Urdu Beginner Vocabulary
Greetings in Urdu (with audio)
السلام علیکم carries more weight than a simple hello. Six greetings, who says them to whom, and the replies that are expected back.
Urdu greetings carry more information than English ones. Which greeting you pick says whether you are being religious or secular, how much respect you are showing, and often whether you expect the conversation to continue.
There are six worth knowing. Each one has a reply that is more or less fixed, which is the useful part. Once you know the pair, you can hold up your end without improvising.
01 · The one that covers everything
As-salamu alaikum is an Arabic phrase that Urdu borrowed, and it works with anyone: a shopkeeper, a colleague, someone twice your age. It literally means "peace be upon you", and the reply returns it.
This pair is close to automatic for most speakers. If you learn nothing else here, learn both halves. Greeting someone and not recognising their reply is the awkward half of the exchange.
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02 · The secular one
Aadab is the older, courtlier greeting, with no religious content. You will hear it from Urdu speakers who prefer a secular register, and in literary or formal settings. It is usually said with a small hand gesture towards the face.
03 · Asking how someone is
The greeting is rarely the whole exchange. One of these follows almost immediately, and the answer is usually short.
04 · Morning and night
These two are less common in everyday speech than their English equivalents, because as-salamu alaikum covers the whole day, but they are warm and they land well.
05 · Leaving
Khuda hafiz means "may God protect you" and is the standard goodbye. Allah hafiz is the same sentiment with the Arabic name for God, and which one you hear varies by speaker and region. Either is safe.
06 · Which greeting, when
| Urdu | English | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| السلام علیکم | Peace be upon you | Anyone, any time. The safe default |
| آداب | Respectful greetings | You want the secular, formal register |
| کیا حال ہے؟ | How are you? | Straight after the greeting, informally |
| آپ کیسے ہیں؟ | How are you? | Elders, strangers, anyone you address as aap |
| خدا حافظ | Goodbye | Leaving, in almost any company |
| شب بخیر | Good night | Parting late in the evening |
07 · What not to say, and to whom
As-salamu alaikum is a Muslim greeting before it is an Urdu one. In Pakistan that distinction rarely comes up. In India, where a large share of Urdu speakers are not Muslim, it does, and the greeting can read as an assumption about the person you are talking to. Adab is the greeting that solves this, and it is covered below.
The second trap is the pronoun. Urdu has three ways of saying you and they are not interchangeable. Aap is respectful and is what you use with anyone older, anyone you have just met and anyone serving you. Tum is for friends and people younger than you. Tu is for intimates, and used with a stranger it is an insult rather than a familiarity.
The third is smaller but very audible. Khuda hafiz and Allah hafiz both mean roughly may God protect you, and they are not neutral alternatives. Allah hafiz spread through Pakistan from the 1980s and carries a more explicitly religious register; khuda is the older Persian word and sounds broader. Older speakers and Urdu speakers in India lean to khuda hafiz. Either is safe. Which one you hear tells you something about the person saying it.
08 · Adab, and where you will hear it
Adab is the secular greeting, associated with the Indo-Muslim courtly culture of Lucknow, Delhi and Hyderabad. It works across religions, which is exactly why it survives. It is usually said with a gesture: the right hand raised towards the face, palm inward, stopping short of the forehead.
The reply is the same word. There is no fixed second half to learn, which makes it the easiest of all these greetings to use and the one least likely to leave you stranded mid-exchange.
09 · On the phone and in a message
The phone is answered with hello, borrowed straight from English and pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, or with as-salamu alaikum when the caller is known. Ji, on its own, does a lot of work: it is a respectful yes, an acknowledgement, and a way of asking someone to go on.
In writing, two things change at once. Urdu is written right to left in the Nastaliq script, which most phone keyboards handle badly, so a great deal of everyday Urdu is typed in Latin letters instead. Spelling in that Roman Urdu is not standardised: Assalam o Alaikum, Assalamualaikum and the abbreviation AOA are all the same greeting, and AOA is common enough in texts that it is worth recognising.
10 · The bottom line
Learn as-salamu alaikum and its reply first. That pair alone will carry you through most first meetings. Add kya haal hai and theek hoon for the follow-up, and khuda hafiz for the way out.
The script is the other half of the job. Urdu is written right to left in nastaliq, which looks nothing like the printed Arabic you may have seen. Photograph a shop sign or a menu and let the words arrive already attached to where you saw them.
