n Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), the School of Asian and African Studies began to offer Urdu courses this semester. It is SISU’s first move for the Center of Excellence to train Less Commonly Taught Foreign Languages (LCTFL) talents. The center was set up on August 21 this year.

SISU set up the course to meet China’s need of LCTFL talents and support the “One Belt and One Road” initiative. SISU will start ten degree programs or courses for ten languages (including official languages and important dialects), which are used in key countries participate in the initiative, according to the development plan of the center. And in three years, the number of language courses offered in SISU will go up to 30.

Urdu is the official language of Pakistan which is also used in India, Bangladesh and other Muslim areas. Urdu and Hindi are very similar in grammar and also orally, except that Urdu has more words from Arabic and Persian and its font is totally Farsi. Actually, they were once called “Hindustani” before the country “British India” broke into India and Bangladesh. So Urdu is not a fully new language for the Hindi major students. They just need to learn the Urdu fonts and some new words on the basis of Hindi, and will be able to initially grasp the language within one semester.

As the gap between India and Pakistan is growing in policy, economy and culture, Urdu becomes more and more important. So the School of Asian and African Studies will set more relevant courses and do more to improve both teaching and research.