Geographical distribution of Urdu speakers

{{Short description|none}} {{Use British English|date=April 2025}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox ethnic group | group = Urdu-speaking people | native_name = {{unq|اہلِ زبانِ اردو}} | native_name_lang = ur | image = Image:Zaban urdu mualla.png | image_caption = The phrase ''Zuban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla'' or "Language of the Exalted Camp" | total = center|frameless|280x280px <br/> 68.62 million | total_year = 2019 | total_source =  | total_ref = <ref>{{e22|urd|Urdu}}</ref> | genealogy = | regions = '''India''' (diasporic Urdu Belt, a regional belt that consists of Hindi-Urdu belt states, many speakers live in various cities in Deccan Plateau)<br /> '''Pakistan''' (Urdu-speaking in Karachi, Hyderabad & mainly across large cities in Sindh and other large Pakistani cities)<br /> '''Nepal''' (Terai region)<br /> '''Bangladesh''' (diasporic Urdu-speaking Bihari communities, also known as Stranded Pakistanis, live throughout Bangladesh, particularly in Saidpur, Nilphamari, Mohammadpur and Old Dhaka) | region1 = {{flag|India}} | pop1 = 50,772,631 (2011) | ref1 = <ref name="Census">{{cite web|url=https://censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/C-16_25062018_NEW.pdf|title=Census of India 2011: Language|work=Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India|date=2011|access-date=28 May 2020}}</ref> | region2 = {{flag|Pakistan}} | pop2 = 22,249,307 (2023) | ref2 = <ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/population/2023/tables/national/table_11.pdf | title=Population by mother tongue, sex and rural/urban, Census-2023 | website=pbs.gov.pk}} </ref> | region3 = {{flag|Nepal}} | pop3 = 413,785 (2021) | ref3 = <ref>{{cite report |date=2021 |title=National Population and Housing Census 2021, Caste/Ethnicity Report |author=National Statistics Office |work=Government of Nepal |url=https://censusnepal.cbs.gov.np/results/downloads/caste-ethnicity}}</ref> | region4 = {{flag|United States}} | pop4 = 397,502 (2013) | ref4 = <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www2.census.gov/library/data/tables/2008/demo/language-use/2009-2013-acs-lang-tables-nation.xls?#|title=Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over for United States: 2009-2013}}</ref> | region6 = {{flag|Bangladesh}} | pop6 = 300,000 (2011) | ref6 = <ref>{{Cite web |title=Bangladesh: Urdu-Speaking "Biharis" Seek Recognition, Respect and Rights |url=https://www.iri.org/resources/new-bangladesh-report-reveals-priorities-of-the-bihari-minority/ |date=4 February 2021 |access-date=26 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220926190315/https://www.iri.org/resources/new-bangladesh-report-reveals-priorities-of-the-bihari-minority/ |archive-date=26 September 2022 |website=International Republican Institute }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Urdu-speaking people in Bangladesh seek land ownership for rehabilitation |url=https://www.newagebd.net/article/216340/urdu-speaking-people-in-bangladesh-seek-land-ownership-for-rehabilitation |work=New Age |date=2025-06-20 |access-date=2025-06-21}}</ref> | region7 = {{flagicon|United Kingdom}} United Kingdom | pop7 = 270,000 (2011) | ref7 = <ref name="CensusUK">{{cite web|title=2011 Census: Quick Statistics|url=http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-and-quick-statistics-for-wards-and-output-areas-in-england-and-wales/STB-2011-census--quick-statistics-for-england-and-wales--march-2011.html#tab-Main-language|access-date=11 April 2015|work=Office for National Statistics}}</ref> | region8 = {{flag|Canada}} | pop8 = 210,815 (2016) | ref8 = <ref>{{cite web|title=Census Profile, 2016 Census, Canada|url=https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=PR&Code2=01&Data=Count&SearchText=Canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Language&TABID=1|website=Government of Canada, Statistics Canada| date=8 February 2017 |access-date=6 October 2020}}</ref> | region9 = {{flag|Australia}} | pop9 = 69,131 (2016) | ref9 = <ref name="SBS"/> | languages = Urdu | religions = Predominantly 15px Islam Small Minority Hindusim, Christianity and Judaism | related_groups = | footnotes = {{ubl|{{note|a|a}} The figure for Pakistan includes only first language Urdu-speakers, known as Urdu speaking, and not other ethnic groups of Pakistan who may fluently speak Urdu as a first or second language, numbering up to an additional 94 million.<ref name="Nestorović2016">{{cite book|author=Čedomir Nestorović|title=Islamic Marketing: Understanding the Socio-Economic, Cultural, and Politico-Legal Environment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LXJBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA142|date=28 May 2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-32754-9|pages=142–}}</ref>}} }} Native speakers of Urdu are spread across South Asia.{{refn|group=note|"Urdu" does not broadly refer to the Hindustani language, but merely the literary-register (or style) of the macrolanguage self-identified as a spoken language predominantly by Muslims in South Asia, hence accounting Modern Standard Hindi as a separate entity statistically.