2 The Arabic Element in Official Hindustani . [No. 1, 



may become a millionaire, so English by readily borrowing and mak- 

 ing good use of its borrowed stores, has raised itself from an obscure 

 low German patois to the most extensively used medium of commu- 

 nication between distant countries. 



I. The parallel between English with its Teutonic and Latin elements, 

 and Urdii with its Sanskrit and Semitic components, is no newly dis- 

 covered thing. It has been used again and again, with more or less 

 learning, to help us to deplore the iniquities of our omla and mukhtdrs. 



The comparison, however, cuts both ways. It may perhaps help us 

 to find something to admire in the phraseology of a rubalcdri or the 

 cunningly woven sentences of a pleading. 



First then, of English. English is a dialect, as every one knows, 

 of Plate-Deutsch, allied to the Hoch-Deutsch, the tongue of Goethe 

 and Schiller, by the ties of a common descent from the early Gothic, 

 the sister of Sanskrit. It has been brought into contact with many 

 other forms of speech, some closely, others remotely, akin to it. Celtic 

 of Scotland and Wales ; Scandinavian of Norway and Denmark ; Latin ; 

 Norman French, a blending of the two last named ; early French, 

 the Frankish struggling still against the Latin element ; Latin again, 

 barbarized by monks and lawyers ; French again, from the wars of 

 the Henries and Edwards ; Spanish, from the Elizabethan wars, bring- 

 ing with it a substratum of Moorish Arabic ; French again, of Racine 

 and Moliere in the days of the degraded Stuart kings, from the court 

 of the " Grand Monarqne ; " Dutch with William of " glorious, pious 

 and immortal memory ; " finally a sprinkling of Turkish, Persian and 

 Russian from our travellers, and many words from Latin which crept 

 in in a roundabout way from time to time through our neighbours the 

 French and Italians. 



All these elements skilfully worked up, patiently pieced together, 

 carefully incorporated into the solid English groundwork, have com- 

 posed the bright, varied and harmonious mosaic of our modern mother- 

 tongue. 



There were doubtless pedants and grumblers ready to find fault at 

 each stage of growth in English. The Saxon clod of the time of the 

 Conqueror objected to the terms 'beef,' 'veal,' 'pork,' 'mutton,' 

 which were then supplanting his pure English 'ox,' 'calf,' 'pig' and 



