Telugu language

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ISO 639-1

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ISO 639-2

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Telugu(తెలుగు) belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is also one among the 23 official national languages of India. 19th century Englishmen called it the "Italian of the East" as all words in Telugu end with a vowel sound.

History

The origins of Telugu are obscure. Telugu words appear in the Maharashtri Prakrit anthology of poems (the Gadhasaptashathi) collected by the first century BC Satavahana King Hala. Telugu speakers were probably the older Dravidian peoples inhabiting the land between Krishna and Godavari. The Andhras were probably an Indo-European Aryan tribe, to which the Satavahanas also belonged, who immigrated from the north and settled the land. The two blended together to eventually produce the modern Telugu language and culture, for which the word Andhra is interchangeably used today.

The first clear historical inscriptions in Telugu appear about the 7th century AD and known literature starts with Nannaya writing the Telugu Mahabharata in the 11th century. 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.

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 4 districts of Rayalaseema were merged to the so-called Northern Circar districts forming the modern telugu vernacular state of Andhra Pradesh.

Classification

Telugu is a member of the Telugu languages, along with Chenchu language, Savara language, and Waddar language. The Telugu languages are part of the South-central branch of the Dravidian languages.

Geographic distribution

Telugu is mainly spoken in Andhra Pradesh in India and in neighboring states(Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharastra, Orissa) in India, but it is also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius and United Arab Emirates. They have become a successful Asian Indian community in the USA [1].

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, Salewari, Telangana, Telugu, Vadaga, Vadari, Srikakula, Vishakapatnam, East Godavari, Rayalseema, 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.

Derived languages

Sounds

Vowels

అ ఆ ఇ ఈ ఉ ఊ ఋ ౠ ఌ ౡ ఎ ఏ ఐ ఒ ఓ ఔ అ౦ అః

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 ఱ

Phonology

Historical sound changes

Grammar

Telugu, like most other Dravidian Languages, is highly inflected: a fact more often lost to scholars who study it through a traditionally Sanksritised perspective. The core of Telugu grammar is very similar to that of Tamil.

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. This is one of the several reasons why Linguists classify Telugu as a Dravidian Language--this pattern found in other Dravidian languages but not in Sanskrit. Telugu also has the Vibhakthi(విభక్తి) (or preposition) tradition.

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

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

For example, the declension of Ramudu (masculine singular) in the Sanskrit/Latin style would be:

Nominative:	Ramudu	రాముడు	(డు; du)
Accusative:	Ramudini	రాముడిని	(ని; ni)
Instrumental:	Ramunito	రామునితో	(తో; to)
Dative:	Ramuniki	రామునికి	(కి; ki)
Ablative:	Ramudininchi	రాముడినించి	(నించి; ninchi)
Genitive:	Ramuni	రాముని	(ని; ni)

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

However, in the analysis above, many additional cases were missed. The cases below are found in few Indo-European languages but are common in Finno-Ugric languages.

Location

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

Motion

Case	Usage	English Example	Telugu Example
Allative case	movement to (the adjacency of) something	to the house	ఇంటివైపు
Delative case	movement from the surface	from (the top of) the house	ఇంటిపైనుంచి
Egressive case	marking the beginning of a movement or time	beginning from the house	ఇంటినుంచి (ఇంటికెల్లి in some dialects)
Elative case	out of something	out of the house	ఇంటిలోనుంచి (ఇంట్లకెల్లి in some dialects)
Illative case	movement into something	into the house	ఇంటిలోనికి (ఇంట్లోకి)
Prosecutive case	across or along	along the road	రోడ్డుపోంటి
Sublative case	movement onto the surface	on(to) the house	ఇంటిపైకి
Terminative case	marking the end of a movement or time	as far as the house	ఇంటివరకు

Morphosyntactic alignment

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

Relation

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

Inclusive/Exclusive Pronouns

Telugu exhibits one of the delightful quirks of Dravidian languages: the bifurcation of the First Person Plural pronoun (we in English) into inclusive (మనము; manamu) and exclusive (మేము; memu) versions.

Vocabulary

Writing system

The Telugu (తెలుగు) script is believed to have evolved from the Brahmi script of the Ashokan era. Merchants took the Easern 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. Telugu is usually written using the Telugu alphabet, a Brahmic script. Its appearance is quite similar to the Kannada alphabet, its closest cousin..

Telugu script is written from left to right and consists of sequences of simple and/or complex characters. The script is largely 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 (“deergh 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).

Examples

ఒకటి - one
రెండు - Two
మూడు - Three
అమ్మ - Mother
ఆవు - Cow
ఇల్లు - House
ఈగ - HouseFly

Literature in Telugu

The Vijayanagara dynasty produced a very prolific set of poets during the reign of Sri Krishnadevaraya. Tenali Ramakrishna, Dhoorjati and Allasani Peddanna were Krishnadevaraya's court poets.

Sri Potluri Veerabrahmendra Swami (like his western counterpart Nostradamus) composed "Kalagnanam", the records of the past, present, and future.