}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Joseph|first=Ammu|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdtjAAAAMAAJ&q=Urdudaan|title=Just Between Us: Women Speak about Their Writing|date=2004|publisher=Women's World, India|isbn=978-81-88965-15-1|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Mir|first=Raza|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nCehAwAAQBAJ&dq=Urdudaans&pg=PT105|title=The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry|date=15 June 2014|publisher=Penguin UK|isbn=978-93-5118-725-7|language=en}}</ref> The vast majority of them are Muslims of the Hindi–Urdu Belt of northern India,{{refn|group=note|During early days of British India, North Indian people of many faiths, including Hindus, self-identified as Urdu-speakers prior to the mid-19th century, after which they self-identified as Hindi-speakers.}}<ref name="Roy2020">{{cite book |last1=Roy |first1=Arundhati |title=Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. |date=1 September 2020 |publisher=Haymarket Books |isbn=978-1-64259-380-8 |language=English |quote=The language known variously as Urdu/Hindi/Hindustani, and in an earlier era, Hindavi, was born on the streets and in the bazaars of North India. Khari Boli, spoken in and around Delhi and what is now western Uttar Pradesh, is the base language of which the Persian lexicon came to be added. Urdu, written in the Persian-Arabic script, was spoken by Hindus and Muslims across North India and the Deccan Plateau. ... The partitioning orf Urdu began in earnest in the second half of the nineteenth century, after the failed 1857 Ware of Independence (known to the British as the Mutiny), when India ceased to be merely an asset of the East India Company.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Ginsburgh |first1=V. |last2=Weber |first2=S. |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Economics and Language |date=8 April 2016 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-32505-1 |language=English |quote=Urdu is a stylized version of the colloquial language spoken by both Muslims and Hindus in what is now central north India.}}</ref><ref name="Farooqi2012">{{cite book |last1=Farooqi |first1=M. |title=Urdu Literary Culture: Vernacular Modernity in the Writing of Muhammad Hasan Askari |date=2012 |publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-137-02692-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vc1fAQAAQBAJ&q=Urdu+cultural+contact+Hindus+Muslims&pg=PT185 |language=en |quote=Historically speaking, Urdu grew out of interaction between Hindus and Muslims. He noted that Urdu is not the language of Muslims alone, although Muslims may have played a larger role in making it a literary language. Hindu poets and writers could and did bring specifically Hindu cultural elements into Urdu and these were accepted.}}</ref> followed by the Deccani people of the Deccan plateau in south-central India (who speak Deccani Urdu), and majority of the Muhajir people of Pakistan and some stranded communities in Bangladesh.<ref>{{cite web |title=New Bangladesh Report Reveals Priorities of the Bihari Minority |url=https://www.iri.org/resources/new-bangladesh-report-reveals-priorities-of-the-bihari-minority/ |website=International Republican Institute |date=2020-02-11 |access-date=2025-06-23 |archive-date=26 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220926190315/https://www.iri.org/resources/new-bangladesh-report-reveals-priorities-of-the-bihari-minority/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="AlexanderChatterji2015" /><ref name="Skutsch2013">{{cite book|author=Carl Skutsch|title=Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iSUKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT2234|date=7 November 2013|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-135-19395-9|pages=2234–}}</ref> The historical centres of Urdu speakers include Delhi and Lucknow.<ref name="2005Schmidt">{{cite book|last1=Schmidt|first1=Ruth Laila|title=Urdu: An Essential Grammar|date=8 December 2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-71319-6|language=en|quote=Historically, Urdu developed from the sub-regional language of the Delhi area, which became a literary language in the eighteenth century. Two quite similar standard forms of the language developed in Delhi, and in Lucknow in modern Uttar Pradesh. Since 1947, a third form, Karachi standard Urdu, has evolved.}}</ref><ref name="Mahapatra1989">{{cite book|last1=Mahapatra|first1=B. P.|title=Constitutional languages|date=1989|publisher=Presses Université Laval|isbn=978-2-7637-7186-1|page=553|language=en|quote=Modern Urdu is a fairly homogenous language. An older southern form, Deccani Urdu, is now obsolete. Two varieties however, must be mentioned viz. The Urdu of Delhi, and the Urdu of Lucknow. Both are almost identical, differing only in some minor points. Both of these varieties are considered 'Standard Urdu' with some minor divergences.}}</ref>

