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Urdu (اُردوُ Hindi: उर्दू Urdū, IPA: [ˈʊrduː] (Speaker Icon.svg listen)) is a Central Indo-Aryan language[1][2] of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is a derivative of Hindustani, and is the national language and one of the two official languages (the other being English) of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and Turkic. In modern times Urdu vocabulary has been significantly influenced by Punjabi and even English. Urdu was mainly developed in western Uttar Pradesh, India, which is the seat of Hindustani languages in the Indian Subcontinent, but began taking shape during the Delhi Sultanate as well as Mughal Empire (1526–1858) in South Asia.[3]

Language scholars independently categorize Urdu as a standardised register of Hindustani (literally translated means belonging to Hindustan) [4][5][6] termed the standard dialect Khariboli.[6] 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. The original language of the Mughals had been Turkic, but after their arrival in South Asia, they came to adopt Persian. Gradually, the need to communicate with local inhabitants led to a composition with Sanskrit languages, written in the Perso-Arabic script and with literary conventions and specialised vocabulary being retained from Persian, Arabic and Turkic; the new language was eventually given its own name of Urdu.[7]

The word Urdu is believed to be derived from the Turkic or Mongolian word 'Ordu', which means army encampment.[8][9][10] It was initially called Zabān-e-Ordu-e-Mu'alla "language of the Exalted Camp" (in Persian) and later just Urdu.[11] It obtained its name from Urdu Bazar, i.e. encampment (Urdu in Turkic) market, the market near the Red Fort in the walled city of Delhi.[12][13]

Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages.

Urdu is often contrasted with Hindi, another standardised form of Hindustani.[14] 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 (more than 70% of its standard vocabulary) and Arabic, [15] while Standard Hindi is conventionally written in Devanāgarī and draws vocabulary from Sanskrit comparatively[16] more heavily.[5] Most linguists nonetheless consider Urdu and Hindi to be two standardized forms of the same language;[17][18] others classify them separately [19], while some consider any differences to be sociolinguistic.[20] It should be noted, however, that speakers from Hindi and Urdu are often unable to understand each other, especially in contexts where the subject is specialized or literary. Furthermore, native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu consider them to be completely distinct, though closely related languages.