Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Telugu grammar and how it changed

The rules of written Telugu, from the Sanskrit grammar credited to Nannaya, through Ketana, Appakavi and Chinnaya Suri's Bala Vyakaranamu, to the grammars of the British period and the twentieth-century fight between bookish and spoken Telugu.

A grammar sets out the rules for using a language correctly. For centuries, the rules of written Telugu were made by poet-scholars, and they were mostly rules for poetry. Their grammars were written in Sanskrit, on the plan of Sanskrit grammar.12

This page follows those grammarians in time order. It then turns to the European grammars of the 19th century, and to the 20th-century quarrel between bookish and spoken Telugu.3 The story of Telugu writing in general is on the page Language & literature.

A grammar older than Nannaya?

Telugu tradition names a sage, Kanva, as the first grammarian of the language. A. D. Campbell heard in 1816 that Kanva had written his work for a king called Andhra Raya.4 Robert Caldwell, in 1875, thought such a story had some basis, but added that Kanva’s work, “if it ever existed”, was lost.5

P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, writing in 1928, made a guess of their own. Since the Andhra kings followed a dynasty called the Kanvas, they thought this Kanva may have been one of that family. If so, his grammar would have been in Prakrit.6 No copy of it survives.

Nannaya’s Andhra Sabda Chintamani

The oldest Telugu grammar that survives is the Andhra Sabda Chintamani (“the wish-granting jewel of Telugu words”). It is a set of short rules (sutras) in Sanskrit. Tradition gives it to Nannaya, the poet who began the Telugu Mahabharata.5 Campbell wrote that every Telugu grammar in use in his day was a Sanskrit commentary on these rules. They were his own main guide.1

The grammar treats Telugu as vikriti, a language formed by changing Sanskrit and Prakrit. K. Sitaramaiya pointed to one of its rules to show this.7 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao noted that all the Telugu grammarians held this view.8 The same grammar names older grammarians whose views it did not share, such as one Kavibhallata. Sitaramaiya took this as a sign that grammar and poetry existed before Nannaya.9

Atharvana and Ketana

Two grammarians of the 13th century followed. The first called himself Atharvana and wrote the Trilinga Sabdanusasana, again in Sanskrit.1011 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao thought “Atharvana” was a pen-name, chosen to make the language seem as old as the Atharva Veda. They called him the only Jain writer in the whole of surviving Telugu literature.10 Later writers called him Dvitiyacharya, “the second teacher”, because Nannaya was counted the first.11

A story says that Nannaya burnt Atharvana’s Telugu Mahabharata. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao rejected it, because the two men did not live at the same time.12

The second was Ketana. Besides translating Dandin’s Dasakumaracharita, he wrote a grammar called the Andhra Bhasha Bhushanamu.11 Ketana himself said that no Telugu grammar had been written before his.13 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao took him at his word. In their view the first grammars were made by scholars of Sanskrit, and that is why the early ones were written in Sanskrit.13

Metre: the Kavijanasrayamu

Telugu poets also needed rules for metre (chandas). The Kavijanasrayamu (“refuge of poets”) is perhaps the oldest Telugu book on metre that survives.14 Jayanti Ramayya published its first full text, from ten manuscripts, with an English preface. The book says it was written by Malliya Recha. But one manuscript says that the poet Bhima Kavi of Vemulavada wrote it in Recha’s name.14

Ramayya accepted the tradition that Bhima Kavi was the author. He placed Vemulavada in Karimnagar district, not near Draksharama as some held.15 From two verses that tradition gives to Bhima, he dated the poet to about 1100, after Nannaya.16

Appakavi’s Telugu verse grammar

In the 17th century Kakunuri Appakavi wrote the Appakaviyamu. In its preface he called it a Telugu rendering of the Andhra Sabda Chintamani.17 Caldwell ranked him next to Nannaya as a grammarian, and noted that he wrote in Telugu verse, not in Sanskrit.5 His third chapter deals with yati and prasa, the rules for where sounds must match in a line of verse.17

These old books lasted a long time. C. P. Brown complained that Telugu tutors told beginners to read the grammars of Nannaya and Appakavi. He was glad that he had not read them until he could speak the language. In a note he added that both were still taught to pupils of Madras University in 1856.18 In 1922 a new edition of the Appakaviyamu appeared. Its two editors were Gidugu Ramamurti and Utpala Venkata Narasimhacharyulu.19

Four kinds of words

The old grammarians sorted the words of Telugu into kinds. Campbell explained their scheme in 1816:20

  • desya, “the language of the land”, words native to Telugu
  • tatsama, Sanskrit words used unchanged
  • tadbhava, Sanskrit words changed in Telugu mouths
  • gramya, “provincial” or rustic words20

