Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- one of the official languages of Pakistan, a language derived from Hindustani, used by Muslims, and written with Persian-Arabic letters.
noun
- an official language of Pakistan, also spoken in India. The script derives primarily from Persia. It belongs to the Indic branch of the Indo-European family of languages, being closely related to Hindi but containing many Arabic and Persian loan words
official language of Pakistan, 1796, from Hindustani urdu “camp,” from Turkish ordu (source of horde); short for zaban-i-urdu “language of the camp.” Compare Dzongkha, a variant of Tibetan and the official language of Bhutan, literally “the language of the fortress.”