Urdu Language Resources on the Web
Thanks to many people, mostly anonymous, who continue to send in
links, updates and bug reports to help keep these pages going.
[N= New link]
[B= Broken link]
Report any errors, changes or
additions
Transliteration notes:
For the common font styles we use the spellings Naqsh (also written Naskh)
and Nastaleeq (elsewhere written Nastaliq or Nastaliquw).
Basic Information
Fonts and Software
- Proprietary:
- Shareware/Freeware:
Language Tutorials and Teaching Aids
- Urdu teaching software:
- Urdu Language dictionaries:
- Poshmaal is fast. The thing I liked about it is the fact that lists of words pop up as you type; very useful if you are a little uncertain about the transliteration of a word in the Roman script.
- Dinesh Prabhu's dictionary is saved at many locations:
[1]
[2]
[?]
- Hindi/Urdu dictionary
and thesaurus (by Usman Qazi) grows intermittently.
- Urdu dictionary:
rather well organised.
- English to Urdu
lookup: medium sized vocabulary gives results in
Naskh (no font download necessary) and also
transliterates into the Roman script..
History and Language Studies
- History of Urdu
poetry (by Anisur Rahman) is a short and well-written history of the
Urdu language and literature, which deals well with modern developments
in both India and Pakistan.
- History of
Urdu Ghazals (by Uma Ramamurthy) is a short and informative page
that also links to many examples of this form of Urdu poetry (tranliterated
in the Roman script).
- Marsiya:
an article on this Urdu verse form which consists mainly of elegies on the
battle of Karbala.
The Language, Literature and Songs
- Urdu Poetry Archive:
has a very large collection of Urdu poetry (transliterated in the Roman
script). The pages are organised very well. There are multiple indices
for access to the poems.
- The Urdu
Home Page for poetry: is another large collection. The poems are in
the Urdu script, presented as gif files. The collection is indexed by
poets' names.
- The Amir Khusro site:
contains material on (and by) this 13th century poet who is supposed to
have invented the Ghazal form. The site contains his
works in Farsi as well as Hindi (transliterated into
the Roman script).
- The
Ghazals of Mirza Ghalib: is a large collection of the works of Ghalib
in transliteration. Also contains useful pointers to related resources.
- Meer Taqi Meer
pages: a beautifully organised compact site with an introduction to
the poet and a collection of many of his works. The poems are in Urdu,
transliterated in the Roman script (with notes to help a Hindi speaker)
or in Devanagari (presented as gif/postscript files).
- Buzam-Urdu poetry page: needs
downloadable Urdu fonts. It has a large amount of material: not just
poetry but excerpts from novels and stories as well.
- A Nazm a Month:
(previously here)
succeeded in putting several well-known works on the net. The poems are
transliterated in the Roman script. Each poem comes with a small
biography of the poet.
- Ghazals: a
small and informative site. It contains a small history of the
Ghazal form, and many works, transliterated in the
Roman script.
- The
ITRANS Urdu index: is the source for a significant fraction of the
Urdu poetry available on the web.
- Hamid Syed's Urdu
Poetry Archive:
script) as well as links to other pages on Urdu poetry.
- Aashi'yaana:
is a secondary index page for Urdu poetry- work under progress signs date
from 1997 and there are numerous broken links [8/99].
- eurdubazaar:
has a small but nice collection of poems and short stories by various
authors.
News Media and Trivia
Other Pages of Urdu Links
© Copyright and disclaimer.
Created on Feb 25, 1996; last updated Feb 14, 2011.