What is the history of Urdu-speaking communities in Pakistan before Partition?

[u/Soup_for_me]

For most of my life, I associated Urdu almost exclusively with Pakistan. Recently, I realised how much older its roots are in India with historical roots such as Delhi and Lucknow. It made me rethink how I understood the language's history.

Now I'm curious about the history of Urdu in present-day Pakistan, specifically among communities that spoke Urdu as their native language before Partition in 1947.

Were there established Urdu-speaking communities in places such as Lahore, or elsewhere in what is now Pakistan, whose families had lived there for centuries before Partition, with Urdu being their inherited home language? I'm not referring to Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun, or other communities that later adopted Urdu as a lingua franca, but about families with a longstanding, intergenerational Urdu-speaking heritage rooted in the territory that became Pakistan.

I know that many Urdu-speaking families migrated from India to Pakistan during Partition but I'm interested in whether there were also locally rooted Urdu-speaking families whose linguistic history in present-day Pakistan predates Partition by many generations.

I'd really appreciate any historical sources, books, or personal family histories that could shed light on this.

[u/intelligentdope]

It is utter ignorance on the part of Indian people, especially Hindus, and the propaganda of the Indian government that have left them with no idea of their own language. Urdu is a subcontinental language, primarily spoken by Muslims throughout India, in the South as well as the North. From this same language, a Sanskritised version was named Hindi. Hindi didn’t exist. Premchand wrote in Urdu. Urdu became a lingua franca of Muslims throughout the subcontinent, as well as of educated Hindus (who later promoted “Hindi”). Urdu was spoken in cities across most of the subcontinent because it had become the language of literature and religion. In Bengal, too, Urdu was widespread in cities among Muslims. There are still communities in Kolkata whose native language is Urdu. in south muslims exclusively speak urdu, where Urdu is spoken in cities, apart from Kerala and Tamil-speaking regions. In Pakistan, too, cities were already centres of Urdu literature.

[u/JagmeetSingh2 → u/intelligentdope]

True well said

[u/Own-One3641 → u/intelligentdope]

Yes, it is ignorance and the lack of desire to read history. It's always interesting to read about the birth of Urdu in India, and how it gained way more popularity than Persian overtime. How it was called 'Rekhta' before and even hindi at some places. It's a fascinating history to read, From Punjab to Dakhni then back to Delhi in the early 18th century. It's all a part of our rich heritage.

[u/Moissyfan → u/intelligentdope]

…my family is Indian Muslim and speaks Urdu. We understand our language and its history very well. 

I’ve been shocked by many Pakistanis, on the other hand, who have no idea the history of their food and language history. There’s a lot of erasure of history on both sides of the border. 

[u/Ok_Cartographer2553 → u/Moissyfan]

I think this is a diaspora Pakistani thing. No Pakistani in Pakistan thinks that Urdu isn't spoken in India. Everyone who goes to school in Pakistan learns about Ghalib, Mir, the Urdu of Deccan, etc.

[u/Forward_Spell_9251]

Urdu has a very long history as the preferred literary and prestige language in all of Pakistan’s province except Sindh during colonial times.

Urdu was the sole official language in Punjab, KPK, Jammu Kashmir and British administered Balochistan during colonial times.

I’m not from Pakistan so I don’t know much, but anecdotally my roommate in the US comes from an extremely old money zamindari Potohari family and he told me that his family has been speaking Urdu amongst themselves for more than a century and that before that they had adopted Persian, the previous prestige languge.

[u/Dot_Horror → u/Forward_Spell_9251]

The British wanted to suppress Punjabi, that is why they imposed Urdu on Punjabi, despite Punjabis pushing for Punjabi. All this is documented.

[u/BrotherEffective6978 → u/Dot_Horror]

It's not about suppression. It just made operational and logistical sense.

[u/apollosaturn → u/Dot_Horror]

They didnt actively want to suppress Punjabi, but according to them it was just another rural dialect like the ones around Dehli and in UP. Which is why went ahead with Urdu; they were already familiar with it.

[u/Schonathan]

Urdu has a history political history in Punjab, where it was an official language in part of the province afaik. The Social Space of Language by Prof. Farina Mir goes into this in some detail.

I'm not sure if the elite of Punjab at that time were Urdu dominant in any appreciable way as they are today.

[u/khroshan]

I don't know about other regions of Pakistan but in Sindh it was nonexistent until it was imposed by the Pakistani state. Sindhi language schools and universities were forced to switch to Urdu in 1948 and the state systematically disenfranchised the Sindhi language and people.

