Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 578

1841.

Wanton Use of Native Words.

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Gazette and Friend of India in reprobating it. The better to show at what we are aiming, we will here enumerate some of the local words, which may, and ought to be, we think, disused-chinchin, chop, consoo, cumsha, fankwei, foke, hong, joss-house, junk, mandarin, muske, muster, samshew, &c.

The writer in the Colonial Gazette, who subscribes himself' Plain English,' argues the case like a lawyer. Addressing the editor of that journal as judge, he says:-

"The parties I would cite to your bar are many, of various pro- fessions, and of either sex-Mrs. Postaus, sir William Lloyd, Mr. Vigne, captain Osborne, captain Havelock, in short, almost all who have lately written on the affairs of India; and the offense to be laid to their chargé is that of introducing into their narratives oriental, and therefore unintelligible words, wantonly, without necessity, and from affectation, to the exclusion of the English equivalents, which would have embodied the meaning with equal significance to the mind of the author, and with the trifling advantage to the reader of being understood. This strange unnatural mode of concealing, rather than expressing, what is meant to be said, is so fréquent with these writers (for in this respect they are all alike), that one is led to speculate on what can be the common cause that has infected so many otherwise sensible and agreeable people with such an epidemic of bad taste. *** Whatever may be the cause that has seduced these writers into this unfortunate habit, it is high time that it were corrected; it is high time that they should be admonished of the intolera- ble weariness which gradually steals over the mind of the reader from the constant occurrence of words, the meaning of which is only to be guessed at by the context. Let them consider how seriously the use of this piebald jargon must prevent their works from becoming po- pular; how much it must retard that consummation, so devoutly to be wished, when the public mind of England shall make itself fa- miliarly and in earnest acquainted with the condition and the pros- pects, the rights and the wrongs, of our Indian possessions. * * *

"To introduce a better order of things, to awaken interest where there is indifference, and to substitute knowledge for ignorance, should be the object and ambition of all writers upon India; but to succeed in instructing, they must condescend to please. At any rate, it is in their power to cease to offend by calling common things by uncommon names. The lively and entertaining Mrs. Postans, who describes the domestic life of the natives so well, must, if she wishes for readers in London, as well as at Bombay, be content

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