Urdish, Urglish or Urdunglish, a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the words ''

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

'' and '' English'', is the macaronic hybrid use of

South Asian English South Asian English, informally Desi English, refers to English dialects spoken in most modern-day South Asian countries, inherited from British English dialect. Also known as Anglo-Indian English during the British Raj, the English language was i ...

and Standard Urdu. In the context of

spoken language A spoken language is a form of communication produced through articulate sounds or, in some cases, through manual gestures, as opposed to written language. Oral or vocal languages are those produced using the vocal tract, whereas sign languages ar ...

, it involves

code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. These alternations are generally intended to ...

between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. In

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, many bilingual or multi-lingual Urdu speakers, being familiar with both Urdu and English, display translanguaging in certain localities and between certain social groups. In the context of

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

, Urdish colloquially refers to

Roman Urdu Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdu language written with the Latin script, also known as Roman script. According to the Urdu scholar Habib R. Sulemani: "Roman Urdu is strongly opposed by the traditional Arabic alphabet, Arabic script lo ...

— Urdu written in

English alphabet Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 Letter (alphabet), letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word ''alphabet'' is a Compound (linguistics), compound of ''alpha'' and ''beta'', t ...

(that is, using Roman script instead of the traditional

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left script, right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: (the sounds 'g', 'zh', ' ...

), often also mixed with English words or phrases. The term ''Urdish'' is first recorded in 1989. Other less common colloquial

portmanteau word In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.) Israeli שלט ''shalát'' 'remote control', an ellipsis ...

s for Urdish include (chronologically): ''Urglish'' (recorded from 1995), ''Urdlish'' (1997) and ''Urduish'' (1998). When

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

–

is viewed as a single spoken language called Hindostani, the portmanteaus ''Urdish'' and ''

Hinglish Hinglish is the macaronic hybrid use of English and Hindi.Salwathura, A. N.Evolutionary development of ‘hinglish’language within the indian sub-continent. ''International Journal of Research-GRANTHAALAYAH''. Vol. 8. No. 11. Granthaalayah ...

'' mean the same code-mixed tongue. On 14 August 2015, the

Government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan () (abbreviated as GoP), constitutionally known as the Federal Government, commonly known as the Centre, is the national authority of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a federal republic located in South Asia, con ...

launched the ''Ilm'' Pakistan movement, with a uniform curriculum in Urdish. Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Pakistan, said, "Now the government is working on a new curriculum to provide a new medium to the students which will be the combination of both Urdu and English and will name it Urdish."

References

{{interlanguage varieties *Urdish Urdu Central Indo-Aryan languages Macaronic forms of English Pakistani English