Ambika Ananthreviews a book on Telugu usage (via languagelog) :
TELUGU BHASHALO MELAKUVALU: T. Sanjeevarao; Sunanda publications, 57, Prasanna Vinayakar Koil Street, Mylapore, Chennai-600004.
Excerpt:
"TO THE author of this book, working with zeal to instill in students clarity and flawlessness while writing and speaking Telugu the prescribed textbooks in schools came as a shock. Misspellings and grammatical errors are in plenty. Further he also observed erroneous usage of the language in newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. Writers, journalists and poets are also not above board. A serious study of this resulted in a series of essays and this volume is a compilation of those articles. The errors are classified as those of ignorance, of carelessness and those arising due to misconceived notions. By repeated usage in print and in day-to-day speech some of the bloomers gained general approval."
All seem correct to me and even official digital libraries are doing a bad job. Even now very few dictionaries are available on line; probably Brown's dictionary is the best available. Very few on technical usage. Much better work seems to have been done in Tamil and Kannada.
Recently there have been agitations to declare Telugu an ancient language and strangely many Telugus think that Telugu is derived from Samskrit. Arudra quotes from an ancient poet (pages 1-2 of Samagra Andhra Sahityam, vol. 1): "These people are equally fond of beautiful women and war, they are good looking and good eaters. I saw them coming, saying 'atu, putu, ratu'". Arudra goes on to say that these qualities still persist. Painstaking work does not seem to be one of these qualities. More drastic comments are made by Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sarma in his "Vemana".
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11 comments:
'atu, putu, ratu'?
'atu' is 'that side'. Arudra thinks that 'putu' may be a version 'pettu' and 'ratu' of 'rattu'. There is a translation of the same stanza in 'Salivahanagathasaptasati' (title approximate) translated by Rallapalli Ananthakrishna Sarma. I lost my copy long ago but PPC Joshi of Prachee Publications in Kachiguda, Hyderabad has a copy. Probably looking at both translations or talking to Joshi may give a better idea.
'painstaking work'?
My English is not good; may be that is not the right word. I was not talking about physical work and was vaguely referring to the expressions Telugus use like 'arambha suratva' when describing themselves.
How do you know PPC Joshi ?
We were classmates (60-62) and roommates for an year together with one Ranga Rao. I lost track of Ranga Rao but kept running in to Joshi and we have become fairly close friends.
Kuffir,
If you meet Joshi, pl. remember that he is old (older than me) and his health is not good.
swarup garu,
i don't consider myself an expert either.. and definitely not in telugu. my knowledge of telugu literature is very, very limited...much less than my limited knowledge of english literature..
but i knew when you said 'painstaking work' you were probably referring to the old adage that you mention. i find such sweeping generalizations amusing but not reliable indicators of a people's character.. i guess you do too. these generalizations are born when people try to compare two groups- it's a cude tool of measurement. but it's ironic that you should mention this when the whole idea of a single 'telugu' identity...even the existence of such an idea is being questioned.
but i think the formation of a single telugu identity is a desirable goal - it'd have positive effects on the economic and social well-being of a large group of indians, in my view.
Kuffir,
You are right, I think. I just love the language and hope that more will be done to make available Telugu material on line; for example online technical dictionaries.
Hello,
Apologies for using a comment space to ask a question.I know little of Telugu but I am looking for a good text with Telugu transliteration and English translation of Vemana's works.CP Brown's translation on the web has only the English.Does this Vavilla edition have this and any recommendations on where one can find this text or any others?
Hi friends,
where there is a will and there is a way, so keep trying to get jobs in Bangalore. All the best for your bright future.
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