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Is language purity a myth?
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on 17 September 2020
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By Ravi Kumar
Some scholars often insist on maintaining the purity of a language, therefore, they discourage or rather protest the use of foreign words in a language.
In this globalized world, do you feel that it is pragmatic to follow such doctrines?
I have learned and observed the languages are dynamic in nature. Only those languages survive or give way to new ones that allow the inclusion of new words. All such languages which become static are at the risk of becoming either unpopular or become extinct over a period.
For example, Sanskrit is considered a very scientific language. But since the scholars insisted on its purity, it lost its base among the common mass that was experimenting with many words used in common or regional languages. Perhaps, for the same reason, Latin gave way to Vulgar languages and it remained restricted to be used as the language of the clergy. On the other hand, in modern times, Hindi is very popular and dynamic as it has accepted thousands of words from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Punjabi, or English.
What is your take friends?