السلام علیکم!
say it: “us-sah-LAH-moo ah-LAY-kum”
Urdu
in its own words: اردو
- Speakers
- 230 million (estimate)
- Family
- Indo-European – Indo-Aryan
- Vitality
- Safe
- Where it is spoken
- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan
- Script
- Arabic
- Official language
- Pakistan, India (regional)
Fun fact
Colloquial Urdu and Hindi are mutually intelligible (Hindustani), but they differ in script – Urdu uses Perso-Arabic script, right to left – and in formal vocabulary.