General Information

Urdu, or Urdu Language, emerged following the conquest of the Turks in India, with a mixture of the local languages of that region and the languages spoken by Muslim soldiers, such as Persian, Arabic and Turkish. It is the official and national language of Pakistan. Urdu is one of the official languages of India besides Pakistan. It is also spoken by a large number of Pakistani and Indian immigrants whose native language is Urdu, from Bengal to the UK and many countries including the Gulf states. According to some sources, the number of native speakers of Urdu-Hindi languages is about 600 million. In addition to this number, considering the use of second languages, it is used by 970 million people worldwide. This shows that Urdu is a very useful and effective language in terms of communication. In the Collins Encyclopedia, the Urdu language is described as the 3rd largest language in the world. In some sources, it is written that it is the 2nd largest language in the world.

The aim of the Department, which was established in 1994; To teach Urdu, which is intensely imbued with Turkish culture in the process of historical development, and to train philologists who will research, examine, introduce and publish with scientific methods the common culture and the sources written in this language.

ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY URDU LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE INTRODUCTION PAGE

Urdu Language and Literature Program

• What is the history of Urdu Language education at Istanbul University?

Urdu language education in Turkey was first given in Daru'l-Funûn in 1915 by Abdülcabbar Hayri, one of the famous Indian nationalists. Brothers Abdul Jabbar Khairi and Abdelsattar Khayri left India at the end of the First World War to study, first to the University of Al-Azhar in Egypt and then to the American University in Beirut. During the First World War, Abdul Jabbar Hayri, one of the Hayri brothers who left Beirut for the Hejaz with the declaration of jihad, started to work as a teacher of the Urdu language at Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters (Daru'l-Funûn). Thus, the adventure of Urdu Language education in Turkey started at Istanbul University.


• What does the program teach? What does this area of knowledge aim for?

Urdu Language and Literature program, which is included as a department within the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures, includes courses such as Urdu grammar and applications, Turkish-Urdu and Urdu-Turkish translation, classical and modern text readings, Urdu literature and speech in general since the first year. The aim of our program is to teach Urdu, which is intensely imbued with Turkish culture in the process of historical development, and to train philologists who will research, examine, introduce and publish with scientific methods the common culture and the sources written in this language.

• What distinguishes our program from other departments in Turkey?

The fact that it is the first and deep-rooted program among Urdu Language programs in Turkey, that it has a strong teaching staff consisting of experienced Turkish and Indian professors and that it has bilateral agreements with the main universities of Pakistan and India are the features that distinguish our program from other programs in Turkey.