Knowra Urdu Urdu Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language written primarily in a Perso-Arabic script and spoken chiefly in Pakistan and India. Its literary register shares much grammar with Hindi while drawing heavily on Persian and Arabic vocabulary.
Urdu alphabet : The Perso-Arabic-derived writing system used for Urdu, conventionally written from right to left. Its modified Arabic letters represent Urdu sounds and give the language its familiar written form.
Delhi Sultanate : A series of Muslim-ruled states based in Delhi from 1206 to 1526. Its courts and armies brought Persianate culture into sustained contact with northern Indian speech.
Mir Taqi Mir : An eighteenth-century Urdu poet celebrated for ghazals expressing love, loss, and the decline of Delhi. Mir’s poetry established a lasting model for Urdu lyric expression.
Hindi : An Indo-Aryan language and official language of India, commonly written in Devanagari. Hindi and Urdu share much everyday grammar but differ in scripts and formal vocabulary.
Urdu ghazal : A lyric poem composed of autonomous couplets under conventions of rhyme, refrain, and meter. The ghazal is Urdu’s best-known poetic form and a major vehicle for its literary voice.
Nastaliq : A sloping calligraphic style of Perso-Arabic writing, widely used for printed and handwritten Urdu. Nastaliq is the characteristic typeface and calligraphic tradition of Urdu publication.
Mughal Empire : A South Asian empire founded in 1526 whose ruling culture used Persian for administration and high literature. Mughal-era institutions fostered the Persianate setting in which Urdu literary culture grew.
Mirza Ghalib : A nineteenth-century poet best known for Urdu and Persian verse, including influential ghazals. Ghalib’s compressed, interpretively rich couplets remain central to Urdu literary culture.
Devanagari : A writing system used for Hindi, Sanskrit, and several other South Asian languages. Its left-to-right script contrasts with Urdu’s right-to-left Perso-Arabic writing.
Urdu poetry : Poetry composed in Urdu, encompassing forms such as the ghazal, nazm, and marsiya. Poetry has been a central domain for Urdu’s literary prestige and artistic innovation.
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