WHAT EXACTLY IS ENGLISH?

- By Ekakshra Mahajan

“Oh! My god! You’ve submitted your resume stating that you cannot converse in English! Is that true? Mr. Rathore asked the new employee. “ Yes” answered Mithilesh, since this is all he could to utter after understanding bits of Mr. Rathore’s flabbergasted look. Mithilesh had just come to this new alien town in search of a new job. His situation was stiff, he being the only earning member of a family of 8. His father had died when he was 10, and his elder brother had been a victim of acute pneumonia. Already been refused job in three offices before, he turned towards his rented accommodation with a heavy heart, cursing the language that he never got to learn- ENGLISH!

His refusal was not because he was incapable of working or that he did not possess a good degree. No! It was because that mithilesh had completed his high school and college in the national language of his country-HINDI! A language that he had been proud to learn through all those years of study, hard work and toil. But he had never realized that this alien language had uprooted our national language and had spread its roots deep in our mother soil. He felt the need to replace this language, awaken our citizens and make them realize the importance of our language. After all our language has a history, a contemporary history with proofs and theories. But he felt helpless. And so do I…………………..

This brings me to the point of my article.

Q. WHAT EXACTLY IS ENGLISH?

Q. HOW DID IT EVOLVE?

Q. HOW DID IT MANAGE TO COPY THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES?

If ever you might have pondered upon this language, you would have noticed that most of the words have been derived from Latin, Greek, Sanskrit or Arabian. Four languages, which have a History of how, they evolved and how each word that was formed had a meaning, whereas in English, each word is derived from a word from another language.

To be continued…….