Roman Urdu - Roman Urdu and Film Industry

Roman Urdu and Film Industry

Bollywood, India's major film industry, uses a version of Roman Urdu as the main script for its film titles. This is because Bollywood films have an appeal for viewers across South Asia and even in the Middle East. The Devanāgarī script is used mostly by Hindi speakers while the Perso-Arabic script is used primarily by Urdu speakers. The language used in Bollywood films is so called Hindi, but most dialogues are actually written in Hindustani—they can be understood by Urdu and Hindi speakers alike. So this so called Hindi is Urdu in its real sense. Because the film industry wants to reach the largest possible audience, just using the Devanāgarī or Perso-Arabic script would be unfavorable for the Bollywood industry as few individuals are literate in both scripts. In addition to this situation, a significant number of Indians cannot read the Devanāgarī script as India has a diverse linguistic landscape and some people do not speak Hindi even though it is an official language of India. English, which is written in the Roman script, often becomes the way to communicate among Indians who speak different languages. For these reasons, the neutral Roman script is used for Bollywood film titles, though some films include the Hindi and Urdu scripts as well.

The similar circumstances are also applied with Pakistan's Lollywood filming industry, where, along with the Urdu name or title of the movie, a Roman Urdu title is always provided for viewers.