problem.معزرت./ma’zarat./ Excuse me.بيت الخال خانہ کہا ںہے؟/bayt-ul-khala khana kahan hay?/ Where’s the bathroom?خدا حافظ!/khuda hafiz!/ Good-bye!

Special thanks goes to Patrick Kenney for his contributions to this pamphlet.

means it has more than one standard version, in both written and spoken forms. The two forms of Hindustani are Standard Hindu and Standard Urdu. This means that Hindu and Urdu are so similar in basic structure, grammar, phonology, and basic vocabulary that they are actually classified as two versions of the same language. However, their differences are major enough to consider them more than just two different dialects of the same language. The main source of their differences are their other language influences. Hindi is spoken more in South Asia (India) and is influenced by Sanskrit, where Urdu is spoken more in Central Asian countries (most commonly Pakistan and Afghanistan) and Bangladesh, and it has been heavily influenced by Persian, Central Asian, and Arabic languages.Hindustani, like many of its Indo-Iranian counterparts, follows a subject-object-verb word order, uses postpositions rather than prepositions, has a distinct polite form, and the verbs are heavily inflected for gender (masculine and feminine), number (plural and singular), and case (direct, oblique, and vocative). Additionally, Hindustani uses declensions to mark nouns and adjectives.

W H AT A L P H A B E T I S U S E D F O R U R D U ? One of the major differences between Urdu and Hindi is that they use different writing systems. Urdu is written in the Urdu alphabet, which is a 38-character Perso-Arabic Nasta’līq script similar to the scripts used to write many Central Asian languages. However Hindi is written in Devanagari, also called Nagari), which is an alphasyllabary writing system commonly used in India and Nepal.

W H AT I S U R D U C U L T U R E L I K E ? The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the 6th most populous country in the world with an estimated population of 180 million people. There are over 60 living languages spoken in Pakistan; however, there are only three official languages: Urdu, Sindhi, and English. Urdu is the lingua franca and is understandable to 75% of the population.Pakistan is a decidedly Muslim country, with 95% of the population practicing Islam (Christianity and Hinduism making up much of the other 5%). The Pakistani constitution establishes it as an Islamic state, which means that all of its citizens are subject to Islamic laws. Only Muslims are permitted to become President, Prime Minister, or serve as judges in the Federal Shariat Court.Pakistani cuisine is known for its strong flavors and use of spices (most commonly garlic, ginger, turmeric, red chilli, and garam masala). Staple dishes include chapatti (a wheat based flat bread), curry (with meat, vegetables, and/or lentils), and rice. A traditional Pakistani drink is lassi, which is a yogurt based drink blended with cumin and other spices. But they can also be blended with sugar or fruit for a sweet treat.

Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is spoken by approximately 10,700,000 people. It is also one of the official languages

in India, and is spoken by about 48,100,000 people there. You can also find a significant population of native Urdu speakers in other Central Asian (Afghanistan) and South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Oman, and Thailand), as well as the Middle East (Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), Africa (Botswana, Malawi, Mauritius, South Africa and Zambia), and even Europe (Germany and Norway) and the Americas (USA, Canada, and Guyana). Overall, there are over 60 million speakers worldwide who speak Urdu, and over 497 million who speak Hindustani (see About the Language below for more information), making it the 3rd most spoken language in the world, behind English and Mandarin.

W H AT K I N D O F L A N G U A G E I S U R D U ? Urdu is a standardized register of the Hindustani language, also known as Hindi-Urdu.

Hindustani is an India (also known as Indo-Aryan) language from the Indo-European language family. Hindustani is a pluricentric language, which

W H O S P E A K S U R D U A N D W H E R E I S I T S P O K E N ?