Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/445

 macy, is a different question. On that purpose its know- ledge is a necessity. We are not jealous of English. All that is contended for is that it ought not to be allowed to go beyond its proper sphere. And as it will be the imperial language, we shall compel our Malaviyajis, our Shastriars and our Banerjeas to learn it. And we shall feel assured that they will advertise the greatness of India in other parts of the world. But English can- not become the national language of India. To give it that place is like an attempt to introduce Esperanto, In my opinion it is unmanly even to think that English can become our national language. The attempt to in- troduce Esperanto merely betrays ignorance Then which is the language that satisfies all the five condi- tions v We shall be obliged to admit that Hindi satisfies all those conditions.

I call that language Hindi which Hindus and Mahomedans in the North speak and write, either in the Devanagari or the Urdu character. Exception has been taken to his definition. It seems to be argued that Hindi and Urdu are different languages. This is not a valid argumeut In the Northern parts of India Musalmans and Hindus speak the same language. The literate classes have created a division. The learned Hindus have Sanskritised Hindi. The Musalmans, therefore, cannot understand it. The Moslems of Lucknow have Persianised their speech and made it unintelligible to the Hindus These represent two excesses of the same language. They find no common piece in the speech of the massess. I have lived in the North. I have freely mixed with Hindus and Mahomedans, and although I have but a poor know- ledge of Hindi, I have never found any difficulty in

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