10 The Arabic Element in Official Hindustani. [No. 1 



I confine myself to hinting at a probable source of Indo- Arabic ; to 

 follow up these suggestions thoroughly, would require an intimate 

 knowledge of all the forms of spoken Arabic, and would lead me too 

 far from the present enquiry. I trust, however, that I have shewn that 

 our Munshi Arabic should not be hastily judged by comparison with 

 an almost foreign standard. 



III. The second assertion, that the court language is unintelligible 

 to the mass of the people, is partly true, partly false. The real fact is 

 that the court language, being the highest and most cultivated form 

 of Hindustani, is intelligible to the people exactly in proportion to 

 their education. To the highly educated native it is perfectly intelli- 

 gible ; to the illiterate rustic it is as Coptic or Chinese. Precisely the 

 same may be said of any language which can boast of a literature. 

 The literary style always will be, must be, in fact, from its very 

 nature, above the comprehension of the masses. 



Put the Times or the Saturday Review into the hands of a peasant, 

 and see how much he will understand of it. Never was there a more 

 absurd and unreasonable demand made of any cultivated tongue, than 

 that it should exhibit copiousness and expressiveness, and at the same 

 time not be above the understanding of the boor. The ideas of the 

 Indian rustic do not soar above the petty wants and homely occupa- 

 tions of his every-day life, except in a few instances. When they do, 

 he uses Persian or Arabic words to express them. His own Hindi 

 does not help him. A considerable number of simple Arabic and 

 Persian words enters into the vocabulary of the peasant, and they are 

 as familiar to him as they are to the educated pleader or official. 

 Some exist side by side with words of Sanskrit origin, and have a 

 special sub-shade of meaning attached to them. Others stand alone, 

 having no equivalent in the Hindi. 



Of the first class are such words as iuakt } time in general ; and bela 

 or vela, a special time of the day ; tarf and ur or diq ; mahdn and 

 ghar ; rasta and sarah ; darwdza and divdr ; hitda and khet ; abdd 

 kamd and jotna ; zamin and matti ; 'aurat and randi ; sarliad and 

 siwdnd ; and many others. Of the latter class, ma'liim, matlab, tabdil ; 

 ziydda, (jdsti), ziyddati, roshan, badma'dsh, siirat, tajviz } zarur, 

 tamdm, nihdyat, mal, maivdshi, (maweshi), tarah, ivdste, mudfik, 

 jabr 7 zabanlast, zulm i zdlim, gharib, iMrwarish, (panvasti), jatvdb* 



