Urdu is a standardised
register of
Hindustani<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Encyclop.C3.A6dia_Britannica-Urdu_4-0>
[5]</SUP><SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Random_House_Dictionary-Urdu_5-0>
[6]</SUP><SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Encyclop.C3.A6dia_Britannica-Hindustani_6-0>
[7]</SUP> termed the
standard dialect Khariboli.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Encyclop.C3.A6dia_Britannica-Hindustani_6-1>
[7]</SUP> The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard Urdu. In general, the term "Urdu" can encompass dialects of Hindustani other than the standardised versions.The original language of the Mughals had been Turkish, but after their arrival in South Asia, they came to adopt Persian and later Urdu. The word Urdu is believed to be derived from the Turkish, word 'Ordu', which means army. It was initially called Zaban-e-Ordu or language of the army and later just Urdu. The word 'Ordu' was later anglicised as 'Horde'. Urdu, though of South Asian origin, came to be heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic. Urdu speakers have been speaking this language as their Mother tongue for several centuries. Urdu has been the medium of the literature, history and journalism of South Asian Muslims during the last 200 years. Most of the work was complemented by ancestors of native Urdu speakers in South Asia. Persian language which was the official language during the Mughals was then slowly starting to loose ground to Urdu during the reign of Shah Jahan. It was after the devastating invasion by Nadir Shah of Persia in 1738 that gave death blow to Mughal empire in South Asia, that the Mughals adopted Urdu instead of Persian as the official language of the empire. Then Urdu with official patronage developed high literature
Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages.
It is the national language of Pakistan as well as one of the 23 official languages of India.