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The History of the Urdu Language Together with Its Origin and Geographic Distribution

Select Volume / Issue:

• Volume 2 Issue 1, Jan. 2015

Year:

2015

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

Urdu Language, Culture and Civilization, Literature, Urdu History

Authors:

• Kausar, Robina
• Sarwar, Muhammad
• Shabbir, Muhammad

Journal:

IJIRES

Volume:

2

Number:

1

Pages:

5-9

Month:

Jan.-Feb.

ISSN:

2349-5219

BibTex:

@article{154, author = "Robina Kausar and Muhammad Sarwar and Muhammad Shabbir", abstract = "The objective of this paper is to briefly review the Urdu or else further specifically Modern Standard Urdu, which is a consistent register of the important language globally. Historically, Urdu is associated with the Muslims of the region of subcontinent before the partition. It is the national and one of the two official languages of Pakistan, along with English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, whereas, the languages spoken throughout various regions of the country are the provincial languages. Despite of this, Urdu is chosen as a token of unity and not to give any preference over the other native local languages. Urdu is therefore spoken and understood by the vast majority of peoples in some form or another, including a majority of rural and urban dwellers. Also, despite the fact that the peoples from different provinces may have different indigenous languages, it is written, spoken and used in all provinces or territories of Pakistan, as a result it is the base language of the country. For this reason, it is also taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary and graduate schools in both English and Urdu medium teaching systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers from peoples whose native languages are different from the State language of Pakistan. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu, but Urdu uses more Perso-Arabic prefixes and suffixes. In terms of pronunciation, Urdu spoken in various states of world is different from Urdu spoken in other areas due to a mixture of the native languages. Urdu is conventionally written in the style of the Persian alphabets and relies heavily on Persian and Arabic calligraphy as a source for technical and literary vocabulary. In a very preliminary stage, the early Islamic religious preachers, Urdu poets and Urdu writers served a lot in evolving and development of Urdu, and contributed to mobilize peoples for knowing this language. Today, Urdu is spoken in many countries around the world, and has always been considered an elevated and somewhat aristocratic language in South Asia. It continues to conjure a subtle, polished affect in South Asian linguistic and literary sensibilities, and thus carries on to be preferred for songwriting, news papers and poetry, even by non-native speakers.", issn = "23495219", journal = "IJIRES", keywords = "Urdu Language, Culture and Civilization, Literature, Urdu History", month = "Jan.-Feb.", note = "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/", number = "1", pages = "5-9", title = "{T}he {H}istory of the {U}rdu {L}anguage {T}ogether with {I}ts {O}rigin and {G}eographic {D}istribution", volume = "2", year = "2015", }

Note:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Abstract:

The objective of this paper is to briefly review the Urdu or else further specifically Modern Standard Urdu, which is a consistent register of the important language globally. Historically, Urdu is associated with the Muslims of the region of subcontinent before the partition. It is the national and one of the two official languages of Pakistan, along with English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, whereas, the languages spoken throughout various regions of the country are the provincial languages. Despite of this, Urdu is chosen as a token of unity and not to give any preference over the other native local languages. Urdu is therefore spoken and understood by the vast majority of peoples in some form or another, including a majority of rural and urban dwellers. Also, despite the fact that the peoples from different provinces may have different indigenous languages, it is written, spoken and used in all provinces or territories of Pakistan, as a result it is the base language of the country. For this reason, it is also taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary and graduate schools in both English and Urdu medium teaching systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers from peoples whose native languages are different from the State language of Pakistan. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu, but Urdu uses more Perso-Arabic prefixes and suffixes. In terms of pronunciation, Urdu spoken in various states of world is different from Urdu spoken in other areas due to a mixture of the native languages. Urdu is conventionally written in the style of the Persian alphabets and relies heavily on Persian and Arabic calligraphy as a source for technical and literary vocabulary. In a very preliminary stage, the early Islamic religious preachers, Urdu poets and Urdu writers served a lot in evolving and development of Urdu, and contributed to mobilize peoples for knowing this language. Today, Urdu is spoken in many countries around the world, and has always been considered an elevated and somewhat aristocratic language in South Asia. It continues to conjure a subtle, polished affect in South Asian linguistic and literary sensibilities, and thus carries on to be preferred for songwriting, news papers and poetry, even by non-native speakers.

Full text: IJIRES-154_final.pdf Online version [Bibtex]