1841.
Wanton Use of Native Words.
563
that relates to this country. This favorable disposition ought to be fostered by all those who have information to communicate; whereas the course, which is now pursued, is calculated in too many instances to revive and increase the prejudice against everything Indian.
We are fully aware that it is impossible, on all occasions, to avoid the adoption of native words, more especially in cases in which corres- ponding or suitable words cannot be found in English for things which do not exist in England; then an explanation of the foreign and barbarous terin should invariably be given. But in some of the works, to which the writer alludes, numerous instances may be found of so unnecessary' a use of native terms, that it can be traced only to the love of display or to mere wantonness. There is too great a dispo- sition manifested to introduce them on every possible occasion. Any writer, however, who is persuaded that to be understood is a higher object than to be admired for the use of foreign and learned words, will seek to reduce the occasions in which they are introduced, and to regulate the adoption of them by the rules of a rigid necessity. If our cotemporaries will not take amiss the advice of one who feels deeply interested in the growing influence and power of the Indian press, we would ask them to bear in mind, that they are no longer writing for an ludian audience only; that it is from their columns that the community in England and on the continent is gradually forming its estimate of the British institutions of India, and of their influence on the well-being of its population. They must remember that nearly eighty thousand copies of newspapers, published in India, find their way during the year to England, and that they are writing for the meridians of London, Paris, and Vienna, as well as for that of Calcutta. They cannot therefore be too careful how they allow their pages to be disfigured with words almost unintelligible in Europe,' and for which corresponding terms might easily, or with a little care, be found in our own tongue."
No one of the words, which we have given above, is without its equivalent in English; and a full equivalent: thus for chinchin, you may have thanks or beg, as the case may chance to be: for chop, you` may have edict, passport, &c.; for consoo, public hall: to say the consoo in Canton, is quite as definite as to say the public hall, or the hotel in London; for the consoo in Canton are probably as numerous as the public halls in London; almost all the commercial companies in Canton, and all the different trades, have their respective consoo
(公所 kung sọ, or public places), each one its own; thus the com-