孟加拉语
本译文由人工智能辅助工具生成，可能存在不准确之处。如需查阅权威文本，请参考英文原文。
AI-translated. May contain errors. For accurate text, refer to the original English.
中文
孟加拉语
（为《觉醒》杂志而作）
在我们国家，由于自古以来一切学问皆用梵文，学者与平民之间便产生了一道不可估量的鸿沟。从佛陀到柴坦尼亚再到罗摩克里希纳，一切为世界福祉而来的伟大人物，都用人民自己的语言教导平民百姓。当然，学术是一件极好的事情；但学术除了通过一种僵硬难懂、不自然而纯属人造的语言之外，难道就不能通过其他媒介来展示了吗？在口语中就没有艺术的空间吗？排斥自然的语言而去创造一种不自然的语言，这有什么用处？你在家中惯用的语言，难道不是你用来思考学术研究的语言吗？那么当你要把这些付诸笔端时，为什么要引入这种奇怪而笨重的东西呢？你在脑中思考哲学和科学、在公开场合与他人辩论所用的语言——那不就是书写哲学和科学的语言吗？如果不是，你又怎么能在内心和与他人交往中用那种语言推理出那些真理呢？我们自然地表达自己、传达愤怒、悲伤或爱意等等的语言——没有比那更合适的语言了。我们必须坚持那种思路、那种表达方式、那种措辞以及一切。没有任何人造的语言能具有口语的那种力量、简洁和表现力，或允许你随心所欲地运用。语言必须像纯钢一样锻造——随你怎样扭转，它还是一样——一击之下劈开石头，刃口不折。我们的语言正因模仿梵文缓慢而庄严的行文——仅仅是那种行文——而变得矫揉造作。而语言是一个民族进步的主要手段和标志。
如果你说："这都对，但孟加拉各地有各种不同的方言——接受哪一种呢？"回答是：我们必须接受那种通过自然法则正在增强和扩展的语言，也就是说，加尔各答的语言。无论东西南北，人们从哪里来，一旦他们呼吸到加尔各答的空气，就会发现他们讲的是那里通行的语言；因此大自然本身指明了用哪种语言来写作。铁路和交通设施越多，东西方的差异就越会消失，从吉大港到拜迪亚纳特将只有一种语言，即加尔各答的语言。问题不在于哪个地区拥有最接近梵文的语言——你必须看哪种语言正在胜出。当加尔各答的语言显然很快将成为整个孟加拉的语言时，如果人们要使书面语和口语统一，有头脑的人当然会以加尔各答的语言为基础。在这里，地方主义的嫉妒也应该被抛到一边。在涉及整个省份福祉的地方，你必须超越你自己地区或村庄的优越感。
语言是思想的载体。思想才是首要的，语言居其次。在一匹披着钻石珠宝华饰的马上放一只猴子，好看吗？看看梵文吧。看看梵书的梵文，看看夏巴拉·斯瓦米对弥曼差哲学的注释，看看波颠阇利的《大注释》，最后看看阿阇梨商羯罗（Shankara）的伟大注释；再看看相对近代的梵文。你立刻就会明白，只要一个人活着，他就说活的语言；一旦他死了，他就说死的语言。死亡越是临近，原创思维的力量就越衰退，就越企图将一两个腐朽的观念埋在一堆鲜花和香料之下。天哪！他们摆出多大的排场！十页大段的形容词之后，突然来一句——"曾有一位国王！"哦，那一长串冗长的形容词、巨大的复合词和精巧的双关语！这些都是死亡的征兆。当国家开始衰败时，所有这些征兆便显现出来。不仅仅是在语言中——所有的艺术都开始显现这些征兆。建筑既不表达任何思想，也不遵循任何风格；柱子被车削了又车削，直到它们失去了全部力量。饰品刺穿鼻子和脖子，把佩戴者变成了活生生的母夜叉；但是，哦，那上面雕刻着多么繁复的花叶藤蔓！再说音乐，没有人——即使是音乐和戏剧表演的鼻祖婆罗多仙人——也分不清那是在唱歌、在哭泣、还是在吵架，又要表达什么意思或目的！而那音乐中有多少错综复杂的东西！多少曲折的花腔——足以绷断人的每一根神经！更有甚者，那音乐诞生于紧咬牙关发出的鼻音，模仿穆斯林音乐大师！如今有了纠正这些的迹象；现在人们将逐渐理解，一种不表达意义、没有生命力的语言、艺术或音乐是毫无用处的。现在他们将明白，越多的力量注入民族生活，语言、艺术和音乐等等就越会自发地充满思想和生命力。日常用语中几个词所能传达的意义之厚重，你在两千个固定的修饰语中也找不到。到那时，每一尊神像都会激发虔诚，每一个佩戴饰物的姑娘都会显得像女神一般，每一间房屋和每一个房间、每一件家具都会洋溢着生命的脉动。
English
THE BENGALI LANGUAGE
(Written for the "Udbodhan")
In our country, owing to all learning being in Sanskrit from the ancient times, there has arisen an immeasurable gulf between the learned and the common folk. All the great personages, from Buddha down to Chaitanya and Ramakrishna, who came for the well-being of the world, taught the common people in the language of the people themselves. Of course, scholarship is an excellent thing; but cannot scholarship be displayed through any other medium than a language that is stiff and unintelligible, that is unnatural and merely artificial? Is there no room for art in the spoken language? What is the use of creating an unnatural language to the exclusion of the natural one? Do you not think out your scholastic researches in the language which you are accustomed to speak at home? Why then do you introduce such a queer and unwieldy thing when you proceed to put them in black and white? The language in which you think out philosophy and science in your mind, and argue with others in public — is not that the language for writing philosophy and science? If it is not, how then do you reason out those truths within yourselves and in company of others in that very language? The language in which we naturally express ourselves, in which we communicate our anger, grief, or love, etc.— there cannot be a fitter language than that. We must stick to that idea, that manner of expression, that diction and all. No artificial language can ever have that force, and that brevity and expressiveness, or admit of being given any turn you please, as that spoken language. Language must be made like pure steel — turn and twist it any way you like, it is again the same — it cleaves a rock in twain at one stroke, without its edge being turned. Our language is becoming artificial by imitating the slow and pompous movement — and only that — of Sanskrit. And language is the chief means and index of a nation's progress.
