Historical Outline of the Languages of Western Indian

Author(s): K B Vyas
Publisher: Z_Vijay_Vallabh_suri_Smarak_Granth_012060.pdf

Page 12

168 ACARYA VIJAYAVALLABHASURI COMMEMORATION VOLUME top, begum, mughal; and the Portuguese words like afus, ananas, ingrej, ijaner, kaju, tamaku, batata, mej, mosambi, have found a place in Gujarati and have been almost completely naturalized. More recently Gujarati borrowed several loan-words from English such as office, appeal, court, doctor, pencil, boot, master, station, hotel, etc., and gave them a completely indigenous Gujarati form. This process of borrowing continues even to-day as Gujarati does not hesitate in borrowing several words from Indian or foreign languages if they are found to express sense in a particularly effective manner in reference to corresponding words of indigenous origin. Herein lies its strength, because this process increases the potentiality of the language. Gujarati has also improved by being relieved from a surfeit of Sanskrit words which marred its innate beauty and made it heavy and pedantic as in the writings of some of the scholars of the latter part of the last century. This purification owes its origin to Gandhiji. Gandhiji insisted on using the simple and forceful speech of the masses living in the country-side as the standard form of language to be used in all literary compositions. Gandhiji demonstrated in his worldfamous 'Autobiography' the inherent strength of this simple speech which could be adapted to the highest literary purposes. A whole school of writers followed his foot-steps and wielded the folk-speech with considerable power and charm even in serious literary works of philosophy, economics, politics and social sciences. This is the Gujarati of to-day, full of strength and promise, awaiting a future even more glorious than its hoary past. TAN AAN TV mby VA ST XX il l) .