THIS is apropos Amar Sindhu’s column ‘For the love of the land and the language’ (Books&Authors, Sept 7) based on the life and works of Sindhi scholar Sirajul Haq Memon, who was of the opinion that “Sindhi is an independent, original language of Sindh, spoken and written from the times of Moenjodaro” as quoted from his book Sindhi Boli (Sindhi language).

When we go through the cryptic and mysterious language of Moenjodaro, which was built around 2600 BCE, we can’t read a word, cryptologists have been baffled about the teeming meaning of the words.

Further, Mr Memon nullified theories of Dr Ernest Trump and Nabi Bux Khan Baloch,who were of the opinion that Sindhi was sourced out from Sanskrit or Aryan. We need rigorous research to establish a viewpoint on the origin of Sindhi language.

According to Hinton and Ahlers, “Language like culture is changeable, and if it is not abandoned in favour of another language, it may still change to express new culture and new values.”

In this whole discourse, I just want to say that languages have their own ways of accepting and rejecting words of foreign origin when they try to creep in from nowhere. No language and civilisation can flourish in isolation, we can’t insist on the purity of a language. Both language and culture are constantly changing.

So, I agree to disagree with the opinion of Mr Memon. We can make languages viable to reflect cultural changes taking around them.

Nasiruddin Soomro
Hyderabad

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014