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, South Africa among others). Approximately eight hundred million people speak Urdu as either a first or a second language. Hindi-Urdu is among the top five 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 22 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.
