Contrary to popular perception, Urdu is not the language of Muslims. It was a lashkari (soldier) language (the word 'Urdu' comes from the Turkish word 'ordu' meaning 'camp' or 'army'), nourished during the period of Mughal emperor Shahjahahn. It had words from Persian and local languages. The purpose was to make communication easy among soldiers who were from different places: Arab, Turk and locals. Based on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and Western Uttar Pradesh in the Indian subcontinent, Urdu developed under local Persian, Arabic, and Turkic influence over the course of almost 900 years. It began to take shape in what is now Uttar Pradesh, India during the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1527), and continued to develop under the Mughal Empire (1526-1858) .

Urdu is written from right to left just like Arabic and Persian. Urdu has 39 basic letters and 13 extra characters, all together 52 and most of these letters are from Arabic and a small quantity from Persian. It has almost all the 'sounds' available in any other language spoken in the world.

The Persian newspapers of West Bengal were fore-runners of the Urdu press. After the decline of Persian as an official language, Urdu gained prominence.

The first newspaper of Urdu language was Jam-i-Jahan-Numa, founded by Harihar Dutta in 1822 in Kolkata (then Calcutta). He was the son of Tara Chand Dutta, eminent Bengali journalist and one of the founders of Bengali weekly Sambad Koumudi. Editor of this three page weekly paper was Sadasukhlal . After English and Bengali, it was the third language newspaper in India. It continued to be published till 1888.

On 14 January 1850, Munshi Harsukh Rai started the weekly Kohinoor, which had a remarkably high (for those times) circulation of 350 copies. In 1858, Manbir Kabiruddin started the Urdu Guide, the first Urdu daily, from Calcutta. Another important paper founded that year was Roznamha-e-Punjab from Lahore. Oudh Akhbar by Munshi Nawal Kishore was the first Urdu newspaper from Lucknow, also begun in 1858.

Urdu Men Jaraid e Nisvan ki Tarikh Part-1 - pocket, Urdu, 2021