[note 1][13] Urdu and Hindi share a common, predominantly Sanskrit- and Prakrit-derived, vocabulary base, phonology, syntax, and grammar, making them mutually intelligible during colloquial communication.

[23] Urdu originated in what is today the Meerut division of Western Uttar Pradesh, a region adjoining Old Delhi and geographically in the upper Ganga-Jumna doab, or the interfluve between the Yamuna and Ganges rivers in India; significant development of the language also occurred in the Deccan Plateau.

[25] Religious, social, and political factors arose during the European colonial period that advocated a distinction between Urdu and Hindi, leading to the Hindi–Urdu controversy.

[45][46] The contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures during the period of Islamic conquests in the Indian subcontinent (12th to 16th centuries) led to the development of Hindustani as a product of a composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.

[43][35][55][30][45] An early literary tradition of Hindavi was founded by Amir Khusrau in the late 13th century,[56][57][58][59] who has been called "the father of Urdu literature".

[60] After the conquest of the Deccan, and a subsequent immigration of noble Muslim families into the south, a form of the language flourished in medieval India as a vehicle of poetry, (especially under the Bahmanids),[61] and is known as Dakhini, which contains loanwords from Telugu and Marathi.

[69][70] According to the Navadirul Alfaz by Khan-i Arzu, the "Zaban-e Urdu-e Shahi" [language of the Imperial Camp] had attained special importance in the time of Alamgir".

[76] John Ovington wrote in 1689:[77] The language of the Moors is different from that of the ancient original inhabitants of India but is obliged to these Gentiles for its characters.

[80][81] While Urdu retained the grammar and core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the local Indian dialect Khariboli, it adopted the Perso-Arab writing system, written in the Nastaleeq style.

I have a deep knowledge [je possède à fond] of the common tongue of India, called Moors by the English, and Ourdouzebain by the natives of the land.Several works of Sufi writers like Ashraf Jahangir Semnani used similar names for the Urdu language.

[117][page needed] However, the style of Urdu spoken on a day-to-day basis in Pakistan is akin to neutral Hindustani that serves as the lingua franca of the northern Indian subcontinent.

[132] For Pakistan, Willoughby & Aftab (2020) argued that Urdu originally had the image of a refined elite language of the Enlightenment, progress and emancipation, which contributed to the success of the independence movement.

[129] Even the regime of general Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1988), who came from a middle-class Punjabi family and initially fervently supported a rapid and complete Urduisation of Pakistani society (earning him the honorary title of the 'Patron of Urdu' in 1981), failed to make significant achievements, and by 1987 had abandoned most of his efforts in favour of pro-English policies.

[138] Most of the nearly three million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu.

No region in Pakistan uses Urdu as its mother tongue, though it is spoken as the first language of many people among the community known as Muhajirs (a multi-origin ethnic group of Pakistan), who left India after independence in 1947; these Muhajirs were from various parts of India, with Urdu speakers predominantly hailing from United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh), Delhi, Central Provinces (Madhya Pradesh), Bihar and Hyderabad.

[142][143] Urdu was chosen as a symbol of unity for the new state of Pakistan in 1947, because it had already served as a lingua franca among Muslims in north and northwest British India.

These include parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra (Marathwada and Konkanis), Karnataka and cities such as Hyderabad, Lucknow, Delhi, Malerkotla, Bareilly, Meerut, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, Deoband, Moradabad, Azamgarh, Bijnor, Najibabad, Rampur, Aligarh, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Agra, Firozabad, Kanpur, Badaun, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Aurangabad,[149] Bangalore, Kolkata, Mysore, Patna, Darbhanga, Gaya, Madhubani, Samastipur, Siwan, Saharsa, Supaul, Muzaffarpur, Nalanda, Munger, Bhagalpur, Araria, Gulbarga, Parbhani, Nanded, Malegaon, Bidar, Ajmer, and Ahmedabad.

[151] In fact, the language of Bollywood films tend to contain a large number of Persian and Arabic words and thus considered to be "Urdu" in a sense,[152] especially in songs.

[159] Urdu's use was not confined only to northern India – it had been used as a literary medium for Indian writers from the Bombay Presidency, Bengal, Orissa Province, and Tamil Nadu as well.

[162][26] Urdu continued its role in developing a Pakistani identity as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was established with the intent to construct a homeland for the Muslims of Colonial India.

Urdu was chosen as a symbol of unity for the new Dominion of Pakistan in 1947, because it had already served as a lingua franca among Muslims in north and northwest of British Indian Empire.

The significance of Urdu as a national symbol was downplayed by these disputes when English and Bengali were also accepted as official languages in the former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Pakistan, said "Now the government is working on a new curriculum to provide a new medium to the students which will be the combination of both Urdu and English and will name it Urdish.

[193] Urdu speakers will often insert vowels to break up consonant clusters found in words of Sanskritic origin, but will pronounce them correctly in Arabic and Persian loanwords.

[194] As a result of religious nationalism since the partition of British India and continued communal tensions, native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert that they are distinct languages.

[221] The "trend towards Persianisation" started in the 18th century by the Delhi school of Urdu poets, though other writers, such as Meeraji, wrote in a Sanskritised form of the language.

Some examples for Portuguese words borrowed into Urdu are chabi ("chave": key), girja ("igreja": church), kamra ("cámara": room), qamīz ("camisa": shirt).

Because of its thousands of ligatures, Nasta’liq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as kātib or khush-nawīs, until the late 1980s.

A highly Persianised and technical form of Urdu was the lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in Bengal and the North-West Provinces & Oudh.

[249] Some poets from Bengal, namely Qazi Nazrul Islam, have historically used the Bengali script to write Urdu poetry like Prem Nagar Ka Thikana Karle and Mera Beti Ki Khela, as well as bilingual Bengali-Urdu poems like Alga Koro Go Khõpar Bãdhon, Juboker Chholona and Mera Dil Betab Kiya.