Ovid's quote likens language to wax that changes forms but retains its essence. How does this metaphor effectively capture the dynamic process of linguistic borrowing and evolution depicted throughout the excerpt, particularly in the context of Anglo-Indian language?

From the book

αθ' ἕκαστον ἔθνος ἰδιώματα ἀδύνατα εἰς ἄλλο ἔθνος διὰ φωνῆς σημαίνεσθαι "— Iamblichus , De Mysteriis , vii. cap. v. i.e. "For it is by no means always the case that translated terms preserve the original conception; indeed every nation has some idiomatic expressions which it is impossible to render perfectly in the language of another." "As well may we fetch words from the Ethiopians , or East or West Indians , and thrust them into our Language, and baptize all by the name of English , as those which we daily take from the Latine or Languages thereon depending; and hence it cometh, (as by…

ts which have been imported, such as loquot , leechee , chow-chow , cumquat , ginseng , &c. and (recently) jinrickshaw . For it must be noted that a considerable proportion of words much used in Chinese ports, and often ascribed to a Chinese origin, such as mandarin , junk , chop , pagoda , and (as I believe) typhoon (though this is a word much debated) are not Chinese at all, but words of Indian languages, or of Malay, which have been precipitated in Chinese waters during the flux and reflux of foreign trade. Within my own earliest memory Spanish dollars were current in England at a…

f Anglo-Indians, who in some degree imbue with their notions and phraseology the circles from which they had gone forth. This effect has been still more promoted by the currency of a vast mass of literature, of all qualities and for all ages, dealing with Indian subjects; as well as by the regular appearance, for many years past, of Indian correspondence in English newspapers, insomuch that a considerable number of the expressions in question have not only become familiar in sound to English ears, but have become naturalised in the English language, and are meeting with ample recognition in…

ng; whilst in other cases our language has formed in India new compounds applicable to new objects or shades of meaning. To one or other of these classes belong outcry , buggy , home , interloper , rogue (-elephant), tiffin , furlough , elk , roundel ('an umbrella,' obsolete), pish-pash , earth-oil , hog-deer , flying-fox , garden-house , musk-rat , nor-wester , iron-wood , long-drawers , barking-deer , custard-apple , grass-cutter , &c. Other terms again are corruptions, more or less violent, of Oriental words and phrases which have put on an English mask. Such are maund , fool's rack ,…

er into Hindustani generally, or into that shade of it which is in use among natives in habitual contact with Europeans. Of words which are essentially Portuguese, among Anglo-Indian colloquialisms, persistent or obsolete, we may quote goglet , gram , plantain , muster , caste , peon , padre , mistry or maistry , almyra , aya , cobra , mosquito , pomfret , cameez , palmyra , still in general use; picotta , rolong , pial , fogass , margosa , preserved in the South; batel , brab , foras , oart , vellard in Bombay; joss , compradore , linguist in the ports of China; and among more or less…