Arabic script
Special letters
Table:
Writing systems

Alphabet

#Chars

Languages

Region

Derived from

Comment

Arabic alphabet

28

Arabic

North Africa, West Asia

Aramaic alphabet, Syriac alphabet, Nabataean alphabet

Ajami script

33

Hausa language, Swahili

West Africa

Arabic

Abjad

Arebica

30

Bosnian

Southeastern Europe

Perso-Arabic

latest stage with full vowel marking

Arwi alphabet

41

Tamil

Southern India, Sri Lanka

Perso-Arabic

Belarusian Arabic alphabet

32

Belarusian

Eastern Europe

Perso-Arabic

15th/16th century

Berber Arabic alphabet(s)

various Berber languages

North Africa

Arabic

Chagatai alphabet(s)

32

Chagatai

Central Asia

Perso-Arabic

Galal alphabet

32

Somali

Horn of Africa

Arabic

Jawi script

36

Malay

Peninsular Malay

Perso-Arabic

Since 1303 AD (Trengganu Stone)

Kashmiri alphabet

44

Kashmiri

South Asia

Perso-Arabic

Kazakh Arabic alphabet

35

Kazakh

Central Asia, China

Perso-Arabic/Chagatai

since 11th century, now official only in China

Khowar alphabet

60

Khowar

South Asia

Perso-Arabic

Kyrgyz Arabic alphabet

33

Kyrgyz

Perso-Arabic

now official only in China

Kuryan alphabet

44

Korean language

East Asia, South Korea

Perso-Arabic

invented by Korean Muslim in the 2000s

Nasta'liq script

Urdu and others

Perso-Arabic

Pashto alphabet

45

Pashto

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Perso-Arabic

Pegon alphabet

35

Javanese, Sundanese

Indonesia

Perso-Arabic

Persian alphabet

32

Persian

Iran

Arabic

Saraiki alphabet

45

Saraiki

Pakistan

Perso-Arabic

Shahmukhi script

37

Punjabi

Pakistan

Perso-Arabic

By analysing the following table together with the supporting evidence below.

Answer the following question: Which country did the Arabic script used to write Urdu develop in ? Respond with the correct answer (omit explanations) in JSON format as {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Use only the information given.

