The study of literature is inseparable from the study of language. Literature is the arena where the expressive capacities of a language are most fully realized. A dictionary may enumerate the words available in a given tongue, but it does not reflect the actual power of representation embedded within it. This power emerges only through practice, through creative use. In this sense, the lexicon is merely a skeleton, while literature furnishes the living body, the breath and movement of a language.
It is, therefore, misleading to assume that a language with a limited lexical stock is incapable of producing great works of art. History offers ample evidence to the contrary. Kabir in Hindi, Bash? in Japanese, or Sappho in ancient Greek all worked with what, in strict lexical terms, were narrower resources than those available to English or Sanskrit. Yet the poetry they produced continues to resonate across centuries and cultures. Their mastery lay not in piling up words, but in extracting from their languages the richest tonalities of meaning, often through simple phrases, idiomatic turns, or rhythmic innovations. The expressive elasticity of a language—not the size of its dictionary—determines its literary vitality.
At the core of this vitality lies what may be called the character of a language. This is not something easily translatable or imitable. Each language carries its own idiomatic rhythms, cultural memory, and inner logic of expression. A writer, when searching for new forms of representation, may learn from innovations in other tongues, but when it comes to actual practice, he must work within the grain of his own language. This is why borrowings from other languages succeed only when they are assimilated into the representational fabric of the writer’s native idiom. Words imported without naturalization remain alien intrusions, weakening rather than strengthening expression. The long history of Indian languages demonstrates this principle: Sanskrit, Persian, and English loanwords have enriched Assamese, Bengali, or Hindi, but only because they were absorbed into native phonology, syntax, and cultural context.
The innovative use of language expands its potential. Writers are the agents of this expansion. Their responsibility is twofold: to preserve the character of their language and to stretch it toward new expressive horizons. Every great writer, in this sense, is also a custodian of language. To neglect one’s mother tongue in favor of a more “international” language may bring temporary visibility, but it risks cutting off the writer from the rhythms, cadences, and deep associations that shape thought at its roots. This is not an argument against writing in other languages—Tagore in English, Nabokov in English, or Conrad in Polish-inflected English all proved that such shifts can yield remarkable results. But when the pursuit of an acquired language entails the dismissal or derision of one’s own, a rupture occurs between the writer and his tradition. This rupture impoverishes not only the writer’s own creativity but also the cultural continuity of the language itself.
Yet literature is not a closed garden. Translation ensures the permeability of languages and allows world literatures to interact. Without translation, Homer, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Neruda, or Rumi would remain locked within their respective linguistic borders. Translation is, therefore, an act of cultural mediation—an engagement between two languages, a negotiation in which one language attempts to re-create the music and meaning of another. When successful, such an exchange not only enlarges the receiving language but also enriches the shared treasury of human imagination. This explains why a visit to a good library reveals a truly international canon: Chinese, Greek, Russian, Japanese, and Arabic classics, all accessible in translation, forming part of our collective heritage.
Philosophy and literature serve as laboratories for these linguistic transformations. They experiment with language, stretch its categories, and compel it to accommodate new ways of thinking. Even science, often regarded as the most precise and technical domain, borrows from literary metaphor: we speak of the “genetic code,” the “big bang,” the “black hole”—all metaphoric inventions drawn from imaginative language. These borrowings remind us that no discourse can entirely escape its reliance on figurative and rhetorical foundations.
To conclude: the vitality of a language does not depend on the length of its dictionary but on the creativity of its users. A writer who works imaginatively within the character of his language expands its horizons, strengthens its expressive resources, and contributes to its historical continuity. Translation, meanwhile, opens the doors of dialogue between cultures, ensuring that the local finds its place in the global and the global enriches the local. Every creative writer, therefore, holds a responsibility not only to his own language but also to the broader landscape of world literature.
The original text was already very well-written, with only a few minor corrections needed to enhance clarity and flow. The corrected version above makes these subtle changes, but the original prose was already quite strong.