Later grammarians added a fifth kind, anyadesya, words from other lands.20 William Carey’s grammar of 1814 used only three of these classes.21 Campbell argued that the native words were the largest class, and the model for all the rest.20

The European grammars

Campbell sat on the board of the College of Fort St George in Madras. He saw that its Telugu students had no book on the elements of the language, so he turned his notes on the native grammars into one.22 Five such grammars appeared within sixty years:232425

  • William Carey, of the College of Fort William in Calcutta, in 1814
  • A. D. Campbell, printed at the College Press in Madras, in 1816
  • William Brown, at Machilipatnam (then Masulipatam), in 1817, with the help of Mamidi Venkayya
  • C. P. Brown, in 1840, and again in 1857
  • A. H. Arden, in 187325

Their authors disagreed with each other, and with the pandits. Campbell held that Telugu and Sanskrit came from “altogether distinct” sources, and criticised Carey for thinking otherwise.2426 Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of 1875 then placed Telugu in the Dravidian family, next to Tamil in age and richness.27

C. P. Brown found that the old grammars were “constructed on the Sanscrit plan”, though the two languages are “radically different”.2 He said that the pandits’ phrase “Sanscrit is the mother” meant only that Telugu could not be spoken without Sanskrit words.2 He called Campbell’s grammar “accurate, though very imperfect”, because it followed the native method.28

Two Telugus: the book and the street

Every one of these writers met the same problem. Campbell noted in 1816 that Telugu poetry used a “superior” dialect, while people used an “inferior” or colloquial one for talk and business.29 Brown found that the pandits taught only the poetical forms, because they thought everyone already knew the spoken ones.30

Arden put it most sharply in 1873. Spoken Telugu, he wrote, differed so much from the Telugu of books that “thousands of Natives” who spoke nothing else could not understand a book read aloud to them.31 So he taught the colloquial dialect first, and kept it apart from the grammatical one.31

Chinnaya Suri’s Bala Vyakaranamu

For the grammatical dialect, Arden chose one authority: the grammar of Paravastu Chinnaya Suri, “since it is most largely used, and generally regarded as the best authority”.32 This was the Bala Vyakaranamu (“grammar for the young”).33 Chinnaya Suri taught Telugu at the Presidency College in Madras, and built his grammar on the Andhra Sabda Chintamani and other old grammars.34

According to Khandavalli Lakshmiranjanam and Balendusekharam, writing in 1957, his book changed how Telugu prose was written. Before him, they say, prose was written in the everyday language. From his time on, prose too had to follow the grammar of poetry.34

The new rules reached even the dictionaries. In 1895 M. Venkata Ratnam revised C. P. Brown’s English and Telugu dictionary. Brown, he wrote, had always written “the language as it is spoken but not written”. So Venkata Ratnam changed many of Brown’s words to make them “more literary”.35

What the inscriptions show

Inscriptions give another view of the language. K. K. Rangadhacharyulu studied the Telugu of inscriptions from 1401 to 1900, in a thesis written at Osmania University in 1974–78.36 He found that the spelling of inscriptions often follows the way people really spoke.36

He also reports a finding of his teacher, Bh. Krishnamurti. Comparing inscriptions with poetry, Krishnamurti found two kinds of written Telugu as early as the 11th century: a spoken kind in prose inscriptions, and a literary kind in poems. The spoken language kept changing, while the language of poetry stayed almost the same for centuries.37

The fight over spoken Telugu

In the early 20th century this gap became a public quarrel. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called it “an acrimonious battle of words” between the literary (grandhika) and the colloquial Telugu.3 The best-known voice for spoken (vyavaharika) Telugu was Gidugu Ramamurti. By 1933 he had argued its case for about twenty-five years.38

In 1933, for Gidugu’s seventieth birthday, Telikicherla Venkataratnam of Guntur published four of his books. One was the Andhra Pandita Bhishakkula Bhasha Bheshajam, “a language medicine for the pandit-doctors of Andhra”.3940 The editor’s preface sums up Gidugu’s case in four arguments:3840

  • Like every language, Telugu changes. The poets of each age wrote the cultured speech (sishta vyavaharam) of their own day, and writers today should do the same.
  • Old prose works, commentaries, local histories, inscriptions, stories and school books were written in the language of their time. Those who wanted bookish Telugu had changed that language when they copied it.
  • No one could say exactly what “grandhika” Telugu was. The grammars contradicted each other, and scholars found mistakes in each other’s books.
  • The forms that grammarians called wrong were found by the hundred in the old poets themselves, and a poet’s usage outweighs a grammar.40

Sitaramaiya wrote in 1943 that Gidugu had gone through almost the whole of Telugu literature to collect such forms. He lived to see the universities prescribe textbooks in spoken Telugu.4142 What happened next is told on the page Language & literature.