The Arabic alphabet ( Arabic : أَلْأَبْجَدِيَّة ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة , al-ʾabjadīyaḧ l-ʿarabīyah or أَلْحُرُوف ٱلْعَرَبِيَّة , al-ḥurūf l-ʿarabīyaḧ ) , or Arabic abjad , is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing Arabic . It is written from right to left in a cursive style and includes 28 letters . Most letters have contextual letterforms . The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad , meaning it only uses consonants , but it is now considered an impure abjad . As with other impure abjads , such as the Hebrew alphabet , scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel diacritics .
Arabic ( Arabic : اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , al-ʿarabiyyah , [ al ʕaraˈbijːa ] ( listen ) or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , [ ˈʕarabiː ] ( listen ) or [ ʕaraˈbij ] ) is a Semitic language that first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE . It is now the lingua franca of the Arab world . It is named after the Arabs , a term initially used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west , in Northwestern Arabia and in the Sinai Peninsula . The ISO assigns language codes to thirty varieties of Arabic , including its standard form , Modern Standard Arabic , also referred to as Literary Arabic , which is modernized Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists ; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic , but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ , the purest Arabic ) or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ) . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities and is used to varying degrees in workplaces , government and the media . Arabic , in its standard form , is the official language of 26 states , as well as the liturgical language of the religion of Islam , since the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic . During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe , especially in science , mathematics and philosophy . As a result , many European languages have also borrowed many words from it . Arabic influence , mainly in vocabulary , is seen in European languages - mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese and Catalan - owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and almost 800 years of Arabic culture and language presence in the Iberian Peninsula , referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus . Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words , many of which relate to agriculture and related activities , [ full citation needed ] as a legacy of the Emirate of Sicily from the mid-9th to mid-10th centuries , while Maltese language is a Semitic language developed from a dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages , including Greek and Bulgarian , have also acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish .
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC . It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet , itself a derivative of the Phoenician alphabet , for the writing of Hebrew . The letters all represent consonants , some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels . The Aramaic alphabet is historically significant since virtually all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it as well as numerous non-Chinese writing systems of Central and East Asia . That is primarily from the widespread usage of the Aramaic language as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires , and their successor , the Achaemenid Empire . Among the scripts in modern use , the Hebrew alphabet bears the closest relation to the Imperial Aramaic script of the 5th century BC , with an identical letter inventory and , for the most part , nearly identical letter shapes . The Aramaic alphabet was an ancestor to the Nabataean alphabet and the later Arabic alphabet . Writing systems ( like the Aramaic one ) that indicate consonants but do not indicate most vowels other than by means of matres lectionis or added diacritical signs , have been called abjads by Peter T. Daniels to distinguish them from alphabets , such as the Greek alphabet , which represent vowels more systematically . The term was coined to avoid the notion that a writing system that represents sounds must be either a syllabary or an alphabet , which would imply that a system like Aramaic must be either a syllabary ( as argued by Ignace Gelb ) or an incomplete or deficient alphabet ( as most other writers have said ) . Rather , it is a different type .
The Syriac alphabet ( ܐܠܦ ܒܝܬ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ ʾālep̄ bêṯ Sūryāyā ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD . It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet , and shares similarities with the Phoenician , Hebrew , Arabic and the traditional Mongolian scripts . Syriac is written from right to left in horizontal lines . It is a cursive script where most - but not all - letters connect within a word . There is no letter case distinction between upper and lower case letters , though some letters change their form depending on their position within a word . Spaces separate individual words . All 22 letters are consonants , although there are optional diacritic marks to indicate vowels and other features . In addition to the sounds of the language , the letters of the Syriac alphabet can be used to represent numbers in a system similar to Hebrew and Greek numerals . Apart from Classical Syriac Aramaic , the alphabet has been used to write other dialects and languages . Several Christian Neo-Aramaic languages from Turoyo to the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic dialects of Assyrian and Chaldean , once vernaculars , primarily began to be written in the 19th century . The Serṭā variant specifically has recently been adapted to write Western Neo-Aramaic , traditionally written in a square Aramaic script closely related to the Hebrew alphabet . Besides Aramaic , when Arabic began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent after the Islamic conquest , texts were often written in Arabic using the Syriac script as knowledge of the Arabic alphabet was not yet widespread ; such writings are usually called Karshuni or Garshuni ( ܓܪܫܘܢܝ ) .
The Nabataean alphabet is an abjad ( consonantal alphabet ) that was used by the Nabataeans in the second century BC . Important inscriptions are found in Petra ( now in Jordan ) , the Sinai Peninsula ( now part of Egypt ) , and other archaeological sites including Avdat ( now in Israel ) and Mada'in Saleh in Saudi Arabia .
