Telugu language

Telugu
Telugu
తెలుగు
Native to	India
Region	Andhra Pradesh and neighboring states
Native speakers	66 million native, 80 million total
Language family	Dravidian South-Central Telugu Telugu; ; ;
Official status
Official language in	India
Language codes
ISO 639-1	te
ISO 639-2	tel
ISO 639-3	tel

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Telugu (తెలుగు)is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is the official language. It is the Dravidian language with the largest number of speakers (including non-native speakers), the second-largest spoken language in India after Hindi, and one of the 22 national languages of India.

History

Telugu words appear in the Maharashtri Prakrit anthology of poems (the Gathasaptashathi) collected by the first century BC Satavahana King Hala( Popularly beleived to be collected by GUNADHYA). Telugu speakers were probably the oldest peoples inhabiting the land between the Krishna and Godavari rivers.

It is a popular belief that this region was originally called as "Trilingadesa" which means the land surrounded by three lingas (Srisailam, Kaleeshwaram and Draksharamam). Hence the language spoken in this region was called as "Trilingamu" or "Trilinga Bhasa" or "Telungu" which later transformed as Telugu. Many scholars consider this as a folk-etymology.

Andhra society is one of the ancient societies of India, and the name Andhra has remained unchanged since antiquity. This is confirmed by the tales about Andhras in epics like Mahabharatam and Ramayanam, in great puranas, and in Buddhist Jataka Tales. The first clear historical inscriptions in Telugu appear about the 7th century AD and known literature starts with Nannaya writing the Andhra Mahabharata in the 11th century AD. There has been prolific literature ever since, but the golden age is considered by many to be the 16th century, under the patronage of the Vijayanagar Emperor Krishna Deva Raya. Though Krishna Deva Raya was a Kanarese, he was so much impressed by Telugu that he praised, "Of all the languages spoken in the country, Telugu is the best" (Desa bhaashalandu Telugu lessa). However this statement has also been attributed to the Telugu poet Srinatha. The poet Ravindranath Tagore is said to have stated that Telugu is the sweetest language. The famous Tamil poet Subramania Bharati has also sung thus "Sundara Telunginil Pattisaithu" which literally means "Sing in beautiful Telugu"

However, the purest form of Telugu was spoken under the reign of the Kakatiyas. One of the greatest Telugu poets, Pothanna, hailed from this region too.

The western portion of the Telugu speaking lands came under the influence of Mughal rulers during and after the 14th century, and most recently by the Nizams of Hyderabad. Ancient Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu influences show most in the Telugu dialect from these regions. In 1956, 10 Nizam districts and four districts of Rayalaseema were merged to the so-called Northern Circar districts forming the modern Telugu vernacular state of Andhra Pradesh.

The Telugu and Kannada had same script till around 220 AD. One can see the common script carved on stone in Delhi National Museum. Old Kannada or HaleGannada is essentially the continuation of the Kadamba script. The Kadamba script itself evolved from Brahmic script. It was used to write South Indian languages of Kannada and Telugu. In fact, Old Kannada is also known as the Kannada-Telugu script.

Differentiation of the Old Kannada script into the modern scripts of Kannada and Telugu began as early as the 13th century CE, but the process did not finish until the early 19th century CE with the arrival of printing. Even so, the Telugu and Kannada scripts have remained extremely similar. [1] [2]

Classification

Telugu is a Dravidian language, related to Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil, all of which are national languages of India. Other closely-related Dravidian languages are Chenchu, Savara, and Waddar.

Geographic distribution

Telugu is mainly spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh and a bit in the neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh in India, but it is also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius and the United Arab Emirates where there are large numbers of Telugu-speaking expatriates.

Official status

Telugu is one of the official languages of India. It is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Dialects

The dialects of Telugu identified by Ethnologue are Berad, Dasari, Dommara, Golari, Kamathi, Komtao, Konda-Reddi, Madiga Salewari, padmasali, Telangana, Telugu, Vadaga, Vadari, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, Rayalaseema, Nellore and Guntur.

In Tamil Nadu the Telugu dialect is classified into Salem, Coimbatore, Chennai Telugu dialects. It is also widely spoken in Virudhunagar, Tuticorin, Madurai and Thanjavur districts.