==History== From the early Muslim kingdoms developed Indian Muslim clan-groups who were well-rooted social groups that acted as warrior lineages providing court officers and military soldiers. These evolving communities or tribes played a key role in providing a local Muslim leadership.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PIAyDwAAQBAJ&dq=sayyids+jansath+kakori&pg=PT257 |title=Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars:North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion: 1770–1870 |author=C.A. Bayly |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-908873-7 }}</ref> The language developed at the time of Sultans of Dehli due to the mixture of people, likely to be soldiers, from Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Afghan and Indian background.{{cn|date=July 2025}}

===Mughal Empire=== As early as 1689, Europeans used the label "Moors dialect", which simply meant "Muslim",<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=zGYCAAAAQAAJ&dq=moors+dialect+urdu&pg=PA573 |title= Camoens: his life and his Lusiads, a commentary: Volume 2|date= 1881 |author= sir Richard Francis Burton, Luis Vaz de Camoens |page= 573 |publisher= Oxford University }}</ref> to describe Urdu, the language associated with the Muslims in North India,<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_kWROaer5UsC&dq=british+moors+urdu&pg=PA1118 |title= Allied Chambers transliterated Hindi-Hindi-English dictionary |author1= Henk W. Wagenaar |author2= S. S. Parikh |author3= D. F. Plukker |author4= R. Veldhuijzen van Zanten |date= 1993 |publisher= Allied Publishers |isbn= 9788186062104 }}</ref> such as John Ovington, who visited India during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb:<ref>{{cite book |title= A Voyage to Surat in the Year 1689 |page= 147 |date= 1994 |publisher= Asian Educational Services |author= John Ovington }}</ref>

<blockquote>The language of the Moors is different from that of the ancient original inhabitants of India, but is oblig'd to these Gentiles for its characters. For though the ''Moors dialect'' is peculiar to themselves, yet it is destitute of Letters to express it; and therefore in all their Writings in their Mother Tongue, they borrow their letters from the Heathens, or from the Persians, or other Nations.</blockquote>

===Fall of the Mughal Empire=== The Upper Doab and Rohilkhand was dominated by a literate and homogenous elite, who embraced a distinctive Indo-Persian style of culture. This service gentry, performing both clerical and military service for the Mughal empire and its successor states, provided cultural and literary patronage that continued, even after the political decline, to act as preservers of Indo-Persian traditions and values.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6FqVKJNCfQC&dq=rohilkhand+indo-muslim+state&pg=PA102 |page=104 |author= Sandria B. Freitag |date=1989 |title= Collective Action and Community Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520064393 }}</ref> <gallery class="center" widths="200px" heights="150px">

