சிந்தனைக் கட்டுரைகள்
15
all Sanscrit words that mingled in the original edition at the rate of four or five percent.
In this connection I wish to say that I am not one of those who plead warmly for a free, unlimited, unscrupulous introduction into Tamil of Sanscrit words and even English and other foreign words. Not only is Tamil a language spoken at the present day nearly by twety-five millions of people, but it also is the only culti- vated language that has cultivated others such as the chaldean, the Egyptian, the Hebrew, the Sanscrit, the Chinese, the Greek, the Latin and the Arabic. For a language to live so long without under- going in its structure any such material change as would make it unfit for communication of ideas, there must, indeed have been within it an inexhaustible store of vitality. The continual existence of a language simply bespeaks the continual existence of a civilisation owned by the people who speak it, for, in less civilized communities and among savages, languages so rapidly change and die, that the very same people who were speaking formerly only one language, were after the lapse of a few years, say twenty or thirty, found to speak many languages that had become unintelligible to each other. In illustrating this fact, Prof. Max Muller has quoted many instances, out of which the following is a remarkable one. We read of mis- sionaries in Central America who attempted to write down the lan- guage of savage tribes, and who compiled with great care a dictio- nary of all the words they coyld lay hold of. Returning to the same tribe after the lapse of only ten years, they found that this dictio- nary had become antiquated and useless. Old words hand sunk to the ground and new ones had risen to the surface; and to all out- ward appearance the language was completely changed. It was this natural law reigning supreme in uncivilized communities that had formed the essential cause which tended to create a great multiplicity of languages. It was the very same law that had, in olden times, led to the transformation of Tamil into Telugu, Canarese, Malayalam, Tulu, Brahui and other cognate tongues. The more the uncivilized portions of the Tamils moved onward farther and far- ther away towards the north, leaving behind in the south their civi- lized brethren each portion settling down into a small community in