The term Ajami ( Arabic : عجمي ʿajamī ) , or Ajamiyya ( Arabic : عجمية ʿajamiyyah ) , which comes from the Arabic root for foreign or stranger , has been applied to Arabic alphabets used for writing African languages , especially those of Hausa and Swahili , although many other African languages were written using the script , among them Yoruba , the Fulani/Pulaar of Fulfulde . It is considered an Arabic-derived African writing system . Since African languages involve phonetic sounds and systems different from the Arabic language , there have often been adaptations of the Arabic script to transcribe them , a process similar to what has been done with the Arabic script in non-Arab countries of the Middle East and South Asia and with the Latin script in Africa or with the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . The West African Hausa is an example of a language written using Ajami , especially during the pre-colonial period when Qur'anic schools taught Muslim children Arabic , and by extension , Ajami . When Western colonizers adopted a Latin orthography for Hausa , Ajami went into decline and now is employed less frequently than the Latin standard orthography . However , Hausa Ajami is still in widespread use , especially in Islamic circles . Its use is often in a situation of digraphia , with Ajami used for specific purposes , such as for local herbal preparations in the Jula language .
Hausa ( /ˈhaʊsə/ ; Harshen/Halshen Hausa ) is the Chadic language ( a branch of the Afroasiatic language family ) with the largest number of speakers , spoken as a first language by some 44 million people , and as a second language by another 20 million . The total number of Hausa speakers is estimated at 63 million , according to Ethnologue . The ancestral language of the Hausa people , one of the largest ethnic groups in Central Africa , Hausa is mostly spoken throughout southern Niger and northern Nigeria . It has developed into a lingua franca across much of Western Africa for purposes of trade . A small group in the US speak Hausa ( mostly from Ghana ) .
Swahili , also known as Kiswahili ( translation : language of the Swahili people ) , is a Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people . It is a lingua franca of the African Great Lakes region and other parts of eastern and south-eastern Africa , including Kenya , Tanzania , Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , some parts of Malawi , Somalia , Zambia , Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( DRC ) . Comorian , spoken in the Comoros Islands , is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Swahili , though other authorities consider it a distinct language . The exact number of Swahili speakers , be it native or second-language speakers , is unknown and a matter of debate . Various estimates have been put forward and they vary widely , ranging from 100 million to 150 million . Swahili serves as a national language of the DRC , Kenya , Tanzania , and Uganda . Shikomor , the official language in Comoros and also spoken in Mayotte ( Shimaore ) , is related to Swahili . Swahili is also one of the working languages of the African Union and officially recognised as a lingua franca of the East African Community . In 2018 , South Africa legalized the teaching of Swahili in South African schools as an optional subject to begin in 2020 . A significant fraction of Swahili vocabulary derives from Arabic , in part conveyed by Arabic-speaking Muslim inhabitants . For example , the Swahili word for book is kitabu , traceable back to the Arabic word كتاب kitāb ( from the root K-T-B write ) . However , the Swahili plural form of this word ( books ) is vitabu , rather than the Arabic plural form كتب kutub , following the Bantu grammar in which ki- is reanalysed as a nominal class prefix , whose plural is vi- .
Arebica ( عَرَبٖىڄا ) is a Bosniak variant of the Perso-Arabic script used to write the Bosnian language ( بۉسانسقٖى يەزٖىق ) . It was used mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries and is frequently categorized as part of Aljamiado literature . Before World War I there were unsuccessful efforts by Bosnian Muslims to adopt Arebica as the third official alphabet for Bosnian alongside Latin and Cyrillic . Apart from literature , Arabica was used in religious schools and administration , though in much less use than other scripts .
The Bosnian language ( /ˈbɒzniən/ ( listen ) ; bosanski / босански [ bɔ̌sanskiː ] ) is the standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian mainly used by Bosniaks . Bosnian is one of three such varieties considered official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina , along with Croatian and Serbian . It is also an officially recognized minority language in Serbia , Montenegro , North Macedonia and Kosovo . [ a ] Bosnian uses both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets , [ Note 1 ] with Latin in everyday use . It is notable among the varieties of Serbo-Croatian for a number of Arabic , Ottoman Turkish and Persian loanwords , largely due to the language 's interaction with those cultures through Islamic ties . Bosnian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian , Shtokavian , more specifically on Eastern Herzegovinian , which is also the basis of standard Croatian , Serbian , and Montenegrin varieties . Therefore , the Declaration on the Common Language of , Croats , Serbs , Bosniaks and Montenegrins was issued in 2017 in Sarajevo . Until the 1990s , the common language was called Serbo-Croatian and that term is still used in English , along with Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian ( BCMS ) , especially in diplomatic circles .
Arwi ( لسان الأروي lisān-ul-arwī or lisān al-arwi ; lit . the Arwi tongue ; அரபு-தமிழ் arabu-tamil or Arabo-Tamil ) is a written register of the Tamil language that uses an Arabic alphabet . It typically has extensive lexical influences from the Arabic language . Arwi was used extensively by the Muslim minority of Tamil Nadu state of India and Sri Lanka. [ when ? ] The majority of Madrasas still teach the basics of Arwi as part of their curricula .
Tamil ( /ˈtæmɪl/ ; தமிழ் Tamiḻ [ t̪amiɻ ] , pronunciation ( help·info ) ) is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken by the Tamil people of India and Sri Lanka , and by the Tamil diaspora , Sri Lankan Moors , Chindians , and Douglas . Tamil is an official language in three countries : India , Sri Lanka and Singapore . In India , it is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry . Furthermore , Tamil is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English , Malay and Mandarin . Tamil is spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala , Karnataka , Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India . Tamil is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world . A. K. Ramanujan described it as the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past . The variety and quality of classical Tamil literature has led to it being described as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world . A recorded Tamil literature has been documented for over 2000 years . The earliest period of Tamil literature , Sangam literature , is dated from ca . 300 BC - AD 300 .