The famous Indian literary epic, the Mahabharatha, was translated into telugu over a period of a few centuries by Nannaya, Tikkana and Yerrapragada. Nannaya is also credited to have participated in formalizing Telugu grammar.

A number of famous luminaries in classical Indian music called "Carnatic Music" wrote their works in telugu. Tyagaraja, Annamacharya and Kshetrayya are among a large number of contributors. Modern composers like Mysore Vasudevachari also chose Telugu as their medium of composition.

Some popular works and their authors

Samagraandhra Saahithyamu (సమగ్రాంధ్ర సాహిత్యము) (The Complete Telugu Literature) - Aarudhra (ఆరుద్ర)
Gona Ganna Reddy - Adavi Baapiraaju
Naarayanarao - Adavi Baapiraaju
Thuphaanu (The storm) - Adavi Baapiraaju
Mama charithra (The Uncle's History) - Allasaani Peddana
Bhagavatham - Bammera Pothana
Chivaraku migilaedhi? (The remains?) - Buchchibabu
Vishwambhara - C. Narayana Reddy
Vijayavilaasamu - Chaemakoori Venkatakavi
Gayopaakyaanam - Chilakamarti Lakshmi Narasimham
Timiramu lo samaramu (The battle in the ocean)- Daasaradhi
Paanasaala - Davvoori Raamireddy
Krishna pakshamu (The waning phase of moon) - Devulapalli Krishna Sastri
Sivabhaaratham - Gadiyaaram Venkatasesha Sastri
Ranganaadha Raamayanamu - Gonabuddhaa Reddy
Chithraangi - Chalam
Maidhaanam - Chalam
Saavithri - Chalam
Kanyaasulkamu - Gurajada Apparao
Gabbilamu (The bat) - Gurram Jashuva
Piradousi - Gurram Jashuva
Dasakumaara charithra - Kaethana
Andhrakavula Charithra (The history of Andhra Poets)- Kandukuri Veeresalingam
Raajasekhara Charithra (The history of Rajasekhara) - Kandukuri Veeresalingam
Andhra Mahaabhaarathamu (The great Mahabharatha in Telugu) - Kavitrayam (Nannayya, Tikkana, Yerrapragada)
Rukmini parinayamu (Rukmini's wedding) - Koochimanchi Timmana
Sreenaadhudu (The poet Srinadha) - Korlapati Sriraamamurthy
Maarkandaeya puraanamu - Maadhava
Amaravati Kathalu (The stories from Amaravati)- Mullapudi Venkata Ramana
Budugu - Mullapudi Venkata Ramana
Raamayana vishavruksham - Muppala Ranganayakamma
Yenki paatalu - Nandoori Subbarao
Kumaara Sambhavamu - Nanne Choadudu
Bathikina collegee - Palagummi Padmarao
Basava puraanamu - Palkooriki Somanaadhudu
Saakshi (The witness) - Panuganti Lakshmi Narasimham
Baalavyaakaranamu - Paravasthu Chinnayasuri
Kalaa poornodhayamu - Pingali Soorana
Alpajeevi (The miserable) - Rachakonda Viswanatha Sastri
Vasu charithra - Ramaraaja Bhooshanudu
Paakudu raallu - Ravuri Bharadwaj
Jada kuchchulu - Raayaprolu Subbarao
Ramyaaloakam - Raayaprolu Subbarao
Aamukta Maalyadha - Sri Krishna Deva Raya
Mahaaprasthaanamu - Sri Sri
Haravilaasamu - Srinatha
Kaasikandamu - Srinatha
Palnaati veeracharithra - Srinatha
Srungaara naishadhamu - Srinatha
Aandhrula Saanghika Charithra - Suravaram Pratapareddy
Paanduranga mahatyamu - Tenali Raamakrisha
Baapu aathmakadha (Rashtra gaanamu) - Thummala Seetaraamamoorhty Chowdhary
Nirvachanoththara Raamayanamu - Tikkana
Paarijaathaapaharanamu - Timmana
Devi bhaagavatham - Tirupati Venkata Kavulu
Paandavodyogamulu - Tirupati Venkata Kavulu
Merupula Marakalu - Tripuranaeni Gopichand
Maala pilla - Unnava Lakshminaarayana
Cheliyalikatta - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Kalpavrukshamu - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Kinnerasaani Paatalu - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Srimadraamaayana - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Swargaaniki Nichchenalu - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Vaeyipadagalu - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Yaeekaveera - Viswanatha Satyanarayana
Harivansamu - Yerrapragada
Nrusimhapuranam - Yerrapragada
TELUGU WOMEN WRITERS OF THE LAST MILLENNIUM

External links

This language has its own Wikipedia Project. You can visit and contribute at the [[:{{}}:|Telugu_language Wikipedia.

Telugu language

History

Classification

Geographic distribution

Official status

Dialects

Derived languages

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Phonology

Historical sound changes

Grammar

Location

Motion

Morphosyntactic alignment

Relation

Inclusive/Exclusive Pronouns

Vocabulary

Writing system

Examples

Literature in Telugu

Some popular works and their authors

See also

External links