In English you have a word daughter. You may not be aware that it is very ancient. It comes from the Sanskrit, duhita. Five or ten thousand years ago, it was the privilege of the daughter to milk the cow. duhita means one who milks the cow. Now from duhita has arisen the word daughter, because only daughters were doing that job ten thousand years ago in India. The reason is that the cow is holy to the Hindus, and they would like it to be milked only by a virgin girl, to keep the milk holy. But what has it to do with daughter? There may be millions of daughters who have never touched a single cow, and they are still being called daughter.

If you look into the history of any word, you will make amazing discoveries. How has it arisen? Centuries have changed the word’s color, its tone, its pronunciation – everything. New qualities have been given to it which are not applicable. Words are dead things, and it is time that we have one language, scientifically arranged.

When the first American woman met me, it was nearly thirty years ago. She was interested in me – I was traveling, and she asked, “What is your schedule?”

I said, “Forgive me, I don’t understand this word – skedual? What is a skedual?

She was puzzled. She said, “This is a simple word, a common word.”

I said, “You just explain it to me, perhaps I may be able to figure out what you mean.”

And then I found out – because in India, English is spoken with the British pronunciation, not the American. Certainly the American pronunciation of the word is more accurate because of the spelling of the word. The British pronunciation is “shed-dule,” not “skedual” – they are the same words. I was accustomed to hearing “shed-dule.”

I said to her, “Forgive me, but there was no way to figure out that it is ‘shed-dule’ that you are using.”

There is so much misunderstanding in the world, and one of the greatest reasons is that we have so many languages. It is a tower of Babel. You cannot understand what the communist is saying, because he has his own connotations of the word, his own meaning. The communist cannot understand what you are saying, he has different connotations of the same word.

Communists believe they have the real democracy, because how can a democracy exist where the society is divided into classes? – the poor and the rich and the middlers. If the society is divided and the gap is so big between the rich and the poor, the rich are going to dominate; so don’t call it democracy, it is aristocracy. No communist is ready to believe that in America there is democracy, because the first basic thing is not to write in the constitution that “all men are equal,” but to make them equal; then democracy is possible.

If there are so many poor people, their votes can be purchased. They are being purchased, because for the poor man democracy cannot give bread and butter. The word democracy is for those who have everything, it is not for him. If he can get something tangible just for giving a vote, he is ready.