Urdu Voice Over Agency

Everything you never wanted to know about the Urdu language

Where is it spoken?
Urdu is spoken mainly in Pakistan and India. In Pakistan it is the official language. You’ll also hear Urdu being spoken in the United Emirates, America and the UK.

The Alphabet
Urdu has 39 basic letters in the alphabet and 13 extra characters which brings the total to 52. You write from right to left in Urdu and some letters are not found in the English alphabet which makes pronunciation difficult.

Dots
The inclusion of a dot in the Urdu language can change a letter into another letter, so language learners must remember where to place the dot when writing in Urdu.

Superstitions
Urdu speakers are superstitious. Some of the most common superstitions are not to sleep under a tree after dark or you will be possessed by evil and not eating dairy with seafood as this will give you a skin disease.

A Festival no more
One of Pakistan’s most popular cultural festivals was Basant. It took place in Lahore and consisted of crowds of people flying kites. It was a colourful display and celebrated the start of Spring in February. Unfortunately, though the Pakistani government have now banned kite manufacture and flying (although some people take the risk).

Mountain climbing
If you’re interested in mountain climbing, you’ll know that K2 is one of the best known mountains after Everest,. K2 is 8,611 meters high, or 28,251 feet which isn’t much smaller than Everest which is 8,849 meters or 29,032 feet. K2 is part of the Karakoram range in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

That’s not cricket!
You might think of cricket when you mention Pakistan, but in fact the national sport of Pakistan is hockey. The British introduced it and now it is a successful Olympic sport.

Getting your money at height
Pakistan has an entry in the Guinness book of records for having an ATM machine that’s the highest in the world. The Bank of Pakistan had the machine installed 16,007 feet above sea level in the Khunjerab Pass on the Pakistan-China border.

That’s what you call a view
If you need to get from Western China to Pakistan you will need to use the N-35 or the National Highway which is a paved road. It is one of the highest international highways in the world. The road passes the Himalayas and the Karakoram mountain range at a maximum height of 4,714 meters or 15,466 feet.

Football
Pakistan produced over half of the world footballs. The manufacture of footballs started during colonial rule and has since expanded so that Pakistan is the world’s largest producer of footballs.

A short history on the Urdu language

Urdu belongs to the Indo-Aryan sub-group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

Modern Standard Urdu is the standardised version of Hindustani used in Pakistan – Modern Standard Hindi is the standardised version of the Hindustani language used in India. Urdu and Hindi were created when Pakistan and India became separate nations, but the spoken versions of the two languages are essentially Hindustani and remain almost indistinguishable.

Hindustani originally derives from Sanskrit, but its main developmental period was during the Mughul Empire (1526-1857), when it came under the influence of the official Persian court language. The prevailing dialect from this time was Khari Boli, used in and around Delhi, the Empire’s capital.

Modern Hindustani (based on Khari Boli) was made an official language of India by the British Raj in 1837, along with English – replacing Persian.

Which countries have Urdu as a national language?

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, as well as being one of India’s 22 scheduled languages. It is an official language in five Indian states.

Despite its official status in Pakistan, it is only spoken as a first language by around 8% of the population – for most people their mother tongue is one of the country’s regional languages (eg Punjabi, Pashto) and Urdu is learned as a second or third language. However, it is used as a language of unity and taught in schools throughout the country.

How many people speak Urdu as their first language?

It is estimated that around 100 million people speak Urdu worldwide – around 60-70 million of these as their first language.

Did you know…

• The word ‘Urdu’ comes from the Turkic word ‘ordu’, which means tent or army (the English word ‘horde’ also derives from this). It came into use when Shah Jahan built the Red Fort in Delhi, and Urdu was the language chosen to address the soldiers.
• Urdu is written right to left, using a Persian script (unlike Hindi, which is written left to right, using a script derived from Sanskrit). The Urdu alphabet has 52 characters.
• Since being adopted as the official language of Pakistan, Urdu has incorporated several words from other Pakistani languages including Pashto and Punjabi. This ongoing development of the language gives it a distinctive Pakistani stamp, and helps distinguish it from Hindi.

The Pakistani economy

Pakistan’s economy is the 27th largest in the world in terms of purchasing power parity, and 44th largest in terms of GDP. However, the country’s population is the sixth largest in the world, which means that the GDP per capita is low.

The economy has suffered from internal political disputes, low levels of foreign investment and high inflation. Two-fifths of the population is employed in agriculture. Industries include textiles, chemicals and food processing.