Ovid's adapted quote suggests language is fluid but retains its essence, like wax taking new forms. How does this view reconcile with or challenge the concerns expressed by the Surat Factors and R. Verstegan regarding the perceived degradation or confusion caused by the influx of "foreign" words?

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…

words; and so I regard them, just as good as alligator , or hurricane , or canoe , or Jerusalem artichoke, or cheroot . What would my friends think of spelling these in English books as alagarto , and huracan , and canoa , and girasole , and shuruṭṭu ? ↑ Unfortunately, the translators of the Indo-Portuguese New Testament have, as much as possible, preserved the Portuguese orthography. ↑ [In note "Luncheons."]

e to affect its distinctive character, in which something has been aimed at differing in form from any work known to us. In its original conception it was intended to deal with all that class of words which, not in general pertaining to the technicalities of administration, recur constantly in the daily intercourse of the English in India, either as expressing ideas really not provided for by ​ our mother-tongue, or supposed by the speakers (often quite erroneously) to express something not capable of just denotation by any English term. A certain percentage of such words have been carried to…

dilemma, or bifurcation, i.e. on two or more sources of almost equal probability, and in themselves ​ entirely diverse. In such cases it may be that, though the use of the word originated from one of the sources, the existence of the other has invigorated that use, and contributed to its eventual diffusion. An example of this is boy , in its application to a native servant. To this application have contributed both the old English use of boy (analogous to that of puer , garçon , Knabe ) for a camp-servant, or for a slave, and the Hindī-Marāṭhī bhoi , the name of a caste which has furnished…