The history of Urdu is a fascinating story involving history, linguistics, ethnicity, religion, and national identity.

Persian influences

The Persian language was crucial in the formation of a common language of the Central, North and Northwest regions of the South Asia. Following the Mughal conquest of South Asia and the resulting vast Islamic empire, especially in the northern and central regions of the South Asia, a hybrid language of Arabic, Hindi, Pashto, Turkish, Persian, and local dialects began to form around the 10th and 11th centuries CE, one that would eventually be known as Urdu (from a Turkish word meaning "army", in allusion to the army barracks of visiting troops). It grew from the interaction of (often Persian-speaking) Muslim soldiers and native peoples. Soon, the Persian script and Nasta'liq form of cursive was adopted, with additional figures added to accommodate the South Asian phonetic system, and a new language based on the South Asian grammar with a vocabulary largely divided between Persian (and indirectly some Arabic) and local Prakrit dialects. Elements peculiar to Persian, such as the enclitic eza-fe, and the use of the takhallus, were readily absorbed into Urdu literature both religious and secular.

Urdu soon gained distinction as the preferred language in Persian courts of South Asia and to this day retains an important place in literary and cultural spheres. Many distinctly Persian forms of literature, such as ghazals and nazms, came to both influence and be affected by South Asian culture, producing a distinct melding of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritages. A famous cross-over writer was Amir Khusro, whose Persian and Urdu couplets are to this day read in the subcontinent. Persian has sometimes been termed an adopted classical language of the South Asia alongside Sanskrit due to its role in South Asian tradition.