Along with the most standard forms of Indian languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, and Hindi, Standard Telugu is often called a Suddha Bhaasha ("pure language"). The dialect spoken in the area between Guntur (Guntur) and Rajahmundry (East Godavari; Rajamahendri in ancient times) where the first Telugu scholar Nannaya Bhattaraka first wrote the script and other important works is considered the standard dialect.

Sounds

19th century Englishmen called Telugu the Italian of the East as all native words in Telugu end with a vowel sound, but it is believed that Italian explorer Niccolò Da Conti coined the phrase in the 15th Century. Possibly because of its high use of open syllables (consonant+vowel), Telugu is sometimes also nicknamed "Tenugu", which means "as sweet as honey".

Vowels

Like other major Dravidian languages, the Telugu vowel set adds short /e/ & /o/ in addition to the long /eː/ & /oː/ of the Indo-Aryan languages.

అ	ఆ	ఇ	ఈ	ఉ	ఊ	ఋ	ౠ	ఌ	ౡ	ఎ	ఏ	ఐ	ఒ	ఓ	ఔ	అం	అః
/a/	/ɑː/	/ɪ/	/iː/	/u/	/uː/	/ru/	/ruː/	/lu/	/luː/	/e/	/eː/	/ai/	/o/	/oː/	/au/	/am/	/aɦ/

The rhotics: ఋ & ౠ (originally /r/ & /rː/), like the liquids: ఌ & ౡ (originally /l/ & /lː/) have now decayed into the syllables /ru/, /ruː/, /lu/ & /luː/ respectively. They are fast going out of currency and are no longer included in the standard Telugu school textbooks issued by the government of Andhra Pradesh, which now prefers the actual consonants with a /u/ appended (e.g. /ruʃɪ/ (monk) used to be written ఋషి but nowadays, రుషి is preferred).

Consonants

క ఖ గ ఘ ఙ
చ ఛ జ ఝ ఞ
ట ఠ డ ఢ ణ
త థ ద ధ న
ప ఫ బ భ మ
య ర ల వ శ ష స హ ళ క్ష ఱ

The consonants correspond almost one-to-one to the set in sanskrit, with two exceptions. One is the historical form of /r/ ఱ which is now again being phased out by the current form ర. (e.g. /gurːam/ (horse) was written గుఱ్ఱం but is now written గుర్రం). The other is the retroflex lateral ళ /ɭ/.

Phonology

Though the Telugu consonant set lists aspirated consonants (both voiced & unvoiced), they're reserved mostly for transcribing Sanskrit borrowings. To most native speakers, the aspirated & unaspirated consonants are practically allophonic (like in Tamil). The distinction is made however, rather strictly, in written or literary Telugu.

Grammar

In Telugu, Karta కర్త (nominative case or the doer), Karma కర్మ (object of the verb) and Kriya క్రియ (action or the verb) follow a sequence. Telugu also has the Vibhakthi విభక్తి (preposition) tradition.

Telugu -	రాముడు (Ramudu) బంతి (bantini) కొట్టు (kottadu)
Literally -	Rama ball hit
Reformatting it -	"Rama hit the ball"

Inflection

Telugu is often considered an agglutinative language, where certain syllables are added to the end of a noun in order to denote its case:

Instrumental:	Ramunito	రామునితో	(తో; to)
Dative:	Ramuniki	రామునికి	(కి; ki or కు; ku)
Ablative:	Ramudininchi	రాముడినించి	(నించి; ninchi or నుంచి; nunchi)
Genitive:	Ramuni	రాముని	(ని; ni)

These agglutinations apply to all nouns generally in the singular and plural.