The Belarusian Arabic alphabet ( Belarusian : Беларускі арабскі алфавіт , Biełaruski arabski ałfavit ( Latin script ) ) , or Arabitsa ( Арабіца ) , was based on the Arabic script and was developed in the 16th century ( possibly 15th ) . It consisted of twenty-eight graphemes , including several additions to represent Belarusian phonemes not found in the Arabic language . The Belarusian Arabic alphabet was used by the Lipka Tatars , who had been invited to settle in Belarusian territory , at the time part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . During the 14th-16th centuries they gradually stopped using their own language and started using the Old Belarusian language rendered in the Belarusian Arabic alphabet . Books of that literary tradition are known in Belarusian as Kitab ( Belarusian : Кітаб ) , which is Arabic for book .
Belarusian ( /bɛləˈruːsiən , -ʒən , -ʃən/ ; беларуская мова biełaruskaja mova [ bʲelaˈruskaja ˈmova ] ) is an East Slavic language spoken by Belarusians . It is the official language of Belarus , along with the Russian language . It is additionally spoken in parts of Russia ( where it is known as Western Russian [ citation needed ] ) , Poland , and Ukraine by Belarusian minorities in those countries . Before Belarus gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 , the language was only known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian , transliterating the Russian name , белорусский язык belorusskiy yazyk , or alternatively as White Ruthenian ( /ruːˈθiːniən/ ) or White Russian . Following independence , it has acquired the additional name Belarusian . As one of the East Slavic languages , Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group . To some extent , Russian , Rusyn , Ukrainian , and Belarusian are all mutually intelligible , effectively forming a dialect continuum . Its predecessor stage is known as Ruthenian ( 14th to 17th centuries ) , in turn descended from Old East Slavic ( 10th to 13th centuries ) . In the first Belarus Census of 1999 , the Belarusian language was declared as a language spoken at home by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens ( 36.7% of the population ) . About 6,984,000 ( 85.6% ) of Belarusians declared it their mother tongue . Other sources , such as Ethnologue , put the figure at approximately 2.5 million active speakers . According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009 , 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home , while Belarusian is actively used by only 11.9% of Belarusians .
The Berber Arabic alphabet is an Arabic-based alphabet that was used to write various Berber languages in the Middle Ages . Nowadays users have largely reverted to either the Tifinagh alphabet in Morocco , or Berber Latin alphabet in Algeria .
The Berber languages , also known as Berber or the Amazigh languages ( Berber name : Tamaziɣt , Tamazight ; Neo-Tifinagh : ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ , Tuareg Tifinagh : ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ , pronounced [ tæmæˈzɪɣt ] , [ θæmæˈzɪɣθ ] ) , are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family . They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by the Berbers , who are indigenous to North Africa . The languages were traditionally written with the ancient Libyco-Berber script , which now exists in the form of Tifinagh . Berber is spoken by large populations of Morocco , Algeria and Libya , by smaller populations of Tunisia , northern Mali , western and northern Niger , northern Burkina Faso and Mauritania and in the Siwa Oasis of Egypt . Large Berber-speaking migrant communities , today numbering about 4 million , have been living in Western Europe , spanning over three generations , since the 1950s . The number of Berber people is much higher than the number of Berber speakers . Around 90% of the Berber-speaking population speak one of seven major varieties of Berber , each with at least 2 million speakers . They are , in order of number of speakers : Shilha ( Tacelḥiyt ) , Kabyle ( Taqbaylit ) , Central Atlas Tamazight ( Tamaziɣt ) , Riffian ( internal : Tmaziɣt , external : Tarifiyt ) , Shawiya ( Tacawit ) and Tuareg ( Tamaceq/Tamajeq/Tamaheq ) . The now extinct Guanche language spoken on the Canary Islands by the Guanches , as well as possibly the languages of the ancient C-Group culture in today 's southern Egypt and northern Sudan , are believed to have belonged to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family . The Berber languages and dialects have had a written tradition , on and off , for about 2,500 years , although the tradition has been frequently disrupted by cultural shifts and invasions . They were first written in the Libyco-Berber abjad , which is still used today by the Tuareg in the form of Tifinagh . The oldest dated inscription is from 3rd century BCE .
Chagatai ( چغتای/جغتای , Čağatāy ) is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken in Central Asia and remained the shared literary language there until the early 20th century . Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages , which includes Uzbek and Uyghur . Ali-Shir Nava ' i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature .
Chagatai ( چغتای/جغتای , Čağatāy ) is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken in Central Asia and remained the shared literary language there until the early 20th century . Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages , which includes Uzbek and Uyghur . Ali-Shir Nava ' i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature .
Wadaad writing , also known as Wadaad Arabic , is the traditional Somali adaptation of written Arabic , as well as the Arabic script as historically used to transcribe the Somali language . Originally , it referred to an ungrammatical Arabic featuring some words in Somali , with the proportion of Somali vocabulary terms varying depending on the context . Alongside standard Arabic , wadaad writing was used by Somali religious men ( wadaado ) to record xeer ( customary law ) petitions and to write qasidas . It was also used by merchants for business and letter writing . Over the years , various Somali scholars improved and altered the use of the Arabic script for conveying Somali . This culminated in the 1950s with the Galal alphabet , which substantially modified letter values and introduced new letters for vowels .
