Urdu (Urdu: اردو,() (Hindi: उर्दू) is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. It belongs to the Indo-European family. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also largely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an official language of five states.
The Urdu Bible was first published in the Urdu language in 1843. Revisions were published in 1989, 1998 and 2005. The bible is written in Nastaʿlīq script but was also available in Roman script from the Bible Society of India until the 1960s. In 2004 the bible was made available online, but in PDF or image format only due to the difficulties of typesetting the Nastaʿlīq script. In 2009 a Unicode version was made available beginning with the New Testament. The complete Bible online in Unicode is expected in 2010.