File:Painting of Cavalry in Durbar Procession of Mughal Emperor Akbar II.png|Cavalry in the Durbar Procession of Mughal Emperor Akbar II ({{reign|1806|1837}}) under British rule File:1st Regiment of Skinner's Horse returning from a General Review, 1828.jpg|Regiment of Skinner's Horse returning from a General Review, 1828 File:An Officer of Col Gardiner’s irregular Cavalry.jpg|Officer of Col Gardiner’s irregular Cavalry, "drawn mainly from Muslism from Hindoostan"<ref>{{cite book |title= Gardner of Gardner's Horse, 2nd Lancers, Indian Army |url=https://google.ca/books/edition/Gardner_of_Gardner_s_Horse_2nd_Lancers_I/AjKURHnitt8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=gardner%27s+horse+yeoman+stock&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover |page=67 |author=Narindar Saroop |date=1983 | publisher=Abhinav Publications }}</ref> File:Sowar of Rohilla Cavalry, 1815.jpg|Sowar of the Rohilla Horse, 1815 </gallery> The end of Muslim rule saw a large number of unemployed Indian Muslim horsemen, who were employed in the army of the East India Company.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=4mgMAQAAMAAJ&q=enlist+excluded+the+poorest+segment+of+the+unemployed+Muslim+horsemen |title= Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee |publisher= Oxford University Press |date= 2009 |author= Kim A. Wagner |isbn= 978-0-19-569815-2 }}</ref> Thus 75% of the cavalry branch of the British army was composed of a social group referred to as the "Hindustani Mahomedans". This included Indian Muslim Baradaris of the Urdu-Hindustani Belt such as the Ranghar (Rajput Muslims), Sheikhs, Sayyids, Mughals, and Indianized Pathans.<ref name="Sumit Walia 2021 125">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=fWEeEAAAQBAJ&dq=skinner%27s+horse+muslims+delhi&pg=PA125 |title= Unbattled Fears: Reckoning the National Security |year= 2021 |author= Sumit Walia |page= 125|publisher= Lancer Publishers |isbn= 9788170623311 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=4g8xAQAAMAAJ&q=Three+-+fourths+of+the+Cavalry+branch+of+the+Bengal+Army+were+recruited+from+the+Muslims+of+various+descriptions+such+as+Hindusthanee+Muhammadans+,+Sheikhs+,+Syuds+,+Moguls+,+Pathans+,+Rangars+(+Rajput+Mussalmans+)+and+Afghans+,+while |title= Calcutta Review 1956 |page= 38 |publisher= University of Calcutta. |date= 1956 }}</ref> British officers such as Skinner, Gardner and Hearsay had become leaders of irregular cavalry that preserved the traditions of Mughal cavalry, which had a political purpose because it absorbed pockets of cavalrymen who might otherwise become disaffected plunderers.<ref>{{ cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8bqEzPPp8xIC&dq=irregular+cavalry+syud&pg=PA159 |title= Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 |author= Christopher Alan Bayly, C. A. Bayly |date= 1996 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9780521663601 }}</ref> The Governor-general insisted that it was incumbent upon the British to "give military employment" to various north Indian Muslim soldiers, particularly those "formerly engaged in military service of the Native powers".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ma5hAQAAQBAJ&dq=bengal+irregular+cavalry+anglo-maratha+war&pg=PT212 |title=Gender, Morality, and Race in Company India, 1765-1858 |date= 2011 |author= Joseph Sramek |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=9780230337626 }}</ref> The lingua franca spoken in the army was a form of Urdu referred to in colonial usage as "military Hindustani".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cy51FBmKI0gC&dq=urdu+spoken+in+the+army&pg=PA143 |title=Islam and the Army in Colonial India |date=2009 |author=Nile Green |page=143 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521898454 }}</ref>