Somali /səˈmɑːli , soʊ-/ ( Af-Soomaali [ æ̀f sɔ̀ːmɑ́ːlì ] ) is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch . It is spoken as a mother tongue by Somalis in Greater Somalia and the Somali diaspora . Somali is an official language of Somalia , a national language in Djibouti , and a working language in the Somali Region of Ethiopia and also in North Eastern Kenya . It is used as an adoptive language by a few neighboring ethnic minority groups and individuals . The Somali language is written officially with the Latin alphabet .
Jawi is an Arabic script for writing Malay , Acehnese , Banjarese , Minangkabau , Tausūg and several other languages in Southeast Asia . Jawi is one of the two official scripts in Brunei and is used as an alternative script in Malaysia and Malay-dominated areas in Indonesia . It used to be the standard script for the Malay language but has since been replaced by a Latin alphabet , called Rumi ( literal meaning : Roman ) . In most areas , Jawi has since been relegated to a script used for religious , cultural and certain administrative purposes . Jawi can be typed with the Jawi keyboard . Its day-to-day usage is maintained in the more-conservative Malay-populated areas such as Kelantan , Terengganu and Pahang in Malaysia and Pattani .
Malay ( /məˈleɪ/ ; Malay : Bahasa Melayu , بهاس ملايو ) is an Austronesian language spoken in Brunei , Indonesia , Malaysia and Singapore , as well as parts of Thailand . A language of the Malays , it is spoken by 290 million people across the Strait of Malacca , including the coasts of the Malay Peninsula of Malaysia and the eastern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia and has been established as a native language of part of western coastal Sarawak and West Kalimantan in Borneo . It is also used as a trading language in the southern Philippines , including the southern parts of the Zamboanga Peninsula , the Sulu Archipelago and the southern predominantly Muslim-inhabited municipalities of Bataraza and Balabac in Palawan . As the Bahasa Kebangsaan or Bahasa Nasional ( national language ) of several states , Standard Malay has various official names . In Malaysia , it is designated as either Bahasa Malaysia ( Malaysian language ) or Bahasa Melayu ( Malay language ) . In Singapore and Brunei , it is called Bahasa Melayu ( Malay language ) and in Indonesia , an autonomous normative variety called Bahasa Indonesia ( Indonesian language ) is designated the Bahasa Persatuan/Pemersatu ( unifying language/lingua franca ) . However , in areas of central to southern Sumatra where vernacular varieties of Malay are indigenous , Indonesians refer to it as Bahasa Melayu and consider it one of their regional languages . Standard Malay , also called Court Malay , was the literary standard of the pre-colonial Malacca and Johor Sultanates , and so the language is sometimes called Malacca , Johor or Riau Malay ( or various combinations of those names ) to distinguish it from the various other Malayan languages . According to Ethnologue 16 , several of the Malayan varieties they currently list as separate languages , including the Orang Asli varieties of Peninsular Malay , are so closely related to standard Malay that they may prove to be dialects . There are also several Malay trade and creole languages which are based on a lingua franca derived from Classical Malay as well as Macassar Malay , which appears to be a mixed language .
Kashmiri ( English : /kæʃˈmɪəri/ ) or Koshur ( English : /kɜːʃur/ ; कॉशुर , كٲشُر ) , is a language from the Dardic subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages , spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris , primarily in the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir . There are also speakers in parts of the neighbouring Pakistani territory of Azad Kashmir . Although the official language of Jammu and Kashmir is Urdu , Kashmiri is recognised as a regional language in the state and is also among the 22 scheduled languages of India . Kashmiri has split ergativity and the unusual verb-second word order .
Kashmiri ( English : /kæʃˈmɪəri/ ) or Koshur ( English : /kɜːʃur/ ; कॉशुर , كٲشُر ) , is a language from the Dardic subgroup of Indo-Aryan languages , spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris , primarily in the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir . There are also speakers in parts of the neighbouring Pakistani territory of Azad Kashmir . Although the official language of Jammu and Kashmir is Urdu , Kashmiri is recognised as a regional language in the state and is also among the 22 scheduled languages of India . Kashmiri has split ergativity and the unusual verb-second word order .
Three alphabets are used to write the Kazakh language : the Cyrillic , Latin and Arabic script . The Cyrillic script is used in Kazakhstan and Mongolia . An October 2017 Presidential Decree in Kazakhstan ordered that the transition from Cyrillic to a Latin script be completed by 2025 . The Arabic script is used in parts of China , Iran and Afghanistan .
Kazakh or Kazak ( Latin : qazaqsha or qazaq tili , Cyrillic : қазақша or қазақ тілі , Arabic : قازاقشا or قازاق تىلى , pronounced [ qɑzɑqˈɕɑ ] , [ qɑˈzɑq tɪˈlɪ ] ) , is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia . It is closely related to Nogai , Kyrgyz and Karakalpak . Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan and a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang , China and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of Mongolia . Kazakh is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs through the former Soviet Union ( approximately 472,000 in Russia according to the 2010 Russian Census ) , Germany , Iran , Turkey and Afghanistan . Like other Turkic languages , Kazakh is an agglutinative language and it employs vowel harmony . In October 2017 , Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the government would transition from using Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet by 2025 . President Nazarbayev signed on February 19 , 2018 an amendment to the decree of October 26 , 2017 No . 569 On translating the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin script . The amended alphabet uses ⟨sh⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ for the Kazakh sounds /ɕ/ and /tɕ/ , respectively and eliminates the use of apostrophes .
The Khowar alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Khowar language . It is a modification of the Urdu alphabet , which is itself a derivative of the Persian alphabet and Arabic alphabet , and uses the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script .
