ABSTRACT
Urdu is a modern Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asian countries (India and Pakistan) and also in other countries outside Asia (Mauritius, Trinidad, Fiji, Surinam, Guyana, and South Africa among others). Approximately 600 million people speak Urdu as either a first or a second language and it is ranked amongst the five most widely spoken languages of the world. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and is spoken widely in cities such as Islamabad and Karachi. It is one of the sixteen regional languages recognized by the constitution of India and is the state language of Jammu and Kashmir. It is widely spoken in the Indian states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Bihar. Besides, there are millions of Urdu speakers who live in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