thumb|7th Hussars, charging a body of the Mutineer's Cavalry, Alam Bagh, Lucknow The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was initiated by the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry in Meerut, which was composed mainly of Indian Muslims.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1KPfAAAAMAAJ&q=3rd+regiment+cavalry+mainly+muslims |title=Defence Journal:Volume 5, Issues 9-12 |page=37 |author=Ikram ul-Majeed Sehgal |year=2002 |publisher= University of Michigan }}</ref> The mutineers made for Delhi, where its garrison revolted, massacring its British population, and installed Bahadur Shah Zafar as its nominal leader. The spread of the word that the British had been expelled from Delhi, interpreted as the breakdown of British authority, acted as a catalyst for mutiny as well as revolt. Regiments in other parts of northern India only revolted after Delhi had fallen.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TiWNAvhoLkkC |title=Awadh in Revolt, 1857-1858:A Study of Popular Resistance|author=Rudrangshu Mukherjee |date=2002 |publisher=Permanent Black |page=65 |isbn=9788178240275 }}</ref> British characterisations of Muslims as fanatics took the fore during and after the Great Rebellion, as well as produced the Indian Muslims as a unified, cogent group, who were easily agitated, aggressive, and inherently disloyal.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bBOMDwAAQBAJ&dq=muslims+eic+1857&pg=PA46 |title=Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion |page=46 |author= Ilyse R. Morgenstein Fuerst |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781786732378 }}</ref>

===Urdu nationalism=== {{See also|Urdu movement}} [[File:Mohsinul Mulk, Syed Ahmad Khan and Syed Mahmood.jpg|Syed Ahmed Khan and Mohsin-ul-Mulk|thumb]] Even in later days, the same clans were dominant groups in the associations in the defence of Urdu and district Muslim Leagues which were among the first forays of Muslims into electoral and pressure-group politics.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PIAyDwAAQBAJ&dq=sayyids+jansath+kakori&pg=PT257 |title= Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion: 1770–1870 |author=C.A. Bayly |date=2012 }}</ref> In the 19th century, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his followers such as Mohsin-ul-Mulk further advocated for the adoption of Urdu as the language of Indian Muslims, and led organisations such as the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu and Urdu Defence Association, which won popular support in the Aligarh Movement and the Deoband Movement.<ref>{{cite book |url= http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper675.html |author= R. Upadhyay |title= "Urdu Controversy – is dividing the nation further" |publisher= South Asia Analysis Group |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311170443/http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper675.html |archive-date=11 March 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref> It was made the official language of British India in 1825 and got large opposition from the Hindus and thus sparking the Hindi-Urdu controversy in 1867. This resulted in Sir Syed's Two Nation Theory in 1868. The Urdu language was used in the emergence of a political Muslim self-consciousness.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7vgpAQAAMAAJ&q=urdu+muslim+self-consciousness |title=Muslim Peoples: Maba |date=1984 |publisher=Greenwood Press |author=Richard V. Weekes |page=826 |isbn=9780313246401 }}</ref> Syed Ahmed Khan converted the existing cultural and religious entity among Indian Muslims into a separatist political force, throwing a Western cloak of nationalism over the Islamic concept of culture. Furthermore, in 2008 Syed Nadeem Ahmed brought forward the idea of Urdu Nationalism by presenting his idea of an "Urdu Qaum" based on Urdu language and culture. The distinct sense of value, culture and tradition among Indian Muslims originated from the nature of Islamification of the Indian populace during the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu2lu-ZI-vQC&dq=To+the+Muslims+an+industrialised+India+meant+a+Hindu+India,+because+the+Hindu+was+a+financier+and+a+business-man,+the+Muslim+in+general+an+agriculturist+and+soldier&pg=PA26 |title= Historiography of India's Partition: An Analysis of Imperialist Writings |page= 26 |author= Viśva Mohana Pāṇḍeya |date= 2003 |publisher= Atlantic Publishers & Distributors |isbn= 9788126903146 }}</ref>

==Demographics== thumb|Distribution of Pakistanis speaking Urdu as a first language in 1998 Although the majority of Urdu-speakers reside in Pakistan (including 30 million native speakers,<ref name="Skutsch2013" /> and up to 94 million second-language speakers),<ref name="Nestorović2016" /> where Urdu is the national and official language, most speakers who use Urdu as their native tongue live in northern India, where it is one of 22 official languages.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pereltsvaig |first=Asya |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DB4xDwAAQBAJ&dq=most+urdu+speakers+live+in+india&pg=PA60 |title=Languages of the World: An Introduction|date=24 August 2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-17114-5|language=en |author-link=Asya Pereltsvaig}}</ref>

