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Urdu

(Encyclopedia)Urdu o͞orˈdo͞o [key], language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 langu...

Hindustani

(Encyclopedia)Hindustani hĭndo͞ostänˈē [key], subdivision of the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian languages, which ...

Indian literature

(Encyclopedia)Indian literature. Oral literature in the vernacular languages of India is of great antiquity, but it was not until about the 16th cent. that an extensive written literature appeared. Chief factors in...

Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid

(Encyclopedia)Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid säˈyēd äkhmädˈ khän [key], 1817–98, Indian Muslim educator. His family was long connected with the Mughal court, but he entered the service of the British East India Co...

Yousafzai, Malala

(Encyclopedia)Yousafzai, Malala, 1997–, Pakistani advocate for girls' education. When Islamic militants took control of her native Swat in 2009, she wrote—with the encouragement of her father, an educator—an ...

Desai, Anita

(Encyclopedia)Desai, Anita dĕsīˈ [key], 1937–, Indian fiction writer, b. Mussoorie as Anita Mazumdar, grad. Delhi Univ. (B.A., 1957). A prolific novelist, she often paints a subtly intelligent and darkly evoca...

Iqbal, Muhammad

(Encyclopedia)Iqbal, Muhammad məhămˈĭd ĭkhbälˈ [key], 1877–1938, Indian Muslim poet, philosopher, and political leader. He studied at Government College, Lahore, Cambridge, and the Univ. of Munich, and the...

Indo-Iranian

(Encyclopedia)Indo-Iranian, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by more than a billion people, chiefly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka (see The Indo-Eu...

Kolkata

(Encyclopedia)Kolkata kălkŭtˈə [key], city (1991 pop. 10,916,272), capital of West Bengal state, E India, on the Hugli River. It is the second largest city in India and one of the largest in the world. Ten of K...

Madhya Pradesh

(Encyclopedia)Madhya Pradesh mädˈyə präˈdĭsh [key], state (2001 provisional pop. 60,385,118), 119,010 sq mi (308,240 sq km), central India, between the Deccan and the Ganges plain. The capital is Bhopal. One ...

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