ScriptLookup

Urdu

اردو
ur 70M speakers

Urdu (اردو) is a Indo-European language with approximately 70M speakers speakers. It is written using the Arabic script. Its BCP 47 language code is ur.

Urdu (اردو) is an Indo-Aryan language and the national language of Pakistan. It shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Hindi; the combined spoken form is often called Hindustani. Urdu is distinguished from Hindi primarily by its script — Urdu is written in the Nastaliq style of the Arabic-Perso script (right-to-left), while Hindi uses Devanagari.

Urdu has a rich poetic tradition, particularly in the ghazal and nazm forms. It contains extensive vocabulary borrowed from Persian, Arabic, and Turkic languages.

Writing Systems Used for Urdu

Arabic
العربية
Primary
مرحبا بالعالم
RTL Arab

Frequently Asked Questions

What alphabet or script does Urdu use?
Urdu is written using the Arabic script (ISO 15924 code: Arab). Arabic is a right-to-left script.
What direction is Urdu written?
Urdu is written Right-to-left. Text begins on the right side of the page and reads toward the left.
How many people speak Urdu?
Urdu has approximately 70M speakers speakers worldwide. It is a member of the Indo-European language family.
What language family does Urdu belong to?
Urdu belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is written with the Arabic script.
What is the language code for Urdu?
The BCP 47 language code for Urdu is "ur". This code is used in software, web standards (the HTML lang attribute), and internationalization contexts.

Language Facts

BCP 47 Code
ur
ISO 639-3
urd
Status
living
Speakers
70M speakers
Language Family
Indo-European
Scripts
1
Primary Script
Arabic

Other Arabic Languages

Algerian Arabic Arabic Bakhtiari Baluchi Beja Brahui Central Kurdish Comorian Egyptian Arabic Gilaki Hausa Kashmiri Kazakh Khowar Kyrgyz Malay Mazanderani Moroccan Arabic Najdi Arabic Northern Luri

Data sourced from Unicode CLDR and ISO 639-3. Last updated April 20, 2026.