Guwahati, Sept. 20 -- 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 ...