Dil Haari Sammiye

The traditional refrain is “Sammi meri van” (ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਣ). Today, however, it is much more commonly sung, titled and written as “Sammi meri waar” (ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਾਰ).
That difference matters because “Sammi meri waar” should not be translated as “Sammi, it’s my turn.” The older word in the refrain is van (ਵਣ), not vaar (ਵਾਰ) meaning a turn or an occasion.

Punjabi University’s dictionary preserves an old use of ਵਣ as a way of addressing a girl, similar to ਨੀ (ni), and remarkably gives “ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਣ” itself as the example. Older descriptions of the Sammi folk dance also record “ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਣ” as the regular refrain and explain that ਵਣ was used for a girl in the Jangli dialect.

As that older regional usage became less familiar, van was apparently re-heard and rewritten as the much more familiar Punjabi word vaar. Sammi songs were passed largely through singing and oral tradition, so an unfamiliar word could easily survive in sound while its spelling and understood meaning changed. Modern recordings then helped fix “Sammi Meri Waar” as the familiar form: Shafaullah Khan Rokhri's recordings use that title, and Coke Studio also released its 2015 version as “Sammi Meri Waar.”

The older folk material tells a different story. Punjabi University records the refrain as: ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਣ, ਮੈਂ ਵਾਰੀ ਮੈਂ ਵਾਰੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਸੰਮੀਏ, and traditional verses repeatedly use both “ਸੰਮੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਵਣ” and “ਵਣ ਸੰਮੀਆਂ”. That repeated use makes little sense if ਵਣ is replaced with ਵਾਰ, but it makes perfect sense as an old form of address.

So the feeling of “Sammi meri van” is closer to “O my Sammi” or “my dear Sammi.” The “turn” meaning belongs to ਵਾਰ, as in “pehli-pehli vaar” (“for the very first time”), not to the original Sammi refrain.

Sources:
Punjabi University Punjabi Dictionary – ਵਣ
PunjabiPedia, Punjabi University – Sammi folk tradition
Punjab De Lok Nach – traditional Sammi refrain

Sammi is a woman at the centre of an old Punjabi folk tradition built around love, waiting and separation. There is no single agreed story about who she was.
In one Punjabi telling, Sammi was simply a young woman whose beloved, called Dhol, had gone away. She would sing and dance while remembering him, and the Sammi folk dance is said to have grown from her longing.

Another legend makes her a princess of Marwar. Punjabi University names her as the daughter of King Sursen and Dhol as a prince of Narwar, while another version recorded by NCERT pairs Princess Sammi with Prince Suchkumar.

There is also an older connection with the Dhola-Maru romance. In this tradition, the Rajasthani heroine Maru or Marvani becomes Sammi in Punjab. She spends years separated from Dhola before they are reunited. On their journey back together, Maru is bitten by a snake and appears to die, before being brought back to life in one popular telling.

Because these stories passed orally from one region to another, their names and details changed. What remained was the image of Sammi as the woman waiting for someone she loves. That is why the old Sammi songs repeatedly return to distance, sleepless waiting and an absent beloved. The lines about watching the door, the long nights and preparing food for someone who is far away all belong naturally to that same world.

Sources:
PunjabiPedia, Punjabi University – Sammi
NCERT – Sammi folk tradition
Asian Ethnology – Dhola: A North Indian Folk Genre
Sahapedia – Dhola-Maru tradition