Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters | Belapur

This week at the Blue Tokai Book Club, we’re diving into Wanderers, Kings, Merchants by Peggy Mohan. Recommended by the brilliant women at @storytellerkol, this book turns big ideas about linguistics into a lively, engaging read. Mohan explores the complex world of speech patterns, word choices, and language shifts through inviting prose. She reveals how Sanskrit and Dravidian languages shaped each other, how Kerala’s Namboodiri Brahmins wove Sanskrit words into Malayalam, and how Nagamese sprang up in the North-East India as a fresh branch of the Māgadhan languages. She also explores the rise of Urdu, the Sanskritization of Hindi in the 1800s, and how English took root under the Raj and after independence. By the end, you’re sure to see languages as living entities, shaped by migrations, conquests, and everyday life. Reading along? Drop your thoughts with us in the comments. 💙 P.S. Keep an eye on our feed for weekly picks from some of our favourite local independent bookstores.