English into Hindustani- Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

Mailing Address-   C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur-208020, U.P.

 

English into Hindustani- Mahatma Gandhi

 

What English-knowing Indian has not felt the shame and sorrow at his failure to discover an equivalent for an English word in either his mother tongue or the national language? A Gujarati lad has an English-Gujarati dictionary in such a case to help him; similarly a Urdu or Hindi knowing lad has his dictionary to fall back upon. But for Hindustani, which is neither Persianized Urdu nor Sanskritized Hindi and which is the tongue of the common folk of the North, whether Hindu or Mussalman, a writer has no dictionary to fall back upon. An attempt will be made through a column at least of the Harijan each week to furnish for English a Hindustani word or two, spelt in both Nagari and Urdu script. An endeavour will be made to give the names of those who will contribute their labour to this fascinating task. This is pioneer work and therefore will, like all pioneer work, have defects. Those who detect them, will confer a favour by drawing the attention to them of the Editor. I would suggest to students that they copy out these words week by week in a notebook and add to or amend the attempt. They will find that the labour will combine recreation with instruction. Only those English words which are in common use have been selected from a Standard English dictionary. In reading the following, the reader should also know that no claim is made that the equivalents are the best possible or that they are exhaustive. They are a help to the searcher. The plan for this week is that those who are helping me to conduct the Harijan have prepared the first list. Kakasaheb and Acharya Shrimannarayan looked at the selection. The first letters of their names “Ka” or “Shri” have been given in parenthesis after the addition.

  Reference:

 Harijan, 1-9-1946