Hindi

“ But of all Orientals, the most antipathetical companion to an Englishman is, I believe, an East-Indian. Like the fox in the fable, fulsomely flattering at first, he gradually becomes easily friendly, disagreeably familiar, offensively rude, which ends by rousing the "spirit of the British lion." Nothing delights the Hindi so much as an opportunity of safely venting the spleen with which he regards his victors. ”

“ Hindi: applied generally to the people of hill tracts, who come to the plains and engage as labourers; they are also shepherds, and closely allied to the Kurubars of S. India. They have a dialect peculiar to themselves. See Wilson’s “Glossary,” London, 1855. ”

“ The spoken language varies so much in different parts of the country and among different classes of people, that it would be hopeless to attempt any thing like a complete vocabulary of names as pronounced by the people of the different provinces of which Hindi and Bengali are the vernaculars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An Indian missionary of eleven years’ experience, and the author of an excellent Grammar of the Hindi language, can write upon this subject, not only with greater authority, but to much better purpose, than one who only knows Indian books through the medium of European translations, and who has not seldom been compelled to take on trust what he felt strongly inclined to question. ”

“ We have there seen that the strong form of masculine nouns in Western Hindi generally ends in au, the ā of words like the Hindostani ghōṛā, a horse, being an accident due to the fact that the Hindostani dialect of Western Hindi borrows this termination from Panjabi. G. and R. follow Western Hindi, for their masculine strong forms end in ō. Feminine strong forms end in ī as elsewhere. Neuter strong forms in G. end in ũ, derived as follows: Skr, svarṇakam, Ap. ”

“ From the Congress platform at Amritsar in 1919 Mahatma Gandhi had announced that at all subsequent meetings the business of the Congress would be conducted in the Hindi language, which is spoken by more than a third of the population of the country. Teachers were sent immediately to different parts of the country to instruct the people in the Hindi language and when the Congress convened again in 1920 its business was carried on in Hindi. Delegates from Bengal, Madras, and Bombay made their speeches in Hindi as fluently as those from the United Provinces and the Punjab. ”

“ Hindi, English, and 14 other official languages—Bengali, Telgu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; 24 languages spoken by a million or more persons each; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication ”

“ HINDUSTANI, HINDI, &c.
[Dr. Forbes’s Works are used as Class Books in the Colleges and Schools in India.]
Forbes’s Hindustani-English Dictionary in the Persian Character, with the Hindi words in Nagari also; and an English Hindustani Dictionary in the English Character; both in one volume. By Duncan Forbes, LL.D. Royal 8vo. 42s.
Forbes’s Hindustani Grammar, with Specimens of Writing in the Persian and Nagari Characters, Reading Lessons, and Vocabulary. 8vo. 10s. 6d. ”

“ The Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, and Sanskrit translations were his own. The Chinese was similarly the work of Marshman. The Hindi versions, in their many dialects, and the Ooriya, were blocked out by his colleagues and the pundits. He saw through the press the Hindostani, Persian, Malay, Tamil, and other versions of the whole or portions of the Scriptures. He ceased not, night and day, if by any means, with a loving catholicity, the Word of God might be given to the millions. ”

“ Before proceeding I must premise, for the information of some readers, that it has been a question among learned Orientalists, whether the refined Sanscrit was the parent of the common Hindi, the latter being a corruption, or whether the Hindi formed the basis or substratum of a common Indian language, adopted by the Brahmans on their entry into Hindustan, but polished by improvements and enriched by the addition of scientific and other terms, especially astrological ones, brought with them on their emigration. ”

“ The vocabulary of Panjabi and Eastern Hindi is very similar to that of Western Hindi. Panjabi has no literature to speak of and is free from the burden of words borrowed from Persian or Sanskrit, only the commonest and simplest of such being found in it. ”

“ It being considered that few save students who are compelled to study the Hindi original would be likely to peruse the work, the translation has been made as literal as it was possible to make it without doing unpardonable violence to English idiom. All difficulties have been boldly, if not successfully, met ”

“ But it may be stated as a general proposition, that in the whole realm of linguistic science there exists no more remarkable similarity than that between the history of the development down to its minutest particulars of the Romance group of languages, the Provençal, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and the indications, we cannot call it history, of the origin and growth of the Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, and Sindhi. ”

“ For this the indigenous dialects (usually Awadhi or Braj Bhasha) are nearly always employed by Hindus. Urdu, on the other hand, having had a natural growth, has a vigorous poetical literature. Modern Hindi prose is often disfigured by that too free borrowing of Sanskrit words instead of using home-born tadbhavas, which has been the ruin of Bengali, and it is rapidly becoming a Hindu counterpart of the Persianized Urdu, neither of which is intelligible except to persons of high education. ”

“ The Hindus have the theory that God can enjoy food, drink and in fact all sense-pleasures but only through the offering of an earthly devotee. Therefore, the devout Hindi offers God a share in all his gratifications of appetite—thus living out, indeed, the Christian Apostle's admonition of "whether we eat or drink, do all to the glory of God." ”

“ It must be noticed that the words borrowed from other languages have all to conform to the genius of the languages into which they are adopted. This is what takes place in the Bengali language and this is what as a matter of course takes place in Hindi even though the speakers, through whose agency the adoption is accomplished, are Muhammadans. [2] That an adherence to an unscientific situation has a mischievous effect on education must be duly appreciated. ”

