Urdu is an Indo-European language which originated in India, most likely in the vicinity of Delhi, from whence it spread to the rest of the subcontinent. Other major metropolitan areas with a strong tradition of the language include Hyderabad, Lucknow, and Lahore.

Urdu developed as a vernacular dialect from the interaction between local Indian Sanskrit-derived Prakrits and the languages that were spoken in the courts of the rulers of The Subcontinent, from the time of the Delhi Sultanate to the Mughal Empire and its succeeding states. The language of the court, and of literature, was usually Persian, while that of religion was Arabic, the language of the Quran. This process of the mingling of these languages and the local dialects led to the development of everyday speech that sounded much like today's Urdu and Hindi. There is still a spectrum of dialects spoken in the streets of cities from Lahore and Karachi to Delhi and Calcutta and in the villages all over the region.

URDU
45,773,000 in India (1994 IMA); 8,000,000 in Pakistan (1988); 3,562 in Fiji; 170,000 in South Africa; 30,000 in Oman; 20,000 in Bahrain; 19,950 in Qatar; 16,800 in Germany; 54,000,000 or more in all countries. Jammu and Kashmir and by Muslims in many parts of India . Also in Afghanistan , USA . "Dakhini" is freer of Persian and Arabic loans than Urdu. Both are written in Arabic script. "Rekhta" is a form of Urdu used in poetry. State language and medium of instruction in government schools in Jammu and Kashmir.

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Cairo (Reuters) - A court in Cairo today rejected the petition filed by an Islamic fundamentalist lawyer who had asked the court that the irrepressible standard bearer of the women's movement, Nawal Saadawi, be divorced from her Muslim husband as she had abandoned Islamic beliefs. The court said that an individual cannot petition to dissolve someone else's marriage. The court added that such a petition could only be filed by a government prosecutor. The lawyer, Nabeel Wahsh, asserted that 70-year old Saadawi has said that Haj is something from before Islam and that she wants gender equality in the laws of inheritance. Saadawi's lawyer had said in the court during its proceedings that the newspapers had quoted his client out of context.