Where the sources disagree

Who wrote the Andhra Sabda Chintamani. Campbell and Caldwell accepted it as Nannaya’s.15 So did Appakavi, who called his own book a Telugu rendering of it.17 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao listed it among five books credited to Nannaya. They thought that “in all probability” he wrote none of them.12 Ketana’s claim that no grammar came before his own points the same way.13

When Nannaya lived. Campbell, following Colonel Wilkes, thought Nannaya’s king might be older even than the Kadamba kings of the 2nd century.43 Caldwell reported that Campbell placed this king at about the start of the Christian era, but that C. P. Brown placed him in the 12th century.5 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao made Nannaya the poet of the Eastern Chalukya king Rajaraja Narendra, who ruled from 1022 to 1063.44

When the Bala Vyakaranamu was written. Lakshmiranjanam and Balendusekharam give 1855.34 The copy in this site’s library is a fourth edition, printed in 1871.33

Footnotes

  1. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. x (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Brown, Grammar of the Telugu Language (1857), Preface, p. vi (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 109 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  4. A. D. Campbell, A Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. ix (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. Caldwell, Comparative Grammar (1875), Introduction, p. 123 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 21 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  7. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 5 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  8. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 16 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  9. Sitaramaiya, Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 21 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  10. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 55 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  11. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 56 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 43 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  13. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), pp. 38–39 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. Jayanti Ramayya Pantulu, Preface to Kavijanasrayamu (1917), p. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  15. Ramayya, Preface to Kavijanasrayamu, p. 2 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  16. Ramayya, Preface to Kavijanasrayamu, p. 3 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  17. Balusu Venkata Satyanarayana Murti, introduction to Appakaviyamu, Tritiyasvasamu (Rajahmundry: Rohini Publications, 1998), p. 7. Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  18. Brown, Grammar of the Telugu Language (1857), Preface, p. iii and note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  19. Appakaviyamu, revised by Gidugu Ramamurti Pantulu and Utpala Venkata Narasimhacharyulu (Madras: Vavilla Ramaswami Sastrulu and Sons, 1922), title page (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  20. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. xxi (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  21. Carey, Grammar of the Telinga Language (1814), p. 9 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  22. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Preface (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  23. William Carey, A Grammar of the Telinga Language (Serampore: Mission Press, 1814), title page and p. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  24. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. xviii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); title page. ↩ ↩2

  25. Arden, Progressive Grammar (1873), Preface, p. vii, list of works consulted (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  26. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. xix (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  27. Robert Caldwell, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages, 2nd ed. (1875), Introduction, p. 29 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  28. Brown, Grammar of the Telugu Language (1857), Preface, p. iv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  29. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. xvi (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  30. C. P. Brown, A Grammar of the Telugu Language, 2nd ed. (1857), Preface, p. ii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  31. A. H. Arden, A Progressive Grammar of the Telugu Language (1873), Preface, p. iv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  32. Arden, Progressive Grammar (1873), Preface, p. v (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  33. Paravastu Chinnaya Suri, Bala Vyakaranamu, 4th ed. (Madras: Kalaratnakaram Press, 1871), title page (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  34. Khandavalli Lakshmiranjanam and Khandavalli Balendusekharam, Andhrula Charitra – Samskriti, 2nd ed. (1957), p. 414 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  35. M. Venkata Ratnam, “Note by the Editor” (12 June 1895), in C. P. Brown, An English and Telugu Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Madras: SPCK, 1895). ↩

  36. K. K. Rangadhacharyulu, A Historical Grammar of Inscriptional Telugu (1401 A.D. to 1900 A.D.) (Osmania University, 1987), Preface, p. vii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  37. Rangadhacharyulu, Historical Grammar of Inscriptional Telugu (1987), p. 1, citing Bh. Krishnamurti (1975, 1976) (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  38. Telikicherla Venkataratnam, editor’s preface to Bhasha Bheshajam (1933), p. i (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  39. Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti, Andhra Pandita Bhishakkula Bhasha Bheshajam (Guntur: Telikicherla Venkataratnam, first printed November 1933), title page (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  40. Venkataratnam, editor’s preface to Bhasha Bheshajam (1933), p. ii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  41. Sitaramaiya, Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 87 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  42. Sitaramaiya, Hand Book of Telugu Literature (1943), p. 88 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩

  43. Campbell, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language (1816), Introduction, p. xii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  44. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao (1928), p. 42 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

People

Paravastu Chinnaya Suri

1807–1861 CE

Paravastu Chinnaya Suri (1807–1861) was a Telugu scholar and teacher at the Presidency College, Madras. His Bala Vyakaranamu (about 1855) became the standard grammar of literary Telugu, and his Niti Chandrika retold Panchatantra stories in a classical prose style. Later writers praise his grammar but some blame his heavy style for holding back modern Telugu prose.

