Urdu and Punjabi

These are my native languages.
Urdu in Pakistan. Very close to Hindi actually. In reality all Indian movie songs are actually Urdu...yep trust me. But dialogs are generally Hindi in movies.

Punjabi for Punjab.

Salaam.

I'm not a linguist, so take what I say with loads of salt.
Urdu is a derivative or a mixture of Persian, Arabic, Hindi and bits of Turkish. Since the Muslims ruled over most of the Sub-continent for about a thousand years, their languages and culture assumed supremacy.
Persian was in fact the official language of the Royal Court for a much longer period than Urdu. As Urdu came into its own it became the language of the Royal court towards the second half of the Mughal Rule.
Urdu as such was a highly embracing language, that absorbed others into it with ease. Plus the strong Poetic tradition of Persian made it the language of choice for poetry and lyrics even amongst the general population. This carries on to this day. Nearly all the poetry conventions in Urdu barring a few are borrowed from Persia, or Central Asia/Turkey.
I really can't do better than this.
But hey, the songs are great. :0

Namaste Deepspirit, or is it Salaam.
Good to know you.
Reading Ghalib and trying to understand him is one of lifes better pleasures.

Hi there.
Psychomacologist, you have a dire need for help Just give me a shout if you need my assistance.
These days I'm not frequenting AW on a regular basis, still...

Good to know you Diana. I'm sure you haven't forgotten "theek hai."
Salaam.

Bohat achaa.

Purple Rose said:

They make it sound like "teak air" (minus the 'r' sound at the end). At that point, i just say Oh please, please don't butcher my (sort of mine) lovely language.

Some words, like "Chalo" (let's go) can be used easily by anyone.

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Hello Purple Rose.
teak air, haha that is funny, and you have it right. I think it has to do with the way we use tee. A lot of languages don't allow tee with the 'aich' sound to get t-hee.
It is difficult to explain.

My kids are now learning both Ghalib and the English poets. When I explain the meanings of Ghalib, they go wide-eyed admiring the language.

The 'chukka' used in Polo = round object= the currently used word chakkar, meaning round.

PS: where are you from?

Psychomacologist said:

So far I can say "mera nam Fatihah hai" and my teacher/Other Half laughs at my accent...

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Accents, accents.
My English accent isn't great either, but it passes muster.
But it ain't my first language.

Punjabi, btw has a lot of phrases to score points with. It's one of those rollicking, frollicking languages you can bug people with.
Urdu, now that has a much finer sensibility, more sophistication. I rarely ever feel like swearing in Urdu. For that I use Punjabi.