Urdu

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/urdu

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the language family classification?Indo-Aryan language, Indo-Iranian branch, Indo-European family
2. What is the official status?National language of Pakistan; one of the 22 scheduled languages of India
3. What is Urdu and why does it sound musical?Urdu is a South Asian language that mixes words from Persian, Arabic, Turkish and local languages, and it sounds musical because of its flowing words.
4. How did Urdu start?It started in the Delhi Sultanate when soldiers and traders mixed languages, creating a common language for talking and writing.

Lingua Franca: A common language used by speakers of different native languages to communicate, especially for trade and administration.
Lexical Borrowing: The process by which words from one language are adopted into another language.
Ghazal: A form of amatory poem or lyrical ode, originating in Arabic poetry, consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain.
Prakrit: A group of Middle Indo-Aryan languages that evolved from Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and served as the basis for modern Indo-Aryan languages.