The Urdu Wikipedia (), started in January 2004, is the

Standard Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by ...

-language edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

, a free, open-content

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

. As of , it has articles, registered users and files, and it is the largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and ranks 20th in terms of depth among Wikipedias with over 150,000 articles. There were 6 million page views in January 2024. On 7 January 2024, the Urdu Wikipedia became the first South Asian-language Wikipedia to surpass 200,000 articles.

History

Wikipedia started being multilingual in May 2001. At first, Urdu Wikipedia faced technical problems with the Urdu script font, but now this matter is mostly settled; some unsolved areas remain. Urdu is written in

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', ' ...

, a right-to-left

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

. As a result, users sometimes need to configure their operating systems and web browsers accordingly. Currently, Urdu Wikipedia uses the "Urdu Naskh Asiatype" font, which was introduced and is freely distributed by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

at BBC Urdu Service website. The font is primarily used for article bodies and headings. Urdu variation of

Times New Roman Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned for use by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931. It has become one of the most popular typefaces of all time and is installed on most personal computers. The typeface was conceived by Stanl ...

is used for navigation links. Both of these fonts are variations of Naskh style. Some

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# ...

i variations of complex

Nasta'liq script ''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Kashmiri, Punjabi a ...

are also supported only as a secondary choice in

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

definitions of CSS, i.e. if default font is not found on client system, then Nasta'liq script is used. The translation of the Wikipedia interface and project information pages into Urdu is still in progress. Some pages about how to edit have been translated. In January 2016, Urdu Wikipedia ranked first in the number of articles as compared to other Indian languages. In

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 ...

, Urdu Wikipedia activities are hosted and promoted by the Dehalvi Wikimedia User Group. The group hosted its first educational program in

Deoband Deoband is a town and a municipality in Saharanpur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, about 150 km (93 miles) from Delhi. Darul Uloom Deoband, an Islamic seminary and one of the largest Islamic Institutions of India is located ther ...

in February 2020. Urdu is the second most popular Wikipedia in Pakistan, behind English. It receives approximately 2 million pageviews in the country, and around 610 thousand in India as of November 2022. In India, Urdu tops the list of constitutionally recognized languages in terms of the number of articles available on Wikipedia.

Milestones timeline

Users and editors

Urdu Wikipedia has approximately 320 contributors per month. Most users are from Pakistan, although there are many users from India as well. There are also notable users from Saudi Arabia. Much like the rest of Indic languages, Urdu suffers from an acute shortage of contributors due to various reasons. Ahmed Nisar, a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia from India, claims that some of the reasons are the preference of the people for English-language media, as well as the lack of Urdu-speaking experts which are well versed in various aspects of current affairs.

Differences from Hindi Wikipedia

Urdu and

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

are considered to be standardized registers of the

Hindustani language Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people, Deccani-speaking community in the Deccan plateau. Hindustani is a pluricentric language w ...

. The difference between Urdu and

Hindi Wikipedia The Hindi Wikipedia () is Modern Standard Hindi edition of Wikipedia. It was launched in July 2003. As of , it has articles, and ranks 10th in terms of depth among Wikipedias. In December 2023, there were 91 million page views. It is the f ...

in terms of the content's language is majorly in their

s and the

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

from which each of the

variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

derives their non-colloquial vocabulary. Urdu is written in

Nastaliq ''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also Romanization of Persian, romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main book hand, calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Persi ...

-style of the

Perso-Arabic alphabet The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the 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', 'ch', and 'p', respecti ...

and derives a significant amount of formal vocabulary from

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and to a lesser extent from

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

. Hindi is written in the standardized-

Devanagari alphabet Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient '' Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India and ...

of the

Nagari script Nagari may refer to: Writing systems * Nāgarī script, a script used in India during the first millennium * Devanagari, a script used since the late first millennium and currently in widespread use for the languages of northern India * Nandina ...

and derives a significant amount of formal vocabulary from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

majorly in

tatsama Tatsama ( , lit. 'same as that') are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indo-Aryan languages like Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Hindi, Gujarati, and Sinhala and in Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. They generally ...

form.

References

External links

Official handle of Urdu Wikipedia on Facebook

Official handle of Urdu Wikipedia on TwitterOfficial handle of Urdu Wikipedia on Instagram
*

Urdu Wikipedia The Urdu Wikipedia (), started in January 2004, is the Standard Urdu-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia. As of , it has articles, registered users and files, and it is the largest edition of Wikipedia by ar ...