Geo Language Services

Urdu

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and is also spoken in parts of India and Nepal. It shares linguistic and cultural ties with Hindi but has a distinct vocabulary influenced by Persian, Arabic and Turkish.

  • Classification

    Indo-European > Indic

  • Speakers

    90 million

  • Script

    Persian

  • Text direction

    Right-to-left

  • Official language

    Pakistan

Urdu

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language, which is in turn a member of the wide-reaching Indo-European language group. Other branches of the Indo-European language group include Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic to name a few.

Urdu is the second official language of Pakistan, alongside English, and it is also spoken in India, where it is historically associated with Muslims of the Hindustan region.

In Pakistan, although Urdu serves as lingua franca, most of the population learn it as second or even third language. Only 7% of Pakistan’s population speaks Urdu as their first language. In India, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Hindi, the official language of the Union of India. There has been some dispute as to whether Urdu and Hindi are actually two languages, or two dialects of one language, Hindustani.

Urdu is written with the Persian script from right-to-left (instead of left-to-right like Hindi or English). Although beautifully intricate, the Urdu Nastaleeq font is notoriously difficult to typeset electronically with Apple only just implementing an Urdu keyboard in autumn 2014.

At Geo Language Services, our Urdu translations ensure the highest degree of accuracy, maintaining cultural nuances and delivering content in a way that resonates with Urdu-speaking audiences.

Services offered for this language

Translation / Transcreation / Subtitling / Localization / Adaptation / Copywriting / Authoring / Proofreading / Revision / Editing / Translation quality assurance / Terminology / Linguistic validation / Glossary creation / Dubbing / Voice-overs / Transcription / Typesetting / Simultaneous interpreting / Consecutive interpreting / Conference interpreting / Telephone interpreting / Public service interpreting / Interpreting equipment hire / Foreign language consulting

Interesting fact

The idea of fruit punch originated with Urdu speakers. The word means 'five', and refers to the five ingredients of the traditional drink: alcohol, sugar, lemon, water and tea (plus spices, though that would make it at least six).

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