152 On the Arabic Element in Official Hindustani. [No. 3, 



and making it the vehicle of their Persian and Arabic, and thus dis- 

 tributing it all over India. The Hindustani or Urdu language is 

 therefore, from one point of view, not Persian grafted on Indian, but 

 Indian inserted into Persian. The movement began from above and 

 was imitated by the lower classes. 



At an early period of the invasion, large tracts of country were 

 converted to the Muslim faith. All the Punjab west of the Chinab, 

 and a great deal east of that river ; all the chief towns in the valley 

 of the Ganges, and many villages in all parts of the country were 

 largely converted ; and the conversion went on for centuries, and has 

 not yet ceased. To all these converts Arabic became a sacred tongue, 

 and as such lay and lies as near the hearts of this section of the 

 people as Hindi. Speak to a Mahomedan rustic in Hindi, he under- 

 stands you and talks to you in the same ; but speak to him in Urdu, 

 and he will press into his service every word he knows of Arabic and 

 Persian, to show you that though, through accident of birth, he can 

 only speak a few words of those honored and sacred tongues, he is yet 

 not quite without knowledge of them. The rustic father sends his 

 son to school to the village pedagogue, to learn what ? not Hindi, 

 but Arabic and Persian. And then we are told that these languages 

 do not lie near the hearts of the people ! Why, I believe if the votes 

 of the whole Mahomedan population could be taken, an overwhelming 

 majority of them would prefer to abandon Hindustani altogether and 

 make Persian the language of the land. 



Among the higher classes in towns, who form the most intelligent 

 and cultivated portion of the population, there can be no question 

 whether Urdu or Hindi is most popular. It is in the towns that we 

 find the stronghold of the Musulman, and consequently of Arabicized 

 Urdu. But on what grounds we are asked to set aside the towns- 

 people and all the Mahomedan rural population, together with all 

 cultivated Hindus who try to talk as much Urdu as possible, I do not 

 see. Native society has been for five centuries so thoroughly leavened 

 with the language of the Mogul invader, and the invader has so 

 thoroughly made himself at home in India, and has so successfully 

 maintained the claim of his composite dialect to express the progress 

 and intelligence of the country, that all classes aspire to use it as a 

 sign of good breeding and cultivation. 



