Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in South Asia, the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan and an official Eighth Schedule language in India, with additional official status in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and the two Telugu states.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker CountEthnologue total figure, 2011-2023. StatusWikipedia article on Urdu: a currently spoken living language with an active native-speaker population; checked 2026-09-27. RegionSouth Asia (Pakistan as lingua franca; Hindi-Urdu Belt and Deccan in India; Terai in Nepal; Old Dhaka in Bangladesh) 2 Classification
Language Kind Official Status Browse and compare
Difficulty for an English Speaker Urdu
Filter Results1 entry
Connections
In Family
Source Wikipedia: Urdu
Written In
Urdu is written in a Nastaliq-style Perso-Arabic script.
In the Other Atlases
Cases Where Used
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
Original Language Of
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Source Faiz Ahmad Faiz (Wikipedia)Lead section [original-language]Quote, Lead section [original-language]
was a Pakistani poet and author of Urdu and Punjabi literature
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Source Mir Anees (Wikipedia)Lead sectionQuote, Lead section
was an Indian Urdu poet
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Located In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is located.
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Source Wikipedia: UrduLead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 2Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Urdu (اُرْدُو, urdū, [ˈʊɾduː] ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in South Asia.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Source Wikipedia: UrduLead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia articletier 2Quote, Lead paragraph of the cited Wikipedia article
Urdu (اُرْدُو, urdū, [ˈʊɾduː] ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in South Asia.
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Sources
1. Glottolog: Urdu (Glottolog languoid urdu1245)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
2. Wikipedia: Urdu
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Urdu ... is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan.
Infobox, ISO 639-3
urd
Article text
According to 2026 estimates by Ethnologue, Urdu is the 10th-most widely spoken language in the world, with 246 million total speakers, including those who speak it as a second language.
Infobox: region
Pakistan (lingua franca) Hindi-Urdu Belt and Deccan (India) Terai (Nepal) Old Dhaka (Bangladesh) See geographical distribution of Urdu speakers for more
Official status, Urdu entity page
Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in South Asia, the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan and an official Eighth Schedule language in India, with additional official status in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and the two Telugu states.
In Family: Indo-European, Infobox, Language family
Indo-European > Indo-Iranian > Indo-Aryan > Central Zone > Western Hindi > Hindustani > Urdu
View the Source 3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Urdu / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SOV
4. Effective Language Learning: Language Difficulty Ranking
Effective Language LearningForeign Service Institute categories listQuote, Foreign Service Institute categories list
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian Amharic Armenian Azerbaijani Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Burmese Croatian Czech * Estonian * Finnish * Georgian Greek Hebrew Hindi * Hungarian Icelandic Khmer Lao Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian * Mongolian Nepali Pashto Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik) Polish Russian Serbian Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Tagalog * Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu
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