Khowar ( کهووار ) , also known as Chitrali , is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group . Kho means the people of Chitral , War means language . It is spoken by the Kho people in the whole Chitral , Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan ( including the Gupis , Phander valley , Ishkoman , Yasen , also in Punyal and in parts of Upper Swat ( Mateltan Village ) , Pakistan . Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan 's major urban centres with Peshawar , Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi , having significant populations . It is spoken as a second language in the rest of Gilgit and Hunza . There are believed to be small numbers of Khowar speakers in Afghanistan , China and Tajikistan . [ citation needed ]
The Kyrgyz alphabets ( Kyrgyz : Кыргыз алфавити , Qırğız alfaviti , قىرعىز الفابىتى , Uniform Turkic Alphabet : Qьrƣьz alfaviti , Kyrgyz pronunciation : [ qɯrˈɢɯz ɑɫɸɑˈviti ] ) are the alphabets used to write the Kyrgyz language . The Kyrgyz language uses the following alphabets :
Kyrgyz language ( /kɪərˈɡiːz/ ; кыргыз тили , قىرعىزتئلى , qırğız tili , [ qɯrʁɯz tili ] or кыргызча , قىرعىزچا , qırğızça , [ qɯrʁɯzt͡ʃɑ ] ) is a Turkic language spoken by about four million people in Kyrgyzstan as well as Afghanistan , Kazakhstan , Tajikistan , Turkey , Uzbekistan , Pakistan , Russia and China . Kyrgyz is a member of the Kyrgyz-Kipchak subgroup of the Kypchak languages and modern-day language convergence has resulted in an increasing degree of mutual intelligibility between Kazakh and Kyrgyz . Kyrgyz was originally written in the Turkic runes , gradually replaced by a Perso-Arabic alphabet ( in use until 1928 in USSR , still in use in China ) . Between 1928 and 1940 a Latin-script alphabet , the Uniform Turkic Alphabet , was used . In 1940 due to general Soviet policy , a Cyrillic alphabet eventually became common and has remained so to this day , though some Kyrgyz still use the Arabic alphabet . When Kyrgyzstan became independent following the Soviet Union 's collapse in 1991 , there was a popular idea among some Kyrgyzstanis to switch to the Latin script , which is still common in some small pockets of the countryside and make the Latin script the countrys official national script ( taking in mind a version closer to the Turkish alphabet rather than the original alphabet of 1928-40 ) . Although the plan has not yet been implemented , it remains in occasional discussion .
The Korean language ( South Korean : 한국어/韓國語 hanguk-eo ; North Korean : 조선말/朝鮮말 chosŏn-mal ) is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people . It is a member of the Koreanic language family and is the official and national language of both Koreas : North Korea and South Korea , with different standardized official forms used in each country . It is a recognised minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin province , China . It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin , Russia , and Central Asia . Historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate ; however , it does have a few extinct relatives , which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language ( spoken in the Jeju Province and considered somewhat distinct ) form the Koreanic language family . The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in Manchuria .
Nastaʿlīq ( Persian : نستعلیق , [ næˈstæʔliːq ] , from نسخ , Naskh and تعلیق , Taʿlīq ) is one of the main calligraphic hands used in writing the Persian alphabet and traditionally the predominant style in Persian calligraphy . It was developed in Iran in the 14th and 15th centuries . It is sometimes used to write Arabic language text ( where it is known as Taʿlīq or Persian and is mainly used for titles and headings ) , but its use has always been more popular in the Persian , Urdu , and Turkic sphere of influence [ citation needed ] . Nastaʿlīq remains very widely used in Iran , Afghanistan , and India and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art . A less elaborate version of Nastaʿlīq serves as the preferred style for writing in Kashmiri , and Urdu and it is often used alongside Naskh for Pashto [ citation needed ] . In Persian , it is used for poetry only . Nastaʿlīq was historically used for writing Ottoman Turkish , where it was known as tâlik ( not to be confused with a totally different Persian style , also called taʿlīq ; to distinguish the two , Ottomans referred to the latter as taʿlīq-i qadim , old taʿlīq ) . Nastaʿlīq is the core script of the post-Sassanid Persian writing tradition and is equally important in the areas under its cultural influence . The languages of Iran ( Western Persian , Azeri , Balochi , Kurdi , Luri , etc . ) , Afghanistan ( Dari Persian , Pashto , Turkmen , Uzbek , etc . ) , India ( Urdu , Kashmiri , etc . ) and the Turkic Uyghur language of the Chinese province of Xinjiang , rely on Nastaʿlīq .
Urdu ( /ˈʊərduː/ ; Urdu : اُردُو , ALA-LC : Urdū , [ ˈʊrduː ] ( listen ) ) - also known as Lashkari ( لشکری , Laškarī , [ ləʃkəri : ] ) - or Modern Standard Urdu is a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language . Urdu is the official national language , and lingua franca , of Pakistan . In India , it is one of 22 constitutionally recognised official languages , having official status in the five states of Telangana , Uttar Pradesh , Bihar , Jharkhand and West Bengal , as well as the national capital territory of Delhi . As both registers are composed of the same Indo-Aryan vocabulary base , colloquial Urdu is largely mutually intelligible with colloquial Hindi , with the two registers being grouped together as Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu . With respect to literary vocabulary , however , formal Urdu draws heavily from Persian vocabulary and requires knowledge of some simple Persian grammatical structures , while formal Hindi heavily draws from Sanskrit for its formal and technical vocabulary . Later , Urdu became the official language of government in northern and northwest British India , along with English , from 1837 onwards in place of Persian , which had been used by various Indo-Islamic empires as their language of government . Religious , social , and political factors arose during the colonial period that advocated for a distinction between Urdu and Hindi , leading to the Hindi-Urdu controversy . According to Nationalencyklopedin 's 2010 estimates , Urdu is the 21st most spoken first language in the world , with approximately 66 million who speak it as their native language . According to Ethnologue 's 2018 estimates , Urdu , is the 11th most widely spoken language in the world , with 170 million total speakers , including those who speak it as a second language . If grouped along with Hindi , Hindustani would be the 3rd most spoken language in the world , with approximately 329.1 million native speakers , and 697.4 million total speakers of both Urdu and Hindi .