Here is how other cases are manifested in Telugu:

Location

Case	Usage	English Example	Telugu Example
Adessive case	adjacent location	near/at/by the house	ఇంటిపక్క /ɪŋʈɪpakːa/
Inessive case	inside something	inside the house	ఇంట్లో /ɪŋʈloː/
Locative case	location	at/on/in the house	ఇంటిదగ్గర /ɪŋʈɪd̪agːara/
Superessive case	on the surface	on (top of) the house	ఇంటిపై /ɪŋʈɪpaj/

Motion

Case	Usage	English Example	Telugu Example
Allative case	movement to (the adjacency of) something	to the house	ఇంటికి /ɪŋʈɪkɪ/, ఇంటివైపు /ɪŋʈɪvajpu/
Delative case	movement from the surface	from (the top of) the house	ఇంటిపైనించి /ɪŋʈɪnɪɲcɪ/
Egressive case	marking the beginning of a movement or time	beginning from the house	ఇంటినించి /ɪŋʈɪnɪɲcɪ/ (ఇంటికెల్లి /ɪŋʈlakelːɪ/ in some dialects)
Elative case	out of something	out of the house	ఇంటిలోనించి /ɪŋʈɪnɪɲcɪ/ (ఇంట్లకెల్లి /ɪŋʈlakelːɪ/ in some dialects)
Illative case	movement into something	into the house	ఇంటిలోనికి /ɪŋʈɪloːnɪkɪ/ (ఇంట్లోకి /ɪŋʈloːkɪ/)
Prosecutive case	across or along	along the road	రోడ్డుపోంటి /roːɖːupoːŋʈɪ/
Sublative case	movement onto the surface	on(to) the house	ఇంటిపైకి /ɪŋʈɪpajkɪ/
Terminative case	marking the end of a movement or time	as far as the house	ఇంటివరకు /ɪŋʈɪvaraku/

Morphosyntactic alignment

Case	Usage	English Example	Telugu Example
Oblique case	all-round case; any situation except nominative	concerning the house	ఇంటిగురించి /ɪŋʈɪgurɪɲcɪ/

Relation

Case	Usage	English Example	Telugu Example
Benefactive case	for, for the benefit of, intended for	for the house	ఇంటికోసం /ɪŋʈɪkoːsam/ (ఇంటికొరకు /ɪŋʈɪkoraku/)
Causal case	because, because of	because of the house	ఇంటివలన /ɪŋʈɪvalana/
Comitative case	in company of something	with the house	ఇంటితో /ɪŋʈɪt̪oː/
Possessive case	direct possession of something	owned by the house	ఇంటియొక్క /ɪŋʈɪjokːa/

Polyagglutination

While the examples given above are single agglutinations, Telugu allows for polyagglutination, the unique feature of being able to add multiple suffixes to words to denote more complex features:

For example, one can affix both "నించి; ninchi - from" and "లో; lo - in" to a noun to denote from within. An example of this: "రాములోనించి; ramuloninchi - from within Ramu"

Here is an example of a triple agglutination: "వాటిమధ్యలోనించి; vāṭimadʰyalōninchi - from in between them"

Vowel Harmony

Like in Turkish and Finnish, Telugu words have vowels in inflectional suffixes harmonised with the vowels of the preceding syllable.

Inclusive/Exclusive Pronouns

Telugu exhibits one of the rare features that Dravidian languages share with few others: the inclusive and exclusive we. The bifurcation of the First Person Plural pronoun (we in English) into inclusive (మనము; manamu) and exclusive (మేము; mēmu) versions can also be found in Tamil and Malayalam, although it is not used in modern Kannada.

Gender

Telugu pronouns follow the systems for gender and respect also found in other Indian languages. The second person plural మీరు /miːru/ is used in addressing someone with respect, and there are also respectful third personal pronouns (ఆయన /ɑːjana/ m. & ఆవిడ /ɑːvɪɽa/ f.) pertaining to both genders. A specialty of the Telugu language, however, is that the third person non-respectful feminine (అది /ad̪ɪ/) is used to refer to objects, and there is no special neuter gender that is used.

Vocabulary

Like all Dravidian languages, Telugu has a base (or lexicon) of words which are essentially Dravidian in origin. Words that describe objects or actions associated with common or everyday life: like తల; 'tala' (head), పులి; 'puli' (tiger), ఊరు; 'ūru' (town/city) have cognates in other Dravidian languages and are indigenous to the Dravidian language family.

