Hindi/Urdu
Hindi and Urdu are the linguas franca of both Northern India and Pakistan. The spoken forms of their Standard Versions are extremely similar. Hindi, with more of a Sanskrit influence, is written with Devanagari script. Urdu, with more influence from Persian and Arabic, is written with Nasta’līq script. Together, this language group has approximately 240 million native speakers. It is estimated that as many as 500 million people speak Hindi/Urdu. That’s even more than Spanish!
Hindi-Urdu Flagship at the U of Texas
First Year Hindi Textbooks (free!)
Hindi Digital Dictionary (U of Chicago)
Digital Urdu Reader (Columbia U)
Hindi Listening Comprehension Exercises (Advanced)
Hindi: New Directions, New People (U of Pennsylvania)
Hindibhasha Devanagari Script Tutor
Urdu Online Digital Dictionary (U of Chicago)
Urduword.com provides some basic Urdu phrases and an online dictionary.
A Trip to the market: Video Lessons (Yale U)