The Pashto alphabet ( پښتو الفبې ) is transliterated vis-à-vis Perso-Arabic scriptural denotation with additional glyphs added to accommodate phonemes used in Pashto .
Pashto ( /ˈpʌʃtoʊ/ , rarely /ˈpæʃtoʊ/ ; [ Note 1 ] پښتو / Pax̌tō , [ ˈpəʂtoː ] ) , sometimes spelled Pukhto , [ Note 2 ] is a language in the Eastern Iranian group of the Indo-European family . It is known in Persian literature as Afghani ( افغانی , Afghāni ) , and in Hindustani literature as Paṭhānī . Speakers of the language are called Pashtuns or Pathans ( historically known as ethnic Afghans ) . Pashto and Dari ( Persian ) are the two official languages of Afghanistan . Pashto is also the second-largest regional language of Pakistan , mainly spoken in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern districts of Balochistan province in south-west . Pashto is the primary language of the Pashtun diaspora around the world . The total number of Pashto-speakers is at least 40 million , although some estimates place it as high as 60 million . Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch , but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian . Pashto has two main dialect groups , soft and hard , the latter locally known as Pakhto or Paxto .
Afghanistan ( /æfˈɡænɪstæn , æfˈɡɑːnɪstɑːn/ ( listen ) ; Pashto/Dari : افغانستان , Pashto : Afġānistān [ avɣɒnisˈtɒn , ab- ] , [ a ] Dari : Afġānestān [ avɣɒnesˈtɒn ] ) , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan , is a landlocked country in Asia . Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south ; [ b ] Iran to the west ; Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , and Tajikistan to the north ; and China to the northeast . Occupying 652,000 square kilometers ( 252,000 sq mi ) , it is a mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest . Kabul is the capital and largest city . The population is 32 million , mostly composed of ethnic Pashtuns , Tajiks , Hazaras and Uzbeks . Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic Era , and the country 's strategic location along the Silk Road connected it to the cultures of the Middle East and other parts of Asia . The land has historically been home to various peoples and has witnessed numerous military campaigns , including those by Alexander the Great , Mauryas , Muslim Arabs , Mongols , British , Soviets , and by the United States with allied countries . The land also served as the source from which the Kushans , Hephthalites , Samanids , Saffarids , Ghaznavids , Ghorids , Khaljis , Mughals , Hotaks , Durranis , and others have risen to form major empires . The political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century . In the late 19th century , Afghanistan became a buffer state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire . Its border with British India , the Durand Line , was formed in 1893 but it is not recognized by the Afghan government and it has led to strained relations with Pakistan since the latter 's independence in 1947 . Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919 the country was free of foreign influence , eventually becoming a monarchy under Amanullah Khan , until almost 50 years later when Zahir Shah was overthrown and a republic was established .
Pakistan , [ b ] officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan , [ c ] is a country in South Asia . It is the world 's sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 207.8 million . In area , it is the 33rd-largest country , spanning 881,913 square kilometres ( 340,509 square miles ) . Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre ( 650-mile ) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east , Afghanistan to the west , Iran to the southwest , and China in the northeast . It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan 's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest , and also shares a maritime border with Oman . The territory that now constitutes Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures and intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent . The ancient history involves the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation , and was later home to kingdoms ruled by people of different faiths and cultures , including Hindus , Indo-Greeks , Muslims , Turco-Mongols , Afghans and Sikhs . The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties , including the Persian Achaemenid Empire , Alexander III of Macedon , the Seleucid Empire , the Indian Maurya Empire , the Gupta Empire , the Arab Umayyad Caliphate , the Delhi Sultanate , the Mongol Empire , the Mughal Empire , the Afghan Durrani Empire , the Sikh Empire ( partially ) and , most recently , the British Indian Empire . Pakistan is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam . It is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country , with similarly diverse geography and wildlife . Initially a dominion , Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956 , becoming an Islamic republic . An ethnic civil war and Indian military intervention in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh .
Pegon is an Arabic script used to write the Javanese and Sundanese languages , as an alternative to the Latin script or the Javanese script and the old Sundanese script . In particular , it was used for religious ( Islamic ) writing and poetry from the fifteenth century , particularly in writing commentaries of the Qur'an . Pegon includes symbols for sounds that are not present in Modern Standard Arabic . Pegon has been studied far less than its Jawi counterpart for Malay , Acehnese , and Minangkabau .
Javanese ( /dʒɑːvəˈniːz/ ; ꦧꦱꦗꦮ , basa Jawa ; Javanese pronunciation : [ bɔsɔ d͡ʒɔwɔ ] ; colloquially known as ꦕꦫꦗꦮ , cara Jawa ; Javanese pronunciation : [ t͡ʃɔrɔ d͡ʒɔwɔ ] ) is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java , in Indonesia . There are also pockets of Javanese speakers on the northern coast of western Java . It is the native language of more than 98 million people ( more than 42% of the total population of Indonesia ) . Javanese is one of the Austronesian languages , but it is not particularly close to other languages and is difficult to classify . Its closest relatives are the neighbouring languages such as Sundanese , Madurese and Balinese . Most speakers of Javanese also speak Indonesian , the standardized form of Malay spoken in Indonesia , for official and commercial purposes as well as a means to communicate with non-Javanese-speaking Indonesians . There are speakers of Javanese in Malaysia ( concentrated in the states of Selangor and Johor ) and Singapore . Javanese is also spoken by traditional immigrant communities of Javanese descent in Suriname ( the Dutch colony of Surinam until 1975 ) and in New Caledonia .