“ Hindi propaganda: I do not know Hindi well myself, But I used to read a Hindi newspaper to some students. (5) English to two students. (6) Excursions: nearly 400 miles on foot, Saw fortresses of historical fame such as Rajgarh, Sinhagarh, Torangarh, etc. (7) Used to hold during my tramps discourses on the Gita, which have come to 50 in all till now. Even now, I propose to foot it to Bombay and then take a train for Ahmedabad to rejoin the Ashram. A student, 26 years old, has been throughout with me in my journeys and he too is at present footing it out in my company. ”

“ RAM DAS OF CAWNPORE.
We Germans do not spare trouble where literary or scientific work is on hand: and so when I was appointed by the University of Breslau to the travelling scholarship in the Neo-Sanskritic languages, I made up my mind at once to spend the next five years of my life in India. I knew already a good deal more Hindi and Urdu than most English officials who have spent twenty years in the country; but I was anxious to perfect my knowledge by practice on the spot, and to acquire thorough proficiency in conversation by intercourse with the people themselves. ”

“ Like the greater part of those from Arabic and Persian, they are chiefly nouns, and may be regarded rather as excrescences which have sprung up casually and have attached themselves to the original trunk than as ingredients duly incorporated in the body. In the case of the Persian and Arabic element, indeed, we do find not a few instances in which nouns have been furnished with a Hindi termination, e.g. kharīdnā, badalnā, guzarnā, dāghnā, bakhshnaā, kamīnapan, &c.; but the European element cannot be said to have at all woven itself into the grammar of the language. ”

“ Hindus, you should eschew beef, and for the sake of the Mahomedans, you should avoid bacon and ham. We have hitherto said nothing, because we have been cowed down, but you need not consider that you have not hurt our feelings by your conduct. We are not expressing our sentiments either through base selfishness or fear, but because it is our duty now to speak out boldly. We consider your schools and law courts to be useless. We want our own ancient schools and courts to be restored. The common language of India is not English but Hindi. ”

“ The interpreters are expected to perform the Herculean task of interpreting successfully in four languages, viz., Tamil, Telugu, Hindustani and Gujarati. The trading Indian invariably speaks Hindustani or Gujarati. Those who speak Hindustani only, speak high Hindustani. The interpreters, with one exception, speak the local Hindustani, which is a grotesque mixture of Tamil, Gujarati and other Indian languages, clothed in extremely bad Hindustani grammar. Very naturally, the interpreter has to argue with the witness before he can get at his meaning. ”

“ I can hardly think of anything that you could safely predicate of all the inhabitants of India, and I confess to a little nervous tremor whenever I see a sentence beginning with 'The people of India,' or even with 'All the Brahmans,' or 'All the Buddhists.' What follows is almost invariably wrong. There is a greater difference between an Afghan, a Sikh, a Rajput, a Bengali, and a Dravidian than between an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, and a Russian yet all are classed as Hindus, and all are supposed to fall under the same sweeping condemnation. ”

“ Linguistics as a modern science is still in its infancy in India, and the meagre dose of ‘Comparative Philology’ or ‘Historical Grammar’ which our college students reading advanced courses in Sanskrit or English, not supplementing it by any acquaintance with another cognate language of equal importance, most unwillingly gulp down, is hopelessly inadequate to create an intelligent interest in the subject. ”

“ But, in point of intellect, the average Hindu is not One whit behind the average Englishman, and what can now be reasonably expected from the latter may soon be looked for from the former. The time then, we trust, is not far distant when those who occupy the place which you do now shall have been taught a classical language as well as their own vernacular. ”

“ The India to which the Englishman has come with his message, is the India which is shooting up towards the future from within the bursting seed of the past. This new India belongs to humanity. What right have we to say who shall and who shall not find a place therein? Who is this “We”? Bengali, Marathi or Panjabi, Hindu or Mussalman? Only the larger “We” in whom all these,— Hindu, Moslem and Englishman, and whosoever else there be,— may eventually unite, shall have the right to dictate who is to remain and who is to leave. ”

“ We come, finally, to that member of our family which has lived its life within the borders of India. Not all the numerous dialects which fill this immense peninsula, between the impassable wall of the Himalayas and the Indian ocean, own kindred with the Indo-European tongues, but only those of its northern portion, of Hindustan proper, ranging from the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, together with a certain extent of the sea-coast and its neighbourhood stretching southward on either side. ”

“ What is said of the Bengalis may not be true of the inhabitants of Madras or Bombay, and the converse.
All the languages of India have been affected by intercourse with conquering nations, who, pouring down from the north-west, have in successive ages made themselves masters of great portions of the land. In all of them Sanscrit, the sacred and classic language of the Hindus, forms a large element, but in a constantly diminishing proportion as you journey from the north to the south. ”

“ In the time which he could spare from preaching and travelling Yates composed for the use of the English a simplified Sanskrit grammar, a Sanskrit vocabulary, and manuals of Hindustani and Arabic, and various handbooks of natural science, history, and Christian evidences for the instruction of the Indians in Sanskrit, Hindustani, and Bengalee. ”

“ We seldom hear of a good or smart saying from a Hindu, such 161as we have in large numbers from English, German, or French statesmen or poets. The people of India are still a deep secret to us, and if I have succeeded in withdrawing the curtain from only a small portion of their inmost thoughts and feelings, if, here and there, I have helped to change mere curiosity about them into a warm human sympathy with them, my reminiscences will have fulfilled their true object. ”