Everything you would point at from a rickshaw window. Twelve places around town, seven kinds of weather, and five colours. Some of the place names you have already read on signboards in Paṛho, this time you meet them as pictures, which is a different kind of knowing.
ہسپتالhaspatāl: hospitalyou read this one on a signboard in Paṛho
اسٹیشنsṭeshan: railway stationborrowed whole, and spelled several ways in the wild
بازارbāzār: bazaar / marketPersian; English borrowed it back as 'bazaar'
مسجدmasjid: mosquefrom the Arabic root for prostration, 'the place of sajda'
اسکولiskūl: schoolthe older word madrasa now means a religious school
دکانdukān: shopthe shopkeeper is a dukāndār
گھرghar: house / homehouse and home in one word, no distinction made
پارکpārk: parkborrowed; a garden is a bāgh
بینکbaink: bankborrowed; a riverbank is a kinārā, a different word entirely
ڈاک کا ڈبہḍāk kā ḍibbā: post boxḍāk = mail, ḍibbā = box; the post office is a ḍāk khāna
بس اسٹاپbas asṭāp: bus stopyour first signboard word, back again
چائے کا کھوکھاchāy kā khokhā: tea stallkhokhā = a small roadside kiosk; the sit-down version is a dhābā
بارشbārish: rainthe monsoon rains have their own name: barsāt
دھوپdhūp: sunshineno single English word: the sun as it falls on you
بادلbādal: cloudbādal garajnā = for thunder to roar
ہواhawā: wind / airwind and air are the same word
برفbarf: snow / icesnow and ice, both; barfī the sweet is named after it
گرمgarm: hotgarmī is the heat, and also the summer
ٹھنڈاṭhanḍā: coldthe Kahānī line lāhaur meṉ mausam ṭhanḍā thā used it
لالlāl: redalso means a ruby, and a beloved child
نیلاnīlā: bluenīlī for a feminine noun; nīlām, an auction, is a different word
ہراharā: greenharā is everyday green; sabz is its Persian twin, and sabzī means vegetables
پیلاpīlā: yellowcareful with the p, pīlā (yellow) against pyālā (cup)
سفیدsafed: whitePersian; the flag's white stripe is safed
Good to know
✨ dhūp has no clean English translation. It is not 'sun' and not quite 'sunshine', it is sunlight as something you stand in, sit out of, or dry your clothes in. Urdu treats it as a substance.
✨ barf covers snow and ice with one word, which is why barfī, the diamond-cut milk sweet, is named after it: it was thought to look like a slab of ice.
✨ Urdu keeps two full sets of colour words, the everyday Indic one (lāl, harā, pīlā) and the Persian one (surkh, sabz, zard). The Persian set survives mostly in poetry and in food words like sabzī.
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