Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, an official language of India, and is one of the most critical languages for understanding the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, as well as South Asia as a whole.

It is an Indo-European language with influences from Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, and Turkish. While only about 10% of Pakistan’s population speaks Urdu as a native-language, it is used as one of the official languages in education is spoken as a trade language throughout the country. 

Urdu is written in Arabic Nastaliq script which is the second most used alphabet in the world. Once you have mastered reading and writing in Urdu, you will have an advantage should you choose to study global languages such as Arabic and Persian/Farsi, as well as several regional languages such as Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi, and Punjabi.