[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-490672-105":59,"doc-detail-490672-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","urdu-article-language-and-literature-overview","URDU - Article - Language and literature overview","","Urdu is presented as Pakistan’s national language and one of India’s officially recognized languages, spoken by an estimated 53 million people in South Asia and widely used as a primary communication medium beyond the region. The article explains Urdu’s strong historical influence from Persian, its use of adapted Perso-Arabic script and nastaʿliq calligraphic tradition, and its relationship to Hindi. It also surveys Urdu literature and major poetic genres, then traces the language’s Indo-European and Indo-Aryan roots to Sanskrit/Prakrit, linking early developments to Delhi speech after Muslim conquests.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/urdu-article-language-and-literature-overview/490672/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/urdu-article-language-and-literature-overview/490672.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Aurelia","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-28","2026-10-01",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What influence shaped Urdu from its early stages?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The article states that Urdu has been strongly influenced by Persian, used in administration after the Muslim conquests of India in the 12th and 13th centuries.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How is Urdu traditionally written?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Urdu is written in an adapted form of the Persian (Perso-Arabic) script, with the distinctive nastaʿliq calligraphic style historically and still reflecting medieval manuscript writing.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Where does Urdu historically originate within language families?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Urdu is described as belonging to the Indo-European family and the Indo-Aryan subgroup, ultimately derived from Sanskrit through Prakrit (Middle Indo-Aryan).","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},490672,1791157993,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":52,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},1099514068365,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/10000253d8d9f28188e?_k=1776742907772140068","URDU  \nURDU Article by David Matthews  \nPublished: July 20, 2005  \nLast Updated: August 6, 2014  \nURDU  \nURDU, the national language (qaumī zabān) of Pakistan and one of the fifteen officially recognized languages of India. It is spoken, according to recent censuses made in India and Pakistan, by an estimated 53 million people in the South Asian subcontinent (Schmidt, 2004, p. 288) . To this we may add the millions of people, both inside and outside the subcontinent, who use Urdu asa primary means of communication. The Panjabi-speaking population of Pakistan, for example, employ Urdu rather than their own language almost exclusively as a written and literary medium. Along with its “sister language,”Hindi, with which it shares a virtually identical grammatical base, Urdu at the most basic, spoken level still functions as a convenient lingua franca, and is intelligible to vast sections of the population of South Asia. For this reason it is the preferred medium of the Indian film industry, to which many wellestablished Urdu writers contribute scripts and especially songs, the lyrics of which frequently follow the conventions of classical Urdu poetry.  \nGeneral considerations. From its earliest stages, Urdu has been strongly influenced by Persian, which, after the Muslim conquests of India in the 12th and 13th centuries C.E., was employed in the administration of the courts of Delhi and elsewhere. It has always been written in an adapted form of the Persian script (often referred to as the “Perso-Arabic script”) . The distinctive nastaʿliq style of writing, which is still employed, reflects the calligraphy found in medieval manuscripts. The nasḵ style, now the form most commonly employed in Arabic and Persian printed works, has never been favored by publishers of Urdu, although it has occasionally been experimented with, and  \n1  \n URDU |David Matthews  \nmodern computer fonts have been devised to reflect the handwritten form of nastaʿliq. Indeed, until the advent of the word processor most Urdu books and newspapers were written entirely by hand, and until the last decades of the 20th century the calligrapher (kāteb) played a crucial role in society.  \nUrdu literature, the first substantial works of which date from the middle of the 16th century, has always been heavily influenced by Persian models, and although a small number of its most prominent writers, especially during the twentieth century have been Hindus and Sikhs, the overwhelming majority have been, and still are, Muslims. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the most substantial part of Urdu literature consisted of verse, while Persian, the language of administration, dominated prose writing. The most favoured poetic genres, as elsewhere in the Islamic world, were the ḡazal, the maṯnawi, and the qaṣida. Even now, in India and Pakistan and in other parts of the world where South Asian communities have migrated, Urdu poetry plays a significant role, and the mušāʿira ([Pers.](Pers. mo)[ mo](Pers. mo)šāʿera), a gathering of poets, who recite their compositions according to strict traditional conventions, can attract audiences of thousands, members of which may or may not have Urdu as their mother tongue. It is undoubtedly because of its poetry that Urdu, which at present, for political and other reasons, faces many difficulties, continues to flourish and is universally regarded as širin “sweet,” an epithet granted even by its most vehement opponents.  \nHistory of the language. Urdu is a member of the Indo-European family of languages; and, like most of those spoken in the northern half of the subcontinent, it belongs to the Indo-Aryan subgroup. Ultimately it is derived from Sanskrit, the classical language of India, or more accurately from its colloquial form, known as Prakrit, which is commonly referred to as “Middle Indo-Aryan” (MIA) . The modern languages of north India, such as Bengali, Gujarati, and Panjabi, to which Urdu and Hindi are fairly closely related, emerg","cbCaimAr1oVYEVy1","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimAr1oVYEVy1","pdf",112304,"English","# General considerations\n# Urdu literature and poetic genres\n# History of the language","[{\"question\":\"What influence shaped Urdu from its early stages?\",\"answer\":\"The article states that Urdu has been strongly influenced by Persian, used in administration after the Muslim conquests of India in the 12th and 13th centuries.\"},{\"question\":\"How is Urdu traditionally written?\",\"answer\":\"Urdu is written in an adapted form of the Persian (Perso-Arabic) script, with the distinctive nastaʿliq calligraphic style historically and still reflecting medieval manuscript writing.\"},{\"question\":\"Where does Urdu historically originate within language families?\",\"answer\":\"Urdu is described as belonging to the Indo-European family and the Indo-Aryan subgroup, ultimately derived from Sanskrit through Prakrit (Middle Indo-Aryan).\"}]","URDU - Article - Language and literature overview | PDF",1790841286,15]