The Urdu-speaking community is also present in other parts of the subcontinent with a historical Muslim presence, such as the Deccanis, the Biharis<ref name="AlexanderChatterji2015">{{cite book|author1=Claire Alexander|author2=Joya Chatterji|author3=Annu Jalais|title=The Bengal Diaspora: Rethinking Muslim migration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZ_hCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA96|date=6 November 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-33593-1|pages=96–}}</ref> and Dhakaiyas (who speak Dhakaiya Urdu) in Bangladesh,<ref>{{Cite book|last=Redclift|first=Victoria|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BVxtNBjTaCgC&dq=dhakaiya+community&pg=PA82|title=Statelessness and Citizenship: Camps and the Creation of Political Space|date=26 June 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-22032-6|language=en}}</ref> the Urdu-speaking members of the Madheshi community in Nepal,<ref>{{cite news|url=https://unpo.org/members/20426|title=Madhesh|work=Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization|date=2020|access-date=16 July 2020}}</ref> some Muslims in Sri Lanka<ref>{{cite journal|title=Urdu in Sri Lanka: Socio-Linguistics of a Minority Language|date=1992|pages=185–201|journal=Islamic Studies|first=M.M.M.|last=Mahroof|volume = 31|issue = 2|jstor = 20840072}}</ref> and a section of Burmese Indians.<ref name="BhattacharyaKripalani2015">{{cite book|author1=Jayati Bhattacharya|author2=Coonoor Kripalani|title=Indian and Chinese Immigrant Communities: Comparative Perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dr7MBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|date=1 March 2015|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1-78308-447-0|pages=9, 121–}}</ref>

In addition, there are Urdu-speakers present among the South Asian diaspora, most notably in the Middle East,<ref name="Schmidt2005">{{cite book|author=Ruth Laila Schmidt|title=Urdu: An Essential Grammar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tAiiT5ZRX_kC&pg=PR23|date=8 December 2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=1-134-71320-7|pages=23–}}</ref> North America (notably the United States and Canada),<ref name="Schmidt2005" /><ref name="Leonard2007">{{cite book|author=Karen Isaksen Leonard|title=Locating Home: India's Hyderabadis Abroad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQCvgavbQjgC|year=2007|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-5442-2}}</ref> Europe (notably the United Kingdom),<ref name="BhatiaKoul2005" /> the Caribbean region,<ref name="BhatiaKoul2005">{{cite book|author1=Tej K Bhatia|author2=Ashok Koul|title=Colloquial Urdu: The Complete Course for Beginners|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PvqEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1|date=10 November 2005|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-77970-3|pages=1–}}</ref> Africa (notably South Africa and Mauritius),<ref name="BhatiaKoul2005" /> Southeast Asia (notably Singapore)<ref name="Tschacher2017">{{cite book|author=Torsten Tschacher|title=Race, Religion, and the 'Indian Muslim' Predicament in Singapore|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Iuw9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT235|date=10 November 2017|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-1-315-30337-6|pages=235–}}</ref> and Oceania (notably Australia<ref name="SBS">{{cite news|url=https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/find-out-how-many-people-speak-urdu-in-your-suburb|title=Find out how many people speak Urdu in your suburb|work=SBS News|date=23 November 2018|access-date=19 July 2020|first=Waqar|last=Ali}}</ref> and Fiji).<ref name="BhatiaKoul2005" />

==Notes== {{reflist|group=note}}

== References == {{reflist|30em}}

==External links== * {{cite news |last1=Alavi |first1=Shams Ur Rehman |title=Census Data on Language Reveals a Surprise about Urdu |url=https://thewire.in/culture/urdu-census-language-2011-north-india |access-date=18 July 2020 |work=The Wire |date=Jul 2018}} * {{cite news |last1=Daniyal |first1=Shoaib |title=Surging Hindi, shrinking South Indian languages: Nine charts that explain the 2011 language census |url=https://scroll.in/article/884754/surging-hindi-shrinking-south-indian-languages-nine-charts-that-explain-the-2011-language-census |access-date=18 July 2020 |work=Scroll.in |date=Jul 2018}}

Urdu Category:Urdu