Sundanese ( /sʌndəˈniːz/ ; Basa Sunda , /basa sʊnda/ , in Sundanese script : ᮘᮞ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ ) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Sundanese . It has approximately 39 million native speakers in the western third of Java ; they represent about 15% of Indonesia 's total population .
The Persian alphabet ( Persian : الفبای فارسی , romanized : Alefbâye fârsi , pronounced [ ælefˌbɒːje fɒːɾˈsi ] ) , also known as the Perso-Arabic alphabet , is a writing system used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian ) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian ) . The Persian language spoken in Tajikistan ( Tajiki Persian ) is written in the Tajik alphabet , a modified version of Cyrillic alphabet since the Soviet era . The Modern Persian script is directly derived and developed from Arabic script . After the Muslim conquest of Persia and the fall of Sasanian Empire in the 7th century , Arabic became the language of government , culture and especially religion in Persia for two centuries . The replacement of the Pahlavi scripts with the Persian alphabet to write the Persian language was done by the Saffarid dynasty and Samanid dynasty in 9th-century Greater Khorasan . It is mostly but not exclusively right-to-left ; mathematical expressions , numeric dates and numbers bearing units are embedded from left to right . The script is cursive , meaning most letters in a word connect to each other ; when they are typed , contemporary word processors automatically join adjacent letter forms .
Persian ( /ˈpɜːrʒən , -ʃən/ ) , also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , fārsi , [ fɒːɾˈsiː ] ( listen ) ) , is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages . It is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , namely Iranian Persian , Dari Persian ( officially named Dari since 1958 ) and Tajiki Persian ( officially named Tajik since the Soviet era ) . It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivation of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivation of Cyrillic . The Persian language is a continuation of Middle Persian , the official religious and literary language of the Sasanian Empire ( 224-651 CE ) , itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire ( 550-330 BC ) . It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran . Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages . Throughout history , Persian has been a prestigious cultural language used by various empires in Western Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian written works are attested in Old Persian cuneiform on several inscriptions from between the 6th and the 4th centuries BC , and Middle Persian literature is attested in Aramaic-derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions from the time of the Parthian Empire and in books centered in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the 3rd to the 10th century AD . New Persian literature began to flourish after the Arab conquest of Iran with its earliest records from the 9th century , since then adopting the Arabic script . Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with the writing of Persian poetry developed as a court tradition in many eastern courts . Some of the famous works of medieval Persian literature are the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , the Divān of Hafez , The Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi .
There are three writing systems for Saraiki , but very few of the language 's speakers , even those who are literate in other languages , are able to read or write Saraiki in any writing system . [ citation needed ]
Saraiki ( سرائیکی Sarā'īkī , also spelt Siraiki , or Seraiki ) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda ( Western Punjabi ) group , spoken in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan . It was previously known as Multani , after its main dialect . Saraiki is to a high degree mutually intelligible with Standard Punjabi and shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology . At the same time in its phonology it is radically different ( particularly in the lack of tones , the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants ) , and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south . Saraiki is the first language of 20 million people [ a ] in Pakistan , ranging across southern Punjab , southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , and border regions of northern Sindh and eastern Balochistan . The Saraiki language identity arose in the 1960s , encompassing more narrow local earlier identities
Shahmukhi ( شاہ مکھی , Gurmukhi : ਸ਼ਾਹਮੁਖੀ , meaning literally from the King 's mouth ) is a Perso-Arabic alphabet used by Muslims in Punjab to write the Punjabi language . It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand , which is also used for Urdu . Perso-Arabic is one of two scripts used for Punjabi , the other being Gurmukhi . The Shahmukhi alphabet was first used by the Sufi poets of the Punjab ; it became the conventional writing style for the Muslim populace of the Pakistani province of Punjab following the Partition of India , while the largely Hindu and Sikh modern-day state of Punjab , India adopted the Gurmukhi script to record the Punjabi language . It is used as the main alphabet to write the Pothohari dialect in Indian Jammu and Kashmir . Shahmukhi is written from right to left , while Gurmukhi is written from left to right . Below is the comparison of the two scripts .
Punjabi ( English : /pʌnˈdʒɑːbi/ ; Punjabi : [ pənˈdʒaːbːi ] , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ , پن٘جابی ) is an Indo-Aryan language with more than 125 million native speakers in the Indian subcontinent and around the world . It is the native language of the Punjabi people , an ethnolinguistic group of the cultural region of Punjab , which encompasses northwest India and eastern Pakistan . Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan , the 11th most widely spoken language in India and the third most-spoken native language in the Indian subcontinent . It is also the fifth most-spoken native language in Canada after English , French , Mandarin and Cantonese . Punjabi is unusual among Indo-European languages in its use of lexical tone ; see § Tone below for examples . Gurmukhi is the official script for the language in Punjab , India while Shahmukhi is used in Punjab , Pakistan ; other national and local scripts have also been in use historically and currently , as discussed in § Writing systems .