If you say, "It is all right, but there are various kinds of dialects in different parts of Bengal — which of them to accept?" — the answer is: We must accept that which is gaining strength and spreading through natural laws, that is to say, the language of Calcutta. East or west, from wheresoever people may come, once they breathe in the air of Calcutta, they are found to speak the language in vogue there; so nature herself points out which language to write in. The more railroads and facilities of communication there are, the more will the difference of east and west disappear, and from Chittagong to Baidyanath there will be that one language, viz that of Calcutta. It is not the question which district possesses a language most approaching Sanskrit — you must see which language is triumphing. When it is evident that the language of Calcutta will soon become the language of the whole of Bengal, then, if one has to make the written and spoken language the same, one would, if one is intelligent enough certainly make the language of Calcutta one's foundation. Here local jealousies also should be thrown overboard. Where the welfare of the whole province is concerned, you must overlook the claims to superiority of your own district or village.
Language is the vehicle of ideas. It is the ideas that are of prime importance, language comes after. Does it look well to place a monkey on a horse that has trappings of diamonds and pearls? Just look at Sanskrit. Look at the Sanskrit of the Brâhmanas, at Shabara Swâmi's commentary on the Mimâmsâ philosophy, the Mahâbhâshya of Patanjali, and, finally, at the great Commentary of Achârya Shankara: and look also at the Sanskrit of comparatively recent times. You will at once understand that so long as a man is alive, he talks a living language, but when he is dead, he speaks a dead language. The nearer death approaches, the more does the power of original thinking wane, the more is there the attempt to bury one or two rotten ideas under a heap of flowers and scents. Great God! What a parade they make! After ten pages of big adjectives, all on a sudden you have — "There lived the King!" Oh, what an array of spun-out adjectives, and giant compounds, and skilful puns! They are symptoms of death. When the country began to decay, then all these signs became manifest. It was not merely in language — all the arts began to manifest them. A building now neither expressed any idea nor followed any style; the columns were turned and turned till they had all their strength taken out of them. The ornaments pierced the nose and the neck and converted the wearer into a veritable ogress; but oh, the profusion of leaves and foliage carved fantastically in them! Again, in music, nobody, not even the sage Bharata, the originator of dramatic performances, could understand whether it was singing, or weeping, or wrangling, and what meaning or purpose it sought to convey! And what an abundance of intricacies in that music! What labyrinths of flourishes — enough to strain all one's nerves! Over and above that, that music had its birth in the nasal tone uttered through the teeth compressed, in imitation of the Mohammedan musical experts! Nowadays there is an indication of correcting these; now will people gradually understand that a language, or art, or music that expresses no meaning and is lifeless is of no good. Now they will understand that the more strength is infused into the national life, the more will language art, and music, etc. become spontaneously instinct with ideas and life. The volume of meaning that a couple of words of everyday use will convey, you may search in vain in two thousand set epithets. Then every image of the Deity will inspire devotion, every girl decked in ornaments will appear to be a goddess, and every house and room and furniture will be animated with the vibration of life.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。