Urdu

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in South Asia, serving as the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, and recognized as an Eighth Schedule language in India, with official status in several Indian states. It shares a common vocabulary, phonology, syntax, and grammar with Hindi, and is considered a Persianized standard register of the Hindustani language, with mutual intelligibility decreasing as formality increases. Urdu originated in the Meerut division of Western Uttar Pradesh, and developed significantly in the Deccan Plateau, becoming an official language of the British East India Company in 1837. It has approximately 230 million total speakers, including those who speak it as a second language, making it the 10th-most widely spoken language in the world. The name "Urdu" was first used around 1780, and the language has undergone various names throughout its history, including Hindvi, Hindi, and Hindustani.learn more on wikipedia