C. P. Brown

1817–1855 CE

Charles Philip Brown was an officer of the Madras Civil Service from 1817 to 1855 who spent his best years in the Telugu districts. He collected and corrected Telugu manuscripts, printed the verses of Vemana with an English translation in 1829, and wrote a Telugu grammar and large Telugu–English and English–Telugu dictionaries. He gave his collection of about 2,440 manuscripts to the Madras Literary Society.

Jayanti Ramayya Pantulu

1860 CE

Jayanti Ramayya Pantulu (born 1860) was a Telugu scholar and epigraphist from the Godavari country. A revenue officer by profession, he edited many Telugu inscriptions, worked to set up the Andhra Sahitya Parishat at Madras in 1911, edited the Suryaraya Telugu dictionary, and edited the tenth volume of South Indian Inscriptions, which came out in 1948 after his death.

References

Sources (15)
  1. A. D. Campbell, A Grammar of the Teloogoo Language, commonly termed the Gentoo (opens in a new tab), Sashachellum, Madras (College of Fort St. George), 1816, ix–x, xvi, xviii–xix, xxi. [Public domain]
  2. William Carey, A Grammar of the Telinga Language (opens in a new tab), Mission Press, Serampore, 1814, pp. 1, 9. [Public domain]
  3. Charles Philip Brown, A Grammar of the Telugu Language (2nd ed.) (opens in a new tab), Christian Knowledge Society's Press, Madras, 1857, ii–iv, vi. [Public domain]
  4. A. H. Arden, A Progressive Grammar of the Telugu Language, with Copious Examples and Exercises (opens in a new tab), Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Vepery, Madras, 1873, iv–v, vii, 2. [Public domain]
  5. Robert Caldwell, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages, 2nd ed. (opens in a new tab), Trübner and Co., London, 1875, pp. 29, 123. [Public domain]
  6. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press (Y.M.C.A.), Calcutta / Oxford University Press, London, 1928, pp. 16, 21, 38–39, 43, 55–56, 109. [Public domain]
  7. K. Sitaramaiya, A Hand Book of Telugu Literature (opens in a new tab), Hyderabad Telugu Academy, Hyderabad (Deccan), 1943, pp. 5, 21, 87–88. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  8. Malliya Recha (as the text says; ascribed by tradition to Vemulavada Bhima Kavi); ed. Jayanti Ramayya Pantulu, Kavijanasrayamu (కవిజనాశ్రయము), with an English preface by the editor (opens in a new tab), 1917, Preface, 1–3. Jayanti Ramayya's English preface. [Public domain]
  9. Kakunuri Appakavi; commentary by Balusu Venkata Satyanarayana Murti, Appakaviyamu, Tritiyasvasamu: Yati, Prasa prakaranalu, with a commentary (అప్పకవీయం తృతీయాశ్వాసం), Rohini Publications, Rajahmundry, 1998, pp. 7. Commentator's introduction. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  10. Kakunuri Appakavi; revised by Gidugu Ramamurti Pantulu and Utpala Venkata Narasimhacharyulu, Appakaviyamu (అప్పకవీయము), new edition (opens in a new tab), Vavilla Ramaswami Sastrulu and Sons, Madras, 1922, title page. [Public domain]
  11. Paravastu Chinnaya Suri, Bala Vyakaranamu (బాలవ్యాకరణము), 4th edition (opens in a new tab), Kalaratnakaram Press, Madras, 1871, title page. Cite-only scan; no images. [Public domain]
  12. Khandavalli Lakshmiranjanam and Khandavalli Balendusekharam, Andhrula Charitra - Samskriti (ఆంధ్రుల చరిత్ర - సంస్కృతి), 2nd ed. (opens in a new tab), Bala Saraswati Book Depot, Kurnool and Madras, 1957, pp. 414. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  13. Charles Philip Brown; revised by M. Venkata Ratnam, An English and Telugu Dictionary Explaining the English Idioms & Phrases in Telugu, with the Pronunciation of English Words, 2nd ed., Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Vepery, Madras, 1895, Note by the editor. [Public domain]
  14. K. K. Rangadhacharyulu, A Historical Grammar of Inscriptional Telugu (1401 A.D. to 1900 A.D.) (opens in a new tab), Centre of Advanced Study in Linguistics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, 1987, vii, 1. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  15. Gidugu Venkata Ramamurti, Andhra Pandita Bhishakkula Bhasha Bheshajam (ఆంధ్ర పండిత భిషక్కుల భాషాభేషజము) (opens in a new tab), Telikicherla Venkataratnam, Guntur (printed at the Andhra Patrika press, Madras), 1933, title page; editor's preface, i–ii. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

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