However, Telugu is also largely Sanskritized, that is, it has a wide variety of words of Sanskrit/Prakrit origin. This large Sanskrit influence can be attributed to many factors. One major influence was the rule of the Satavahana kings, who extensively used Prakrit as the official language of courts and government, whereas their subjects spoke Dravidian Telugu. Further, cultural exchange between the Aryan peoples and the Dravidians was very common since ancient times. As is the case with most Indian languages, the vocabulary of what is referred to as 'pure' Telugu is almost exclusively based on Sanskrit.

Due to centuries of interaction with the Muslim rulers of the erstwhile kingdoms of Golkonda and Hyderabad, the Telugu vocabulary also has a trove of Perso-Arabic borrowings which entered via Urdu, albeit modified to fit the Telugu phonology (e.g. కబురు, /kaburu/ for Urdu /xabar/, خبر or జవాబు, /ʝavɑːbu/ for Urdu /ʝawɑːb/, جواب)

Writing system

Main article: Telugu script

The Telugu (తెలుగు) script is believed to descend from the Brahmi script of the Ashokan era. Merchants took the Eastern Chalukyan Script to Southeast Asia where it parented the scripts of Mon, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, C"am, Javanese and Balinese languages. Their similarities to Telugu script can be discerned even today. Its appearance is quite similar to the Kannada script, its closest cousin.

Telugu script is written from left to right and consists of sequences of simple and/or complex characters. The script is syllabic in nature - the basic units of writing are syllables. Since the number of possible syllables is very large, syllables are composed of more basic units such as vowels (“achchu” or “swar”) and consonants (“hallu” or “vyanjan”). Consonants in consonant clusters take shapes which are very different from the shapes they take elsewhere. Consonants are presumed to be pure consonants, that is, without any vowel sound in them. However, it is traditional to write and read consonants with an implied 'a' vowel sound. When consonants combine with other vowel signs, the vowel part is indicated orthographically using signs known as vowel “maatras”. The shapes of vowel “maatras” are also very different from the shapes of the corresponding vowels.

The overall pattern consists of 60 symbols, of which 16 are vowels, 3 vowel modifiers, and 41 consonants. Spaces are used between words as word separators.

The sentence ends with either a single (“purna virama”) or a double bar (“deergha virama”).

They also have a set of symbols for numerals, though Arabic numbers are typically used.

Telugu is assigned Unicode codepoints: 0C00-0C7F (3072-3199).

Vocabulary examples

Telugu	IPA	English
ఒకటి	/okaʈɪ/	one
జింక	/ɟɪŋka/	deer
చింతపండు	/cɪnt̪apaɳɖu/	Tamarind
అమ్మ	/amːa/	mother
ఊయల	/uːjala/	cradle
ఇల్లు	/ɪlːu/	house
మందారం	/mand̪ɑːram/	Hibiscus
వెన్నెల	/venːela/	moonlight
బ్రహ్మాండం	/bramːɑːɳɖam/	excellent

Literature in Telugu

Main article: Telugu literature

The famous Indian literary epic, the Mahābhārata, was translated into Telugu over a period of a few centuries by Nannaya, Tikkana and Yerrapragada. Nannaya is also credited with formalizing Telugu grammar. Pōtana wrote the Bhāgavatam that focuses on devotion to Mahāvishnu and his avatars (incarnations). Vēmana wrote moral and social poems that are still popular in common man's usage. Also the list of illustrious Telugu writers include Srīnāthudu, Molla etc.,

The Vijayanagara dynasty produced a very prolific set of poets during the reign of Sri Krishnadēvarāya. Allasani Peddana, Nandi Timmana, Māyadagari Mallana, Ayyalarāju Rāmabhadrudu, Tenāli Rāmakrishna, Dhūrjati and Pingali Sūrana were Krishnadevaraya's court poets.

Sri Pothulūri Vīrabrahmēndra Swāmi (like his western counterpart Nostradamus) composed "Kālagnānam", the records of the past, present, and future.

A number of famous luminaries in classical Indian music called "Carnatic Music" wrote their works in Telugu. Tyāgarāja, Syāma Sāstri, Annamāchārya, Kshethrayya and Badrāchala Rāmadāsu are among a large number of contributors. Modern composers like Mysore Vāsudēvachāri also chose Telugu as their medium of composition. Even though poets like Annamāchārya also composed in other South Indian languages, a great amount of their work was in Telugu.

External links