ive noticed that ive been talkin to people ffrom every place imaginable, china, asia,spain, usa…numerous states, and with many different beliefs and nationalites…i just wanna see how diverse this group really is…i love hearing about different cultures if u wnna reply and just talk a lil about urself that would be awesome…i kno everyone loves to tlak about themselves..hehe:french: 
:maulvidis :amamah: :queen: 
???
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
I'm basically from Karachi, Pakistan and my grand parents are from different parts of India. I believe we follow IndoPak culture. If anything, I probably do things and will eventually cook food Delhi style that is because my maternal side is from Delhi. Oh and I speak Urdu the way most Karachites do and must be doing many things the way people usually do in Karachi.
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Yeah i belong to Jammu Kahsmir but my ancestors migrated to Murree and then my abba migrated to Islamabad.lol.....we kept migrating.......and i love to cook kashmiri dishes......they are awsome......and i speak urdu .......... and our shadees are really cool..... we have sweet traditions ....... not heavy traditions..simple ones.......... our dulhanz are really pretty and dont go to beauty parlours .....and mostly mothers adorn them........and .....we try our best to follow our religion............ God knows better and....... what else .....jab yaad ay ga tou bata doon gi aur
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Barbie_Girl > What kind of traditions do you guys have?
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
My family is of Pukhtoon descent but mixed in with Punjabi (Hindko), both my maternal and paternal family speak both languages, maternal leans towards Pukhtu and paternal tend to speak more Punjabi but our parents only taught us to speak Urdu and emphasised that every identity except Pakistani and Muslim is irrelevant and useless and shouldn’t be took seriously because everyone is equal and language is only a medium of communication and Urdu is our national language, and that other identities hinder our patriotism, of course that conditioning doesn’t seem to have worked for me.
As for our culture and traditions they are just like any other part of Pakistan, I think real differences exist more in theory than in practice, for cuisine we have the usual saalan roti like everyone else, wear shalwar kameez, similar wedding traditions with minor differences, are muslim with arabic names...
My older brother and parents can speak fluent Pukhto and Punjabi but we speak Urdu at home, I can understand Punjabi and to a lesser extent Pukhtu but tend to stick to Urdu and English because otherwise I end up sounding a fool. It’s easier with one language per country and so much more sophisticated than uneducated sounding rag tag languages, Urdu is a nice language compared to our regional languages, when need arises like when my district becomes a part of India I’ll just switch to Hindi, and if Afghanistan I’ll switch to Dari (Afghan-Persian: lingua franca of Afghanistan).
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
this is all very mind boggling–everyone is so diverse and yet you guys have somethin in common–keep on adding stuff its all very interesting:flower2:
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Saalam Angelic , itwould be great if you’ll share some thing about your self as well:)
As for myslef, I was born and raised in Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan. In our home Urdu has always been sopken with us kids although both my parents speak Panjabi amongst themselves. My fathers speaks excellent Pushto but my mon who was raised in Jhelum, Punjab can’t speak aword of it even after spending 30+ plus years in Sarhad. At school, most of my friends were from Pathan familes but for most part we stuck with Urdu and English. I am now married to a Pakhtoon who spent mot of his life in England before their family migrated to U.S. He speaks in Pushtoo with his dad but in English with his siblings. Being married to me, my hubby’s Urdu has really improved and we speak English and Urdu between us.
We follow the Pakistani culture and traditons and feel so blessed that we are enriched with such rich history and culture.
Peace
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Masha’Allah Hina that’s wonderful, it’s best to just stick to Urdu for our future generations, my fiancée’s family speaks two languages Pashto and Persian and mines speaks Punjabi/Hindko and Pashto and I always wondered what am I going to have my kids speak? But now I’ve decided we’ll stick to our national language Urdu in the house, it’s like a big load of my shoulders after I decided on that.
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Before my kids were born ( I have a 4 year and a 2 yer old daughter) both I and my husband agreed that Urdu will be the language spoken . Mush to my dismay, I haven't been able to keep that resolution. My 90% conversation with my 4 year old is in English, why? because that is the language she is most exposed to, the cartoons on TV, other little ones she sees outside our house ( we live in Northern VA, 30 miles from DC). Next month she will be statring kindergarten and I have to confess I am kinda glad that we speak in English since she'll have less problem communicating with other children and won't feel left out. As it is, her vocabulary is not as good as other kids of her age, the reason being she is exposed to two languages at home: Urdu and English and I was told that is the case in all bilingual families.
Having said all that that I have said in the above para, I am making every effort I can to make sure that even if my daughter is not fluent in Urdu she is at least familiar with it. Having PTV chanel is great, listening to Urdu songs in carr and singing along ..
Also insahllah when she will start Islamic school in our local mosque on Sundays, I am hoping her exposure to Arabic will make it easier for her to understand and appreciate Urdu as well.
Peace
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
Kids are going to learn English anyway outside the home, if parents are serious about their Pakistani identity and maintaining links with back home they should teach their kids Urdu.
In our house we always spoke Urdu and the English I learnt was all at school/friends/TV, I still remember I had a few problems communicating in the first year or so of nursery but it was nothing major, today I speak both accentless English and Urdu.
I think every Pakistani Muslim should know Urdu, Arabic and English, other languages are a bonus.
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
u all seem like u have something or other in common with ur cultures or ur languages…it seems like probably i have the most differnt background i come from a puerto rican family and spanish was my first lanuage…once i got older and reached school i learned english…puerto ricans have many differnt traditions then other hispanic nationalities and were nery indepandent…but as i was growing up my mom would usually be working and i would stay with my aunt who converted to islam and her husbadn was jewish and arabic and could speak or variety of languages one of them being urdu which he tried to teahc me and my cousins as we grew up…im not arabic but im very good at speaking urdu..along with my cousins, so i guess u could say im trilingual…spanish, english, and urdu…haha and im takin french in school but im not that flluent in french yet ..haha as u can see i wanna learn as much languages as i can…thxx:flower2:
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
angelica, cual es el origen de su tia? como su tio sabe urdu?
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
My mum is half baluchi iranian /half kashmiri...she is born and brought up in Pakistan...her first langiage is urdu but her parents speak everything from Urdu to Farsi...Parents were a nice contrast...her mum was a dark skinned Kashmiri woman ...her father was an Iranian Baluchi with blonde hair and gora skin...
My dad is born and brought up in Uganda...hes Indian i assume cos most of Ugandans are...he left to go to England once Idi Amin decided he wanted a black only country...He spoke decent Urdu but his first languiage was Swahili...
Cos i live with my mum though...ive only really experienced the asian side of things...i speak ulta pulta Urdu and dont know a word of Swahili...
So while i may have a degree of a mix i havent really explored it...
Re: different cultures, religions, naitonalities?
angelic...como estas?...thats as far as i go...lol languages are not a strong point of mine...but iv got to say wow...iv never seen a hispanic speak fluent urdu...
One gal i met was half nigerian/half pakistani but she looked more black than asian...just seemed really strange her speaking urdu to me...but its nice...
I remember a group of Nigerians as well who spoke good Hindi cos in Nigeria they have all them Hindi movies...
lol you get embarrassed when non pakistanis speak Urdu better than you...