A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India v1.c4.79

Language: English

v1.c4.79.1

Hindi is that language which is spoken in the valley of the Ganges and its tributaries, from the watershed of the Jamnâ, the largest and most important of them, as far down as Rajmahal, the point where the Ganges takes a sudden turn to the south, and breaks out into the plains of Bengal. This area is the centre and principal portion of Aryan India. It includes the Antarbed or Doab between the Ganges and the Jamnâ, the "inner hearth" of the nation. It is therefore the legitimate heir of the Sanskrit, and fills that place in the modern Indian system which Sanskrit filled in the old. Under the general head of Hindi are included many dialects, some of which differ widely from one another, though not so much so as to give them the right to be considered separate languages. Throughout the whole of this vast region, though the dialects diverge considerably, one common universal form of speech is recognized, and all educated persons use it. This common dialect had its origin apparently in the country round Delhi, the ancient capital, and the form of Hindi spoken in that neighbourhood was adopted by degrees as the basis of a new phase of the language, in which, though the inflections of nouns and verbs remained purely and absolutely Hindi, and a vast number of the commonest vocables were retained, a large quantity of Persian and Arabic and even Turkish words found a place, just as Latin and Greek words do in English.

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Such words, however, in no way altered or influenced the language itself, which, when its inflectional or phonetic elements are considered, remains still a pure Aryan dialect, just as pure in the pages of Wali or Saudâ, as it is in those of Tulsi Dâs or Bihâri Lâl. It betrays therefore a radical misunderstanding of the whole bearings of the question, and of the whole science of philology, to speak of Urdu and Hindi as two distinct languages. When certain agitators cry out that the language of the English courts of law in Hindustan should be Hindi and not Urdu, what they mean is that clerks and native writers should be restrained from importing too many Persian and Arabic words into their writings, and should use instead the honest old Sanskrit Tadbhavas with which the Hindi abounds. By all means let it be so, only let it not be said that the Urdu is a distinct language from Hindi.¹ By means of the introduction of Arabic and Persian words, a very great benefit has been conferred on Hindi, inasmuch as it has thus been prevented from having recourse to Sanskrit fountains again and again for grand and expressive words.

v1.c4.79.3

This resuscitation of Sanskrit words in their classical form—a process which has been going on in the modern languages for ages, and is still at work as vigorously as ever, just as the resuscitation of Latin words has always been and is still going on in French—has done a serious injury to some languages of the Indian group, inasmuch as it has led them to drop their Tadbhavas, which are the most valuable class of words that a language can possess, not only on account of the light they throw on the philological processes which the language has undergone, but because, having cast away all that was difficult of pronunciation, cumbrous, and superfluous in the ancient language, they possess the perfection of flexibility, neatness, and practical usefulness. In some languages, notably in Bengali, Tatsama words have been borrowed from Sanskrit, and employed in written works, in cases where there already existed good serviceable Tadbhavas. The result has been that the unfortunate peasant who knows no Sanskrit finds it more and more difficult every day to acquire knowledge, and the education of the masses is thus retarded. In respect of Tadbhavas, Hindi stands pre-eminent, whether it be that form of Hindi which relies principally upon indigenous sources for its words, or that other widely employed form which has incorporated the flower and grace of Persian and Arabic nouns, and which is called sometimes Urdu, sometimes Hindustani.