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Concept
Urdu-speaking people
Summary
Native speakers of Urdu are spread across South Asia. The vast majority of them are Muslims of the Hindi–Urdu Belt of northern India, followed by the Deccani people of the Deccan plateau in south-central India (who speak Deccani Urdu), the Muhajir people of Pakistan, Muslims in the Terai of Nepal, and the Biharis and Dhakaiyas of Old Dhaka in Bangladesh. The historical centres of Urdu speakers include Delhi and Lucknow, as well as the Deccan, and in the modern era, Karachi. Another defunct variety of the language was historically spoken in Lahore for centuries before the name "Urdu" first began to appear. However, little is known about this defunct Lahori variety as it has not been spoken for centuries.
The term "Urdu-speaking" does not encompass culturally non-native speakers who may use Urdu as a first or second language, which would additionally account for a much larger number of total speakers in South Asia.
From the early Muslim kingdoms developed Indian Muslim clan-groups who were well-rooted social groups that acted as warrior lineages providing court officers and military soldiers. These evolving communities or tribes played a key role in providing a local Muslim leadership.
As early as 1689, Europeans used the label "Moors dialect", which simply meant "Muslim", to describe Urdu, the language associated with the Muslims in North India, such as John Ovington, who visited India during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb:
The language of the Moors is different from that of the ancient original inhabitants of India, but is oblig'd to these Gentiles for its characters. For though the Moors dialect is peculiar to themselves, yet it is destitute of Letters to express it; and therefore in all their Writings in their Mother Tongue, they borrow their letters from the Heathens, or from the Persians, or other Nations.
The rural Upper Doab and Rohilkhand was dominated by a literate and homogenous elite, who embraced a distinctive Indo-Persian style of culture.
Official source
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