Urdu language is the language of the forefathers of the people living in Pakistan and few parts of India. In Pakistan, Urdu is both the National and Official language while in India, it is the national language of certain states like Hyderabad Deccan and Indian Occupied Kashmir. The total number of the people, who can understand and speak Urdu is more than 200 millions. The language also holds the disctinction as being the 20th most populous natively spoken language across the world.
Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, was created around the sixteenth Century in Central Asia. The word ‘Urdu’ comes from the Turkish word ‘ordu’ meaning ‘camp’ or ‘army’.
Its foundation was laid during the conquest of Muhammad bin Qasim in Sindh in the 700’s CE. Urdu vocabulary contains something like 70% Farsi and the rest being a mix of Turkish, Arabic and few other local languages of the sub-continent.
Its history dates back to the time when Arab, Persian and Turkish Muslims invaded the lands of Sub-Continent and the language came into power came to be known as ‘Urdu’, meaning camp, referring to history of the language how it came to existence through the army camps or as Rekhta (?????), meaning molded or mixed.
After the 1700’s, Urdu appeared as the governing force replacing Persian progressively. It, however, could be considered as a derivative of Persian. The most well-known Urdu literature, prose and poetry are written by Mirza Assadullah Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir and Allama Iqbal and their works are read until today.
Urdu belongs to the Indo-Aryan family and therefore is an Indo-European language. It has developed in the present shape under the great influence of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Punjabi, and other indigenous languages of Indian sub-continent during the Mughal Empire and Delhi Sultanate from 12th to 18th century.
The fall of the Urdu language began in the late 1800’s. Coincidentally, it was the same period when the Muslims lost control of the land to the hands of British after ruling (majority) Hindu India for over 1200 years.
The eminent male and female writers of Urdu Language are mentioned as follows,
- Behzad Lakhnavi.
- Abdul Majid Salik.
- Abdullah Hussain.
- Ashraf Ali Thanvi.
- Faiz A Faiz.
- Maulvi Abdul Haq.
- Agha Hasr Kashmiri.
- Amjad Islam Amjad.
- Dr. Syed Abdullah.
- Patras Bukhari.
- Ashiq Batalvi.
- Hasrat Mohani.
- Inayatullah Insha.
- Allama Iqbal.
- Niaz Fatehpuri.
- Ihasan Danish.
- Habib Jalib.
- Imtiaz Ali Taj.
- Mir Taqi Mir.
- Ali Nadwi.
- M. Ali Jauhar.
- Saadat Hassan Minto.
- Shabbir Ahmed Usmani.
- Abdul Majid Daryaabadi.
- Abdullah Chughtai.
- Abdus Salam.
- Ahmed Faraz.
- Ahmed Raza Barelvi.
- Ashiq Batalvi.
- Abul Kalam Azad.
- Dagh Dehlvi.
- Qudratullah Shahab.
- Asadullah Ghalib.
- Ghulam Abbass.
- Hafeez Hoshiyarpuri.
- Hafeez Jalandhri.
- Altaf Hussain Hali.
- Ibn e Insha.
- Ibn e Shafi.
- Ismail Meeruthi.
- Ismail Chughtai.
- Jamil Jalbi.
- Jigar Murad Abadi.
- Josh Malihabadi.
- Krishan Chander.
- Dr. Safdar Mehmood.
- M. Rafi Sauda.
- Qateel Shifai.
- Shahzad Ahmed.
- Dr. Wazir Agha.
- Saghir Siddiqui.
- Dr. Waheed Qureshi.
- Sahir Ludhyanvi.
- Maulana Zafar Ali Khan.
- Shibli Naumani.
- Razia Butt.
- Quratul Ain Haider.
- Noon Meem Rashid.
- Sibt e Hassan.
- Haleem Sharar.
- Dr. Younas Butt.
- Ashfaq Ahmed.
- Mumtaz Mufti.
- Nasir Kazmi.
- Hashim Nadeem.
- Zamir Jaferi.
- Ibrahim Zauq.
- Farhat Abbas Shah.
- Sulaiman Nadvi.
- Munir Niazi.
- Hafeez Taib.
- Tariq Ismail Saghar.
- Mustansar Hussain Tarar.
- Munno Bhai.
- Nasim Hijazi.
Female
- Umaira Ahmed.
- Seema Ghazal.
- Perveen Shakir.
- Hajra Masroor.
- Fahmida Riaz.
- Haseena Moin.
- Kishwer Naheed.
- Noshi Gilani.
- Ada Jaferi.
- Khadija Mastoor.
- Banu Qudsiya.