1867-1 On the Arabic "Element in Official Hindustani. 147 



when we go alone and unattended into a native village, we can con- 

 verse readily with the commonest people ; and I have found the 

 Arabicized style, which I, from deliberate preference, always employ, 

 quite intelligible to the ryot and the bunnia. This people formed 

 their own language, and we may rest assured they will continue to 

 develop it in that direction which they feel to be best. It is true 

 that Hindi is the speech of the lower classes, but how many Arabic 

 words have invaded even the lowest Hindi, because the national 

 feeling has adopted Arabic as a sign of cultivation. The scholar may 

 lament that it is so, just as some scholars lament the disuse of Saxon 

 words in English, but the lamentations of the scholar do not hinder 

 the progress of the language. 



" Hindi is more native to the soil, and lies closer to the hearts of 

 the people than Arabic or Persian, and its use is therefore preferable 

 to that of the last named languages." This is ike political argument 

 of the Hindi school. Dr. Fallon* puts it thus : " Hosts of Persian 

 and Arabic words have been introduced by natives of the country (the 

 italics are mine) who affect a foreign tongue, and make transfers in 

 the mass out of worthless books imperfectly understood. The true 

 vernacular is overwhelmed, thrust aside, and scornfully ignored." 

 And again, " The vocabulary of the Indian Courts of Judicature is not 

 absolutely without a few Hindi phrase3. Still, a very large propor- 

 tion of good Hindi is systematically excluded by ignorance or bad 

 taste, or, worse still, from corrupt design. Words which are conti- 

 nually in the mouths of the people, the current speech in which men 

 in town and country buy and sell and transact business, the mother- 

 tongue of the peasantry and indeed of the great bulk of the nation is 

 repudiated for a foreign, high-sounding phraseology. But a people's 

 vocabulary is not so to be set aside. The few have seldom yet suc- 

 ceeded in substituting their language for the language of the many. 

 Beaten off from the courts and public offices, native Hindi still lives 

 in the busy mart, and in the familiarities of social and domestic life. 

 In the pithy sayings, proverbs, and national songs of the country, 

 dwells a spirit and an influence beside which the foreign and less 

 familiar speech seems feeble and flat. These Hindi phrases have 

 deep roots in the habits and associations of the people. They come 

 * Dissertation pp. xii. xiii. 



