Chapter 5Remarks on Bengali Usage

Laws and Caprices of Usage It is not very clear why the dictum about bBsr should not apply to 4BpAe and mWBpAe. My own feeling is against this extra syl- lable in such words (idkp Ae seems to me different, because idk is a separate word in Bengali), but neither feeling nor logic can stand against usage. A language is like an absolute queen; you have to obey her laws, reasonable or unreasonable, and not only her laws, but her caprices — so long as they last, — unless you are one of her acknowledged favourites and then you can make hay of her laws and (sometimes) defy even her caprices provided you are quite sure of the favour. In this case, Tagore perhaps feels the absoluteness of some usage with regard to these particular words? But one can always break through law and usage and even pass over the judgment of an “arbiter of elegances”, — at one’s own risk. 26 January 1932 * Funny thing — this word-coinage! Sometimes people accept it, sometimes they reject. After all when one coins a new word, one has to take the chance. If the word is properly formed and not ugly or unintelligible, it seems to me all right to venture. If it is not accepted it will remain a blot in the poem. Tagore coined the word tWNAi5t but he laments that people have not accepted it. Why a blot? There are many words in Greek poetry which occur only once in the whole literature, but that is not considered a defect in the poem. It is called a hapax legomenon, “a once-

Remarks on Bengali Usage spoken word” and that’s all. tWNAi5t for instance is a fine word and can adorn, not blot Tagore’s poetry even if no one else uses it. I think Shakespeare has many words coined by him or at least some that do not occur elsewhere. 16 January 1937 A Language Grows and Is Not Made Will it be a narrowness on the part of the Calcutta University if it does not include foreign words for the enrichment of Bengali literature? It is a matter of opinion and tastes differ. But I don’t see how a University can change the language. A language grows and is not made, except in so far as it is the great poets and prose writers who make it. 15 July 1937

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