Urdu in the United Kingdom

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Queen Victoria's Urdu signature

Urdu is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom.[1][2] According to the 2011 census, 269,000 people (0.5% of UK residents) listed Urdu as their main language.[3] Ethnologue reports the total number of Urdu speakers in the UK at over 400,000.[4]

Urdu Periodicals of UK[edit]

In 1990s, some Urdu weekly fortnightly and monthly Urdu language periodicals used to get published from UK.[1]

Challenges[edit]

Britain's Anglophone tradition and inheritance centralises English as the national lingua and vernacular. Radical opportunities exist however for the productive growth of minority Commonwealth migrant languages such as Urdu and Punjabi, particularly in curriculum-based education.[5]

Use in politics[edit]

When Pakistani-origin Scottish MSP Bashir Ahmad was elected to the Scottish parliament in 2007, he took his oath in both English and Urdu.[6] Queen Victoria was taught to write Urdu by her Indian Muslim servant Abdul Karim.[7]

File:Queen Victoria's Urdu.png
Queen Victoria's handwritten political briefing.

See also[edit]


References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Qaisrani, Sajid. "Urdu Press in Britain". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Twitter, Abbas Panjwani (2017-10-12). "BBC investigation exposes sectarian content in UK Urdu language newspapers". Press Gazette. Retrieved 2020-06-04. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. "2011 Census: Quick Statistics". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  4. "Ethnologue report for United Kingdom". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  5. Marsh, David (2012). "Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). A Development Trajectory". University of Córdoba.
  6. "Scotland's first Muslim MSP dies". BBC. 6 February 2009. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  7. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12670110

Further reading[edit]

Template:Urdu topics