Derivation LLC’s Post

Happy World Urdu day! As well as being the national language of Pakistan, Urdu has large speaker populations across South Asian and the Middle East and is currently spoken by over 230 million people in 32 countries around the world. It’s a deeply poetic language containing and informed by the lore and liberation struggles of its growing, diverse language community. The Urdu ghazal, a distinct literary tradition dating back to the 17th century, remains popular today, with a canon spanning classical and contemporary works including that of renowned poets like Mirza Ghalib and Parveen Shakir. 

  • A map of the countries where Urdu is spoken as a first language, showing the concentration of speakers in each country.
  • An extract from the poem Sher by Parveen Shakir. In English it reads, "He is a fragrance that will scatter in the winds, the trouble lies with the flower- where shall the flower go?"

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