A Brief History of Urdu

The word "URDU" is a Turkish word and it means "an army or legion". Modern Urdu has taken almost 900 years to develop to its present form. The old Urdu was a mixture of Turkish, Persian and Arabic and was the language of the most powerful warrior tribes of Central Asia. These tribes would invade, conquer and occupy areas within easy reach for their wealth, gold, silver and precious stones. Wherever these tribes went, they took their language which had an amazing mingling and absorbing local words and proverbs.

Scholars, learned men and tribesmen from Central Asia brought 'Old Urdu', called 'Reekhta, to the Indian Subcontinent early in the 12th century AD. In the late 1400 and early 1500, under the patronage of the Moghales, modern Urdu started taking shape to be used in poetry, prose and plays.

Urdu is written from right to left just like Arabic and Persian. Urdu has 39 basic letters and 13 extra characters, all together 52 and most of these letters are from Arabic and a small quantity from Persian. It has almost all the 'sounds' available in any other language spoken in the world.