timur was quite turkified, though from an originally mongolian tribe (that
by the time of timur had become turkified).

during the timurids, tajiks (persian speaking) formed the bureaucracy, so
persian was used in the adminstration, alongside some turkic.

: many loan words in india from the altaic family of languages:
: paneer - from "peynir" - means cheese
: duniya - from "duniye" - means world
: urdu   - from "ordu"   - means camp, army, or horde

pani:r is persian for "cheese" and a lw. in turkish as peynir.

dunya: is arabic, found as a lw. in persian and many turkic languages

urdu from ordu is turkic.

: however, i've read that the court language of northern india at that
: time spoke farsi.  moreover, i heard that most of the mughalic army
: were persians and/or ethnic afghanis.

: why weren't there more altaic-speaking (turkic speaking) people in
: india at the time, given that there were many turkish empires within

perhaps because india wasn't attractive enough for turkic speaking
pastoralists and nomads.