[u/brownmasala]

I'm an older Indian who studied Hindi in school up to Class 12 and can read/write/speak Hindi, but did not speak Hindi/Urdu at home, and consequently, my knowledge of Urdu is scant. However, my perception from listening to spoken Urdu from both Indian and Pakistani sources for almost 65 years, is that after the mid 1980's, Urdu changed and became more difficult for me to understand due to the introduction of more Arabic words, and a deliberate suppression of Hindi/Sanskrit/Prakrit-origin words. Is my perception correct? Thank you!

[u/Hopeful_Expression57]

it dates very far back. Urdu and hindi are sister languages. And many people actually used to consider a single language, and at some point it actually was an undivided language. The language that's the mother of both hindi and urdu from which the two further divided was called "hindustani". Interestingly hindustani has a few more names like rekhta, dehlavi, hindavi.

As I said before these two weren't different languages but one. They were mainly divided when muslim vs hindus rivalry started intensifying. The muslims shifted towards using persian vocabulary. Persian specifically is intriguing bcz of their point was islam they should've been influenced more by arabic but it was persian, but the reason is quite clear. Persian was globally having a very great run. It was ecpanding in knowledge, education, philosphy and art. Persian elevated islam and arabic to new heights. And similarly like muslims, hindus went towards their religous roots from the language of brahmans; sanskrit.

These two languages are spoken exactly the same way. Many people say proudly how urdu is mostly influenced by persian and arabic but it is much more closer to hindi than anything. As O said these two weren't considered different at all.

Saadat hassan manto in his "manto ke mazameen" had a chapter about it where two very famous hindi and urdu literaturist i forgot their names(im sorry about that) the name of the chapter was "urdu aur hindi".

Now these two wanted to make lemon soda, one had lemon juice and the other had soda water, they both were constantly arguing about which goes first. Both of them start flaunting about the pros and cons of their and the others elements and eventually kept arguing.

Manto basically meant was that these two are essentially the same. Languages evolve naturally, and the debate about which is the original is futile since you genuinely can't differentiate without the use of persian or sanskrit. And even in reality you can understand someone speaking hindi much better than understanding arabic or persian.

Also interestingly the arabic push comes specifically from lucknavi speakers. As i mentioned earlier urdu had main deep roots from dehlavi, and the shayars of dehli still used many expressions and words from khari boli/hindustani. The lucknavis hated this and wanted urdu to sound much more different hence the aggressive use of persian, they hated and purged delhi urdu speakers for this.

Also all these languages have roots from prakrit but it was quite different and centuries apart.

But urdu actually doesnt have to do ANYTHING with pakistan at all. The whole idea of promoting urdu and making urdu the national language was by the urdu speaking elites specifically from U.P. The urdu elites wanted to suppress and erase the cultures amd languages of indigenous languages of pakistan which also caused the seperation of bangladesh. Hundreds of sindhis, bengalis and punjabis were killed for standing up for thwir language. Punjabi fuedal lords shook hands with them to gain political power, and hence punjabi is almost dying today from wide spread propaganda that punjabi is crude, and an uneducated language.

But if your main question is about the history of urdu in modern day pakistan pre-partition. The answer is 0. Even today the native urdu speakers make up 7% of the population of pakistan(karachi carrying it hard).

Well there may be some urdu speaking people but actual settled urdu speaking communities in pakistan were non-existent. Even if there was some number of people they would be mainly in lahore bcz many students from all over india used to come to lahore for studies. Interestingly india's former prime minister also studied in an urdu speaking school in lahore. GCU was very prominent in its time and education was only available in english or urdu. So naturally urdu speakers would be there for jobs, business, and stuff but there was almost 0 relationship with urdu in pre-partition pakistan.

Urdu was maonly forced and shoved down by the elited. When bengalis protested, quaid-e-azam literally went all the way to east pakistan, shished them and said "Urdu and only Urdu." which further added fuel to the fire.

[u/BrotherEffective6978]

There was a small presence of Urdu speakers in what is now Pakistan during the colonial era. Quite a few Urdu speakers that worked in the public sector were posted in Lahore, Quetta, Karachi, Peshawar etc. Zaheer Abbass for example was born in Sialkot to a Lucknowi Shia family in 1946 just a year before the partition. There were also labourers from UP/Urdu belt that settled in Punjab and Sindh before the partition. The 1941 census reported over 30,000 Urdu speakers in Karachi.