In this thread, I will discuss the causes behind the destruction of the Telugu language, my mother tongue. I will point out certain directions for improving its grammar and usage, ultimately making it a scientific language worthy of use in business, law and technical fields.
I am writing this thread in English because the causes behind the destruction of Telugu are paralleled in many Indian languages, but very poorly understood. Further, Telugu is an extremely important language with close relationships to both South Indian & North Indian languages.
Firstly, the name of the language “Telugu” is misunderstood, and this reflects the current poverty of Telugu grammar. A language will be destroyed when its grammar remains misunderstood and underdeveloped. So I will comment about the theories behind the name “Telugu.
The most popular theory is that the name “Telugu” refers to the “Trilinga Dēśa”, or the land of the 3 Śaivite sacred places of pilgrimage. This theory, perhaps originating in a poetic reference in the Purānas, was repeated in the chronicles of British surveyors and missionaries.
No language is named after specific pilgrimages or religious practices, and that too as an agglomeration of 3 things. These cultural practices take several centuries of time for development. So this poetic reference, even though beautiful, is not the origin of the name “Telugu”.
The second theory is by modern grammarians influenced by the racist theories of Dravidian grammar, as proposed by Bishop Robert Caldwell. In this theory, “Telugu” or “Tenugu” means “southern speech”. I used to believe this, but now I think it is wrong too.
After recently reading Caldwell’s book on “Comparative Dravidian Grammar”, I was shocked by its dripping racism. This is rubbish and needs to be deconstructed, starting from the assumption that Tamil is more “authentic” than other South Indian languages.
It is ridiculous why nobody even tried a derivation of the word “Telugu” just from native Telugu etymology before.
“Telusu” తెలుసు: known
“Telupu” తెలుపు: to show, clear
“Telugu” తెలుగు then means the language that is clearly understood.
Many languages have such names.
“Telusu” తెలుసు: known
“Telupu” తెలుపు: to show, clear
“Telugu” తెలుగు then means the language that is clearly understood.
Many languages have such names.
It is really funny, but actually, I suggested such an etymology for “Deutsch” or German. The prejudice of Dravidian theories is so strong that it didn’t occur to me then that the same could be true of the name my own mother tongue “Telugu”.
It is not difficult to derive తెలుగు “Telugu”/తెలుఁగు “Telungu” in a grammatical manner from the root తెలు “telu”. The suffix గు “gu” is present in many words and refers to the process of becoming (అగు “agu”). In a healthy language, this should have been obvious to all speakers.
The suffix గు/అగు is seen in:
వెలుగు velugu (light,shine) = వెలు velu (white)+ గు. See also వెలుక, వేల్పు
తునుగు tunugu (cut into pieces) = tunu తును (chop) + గు. See also తునక
పెరుగు (growth) = పెరు (grow)+ గు. See also పేర్చు
New words can be formed by applying such rules.
వెలుగు velugu (light,shine) = వెలు velu (white)+ గు. See also వెలుక, వేల్పు
తునుగు tunugu (cut into pieces) = tunu తును (chop) + గు. See also తునక
పెరుగు (growth) = పెరు (grow)+ గు. See also పేర్చు
New words can be formed by applying such rules.
A language will die when its speakers lose the eye for grammar and consequently, lose the capacity to create new words. This is what is happening with Telugu - the situation is illustrated spectacularly by the very name of the language, whose meaning has become incomprehensible !
How did the situation deteriorate to this? There are 2 reasons.
1) The native grammatical tradition had a few blind spots, which are still not corrected.
2) Despite them, the native tradition was fantastically powerful. But it was destroyed by cutting a *live* link to Sanskrit.
1) The native grammatical tradition had a few blind spots, which are still not corrected.
2) Despite them, the native tradition was fantastically powerful. But it was destroyed by cutting a *live* link to Sanskrit.
This pathetic situation has a parallel in all Indian languages, and they are all in various stages of dying. There are different culprits, but in the case of Telugu, there is a particularly vicious culprit: the racist theories of British “grammarians” like Bishop Caldwell.
So it is important to understand the differences between the native grammatical tradition and the new racist theories imposed by the British Raj, which is based on a so called “historical method”.
The role of language is to enable Śakti or the creativity of the speakers. Creative “Śakti” is an ineffable element, not contained within the grammatical rules and definitely not in a dead lexicon of words, but is achieved by a mind trained by grammar.
The Sanskritic grammatical tradition has the purpose (“prayōjanam”) as to enable this “Śakti” of creativity. In the “historical method”, grammar has no creativity as the universe is inert (going by its Christian theology). All creativity was at the origin, at “God”’s Big Bang.
The “historical method” looks at grammar and etymology as a method for ascertaining the “purity of the race”, so that a hard-coded path of “history” can be traced to the current moment from its origin (based on Biblical history). This is the methodology of “comparative grammar”.
In the Hindu tradition, this entire logic of unique history is absurd. The Gods are present right in front of us (“Pratyaksha”) at every moment in time. Not only that, *we are the instruments of their creativity*.
Language is a method to embody that “Śakti” of creativity.
Language is a method to embody that “Śakti” of creativity.
This blazing fire of creativity (“pratibha”) is “tat”, which in its essence is none other than Brahman, embodied in the Upanishadic statement “Tat tvam asi”.
The Telugu language has “tat” right at the core of the language, as indeed every human language, although unconsciously.
The Telugu language has “tat” right at the core of the language, as indeed every human language, although unconsciously.
The nature of “tat” is that the meaning is experienced right down to individual syllables of the word. Thus, the word is connected and inter-reflected in all other words of “tat”. This union is “yoga”. This derivation of meaning from grammar alone is unique to Indian tradition.
Such complete coverage of meaning down to individual syllables is not possible for all the words, despite the continued efforts of grammarians. New words will continue to be born, based on the specifics of situational circumstances in any place and time. Those words are “dēsya”.
The word “dēśya” means that which is pertaining to a “diśa” - a direction. These words are thus not universally accepted, and not connected to the trove fully analyzed by grammar. But at some point, grammarians with sufficient capacity may refine and bring these words together.
This practice of refining the language, bringing together different words and reconciling the usages, is a *live* tradition in India. This “putting together and refining” is literally what is meant by “samskritam”. Thus, the “tat” in all Indian languages is equated with Sanskrit.
According to the Telugu grammatical tradition, it is completely absurd to say that the portion of words marked as “tat” (fully analyzed and understood as “yoga”) as foreign to Telugu! Indeed, the tradition says the opposite. This “tat” is the mother of all the words in language.
The Telugu vocabulary is traditionally divided into 4 groups:
1) Tatsama: words completely within “tat”
2) Tadbhava: words that are derived from Tatsama, but not fully “Yoga” at every syllable
3) Dēśya: words peculiar to specific geography
4) Grāmya: very local words, slang etc.
1) Tatsama: words completely within “tat”
2) Tadbhava: words that are derived from Tatsama, but not fully “Yoga” at every syllable
3) Dēśya: words peculiar to specific geography
4) Grāmya: very local words, slang etc.
It is very clear why “tat” (Sanskrit) is considered the mother of Tatsama and Tadbhava words. But even Dēśya and Grāmya words, if they persist for long enough time, will ultimately analyzed and refined by grammarians. So “tat” is the hidden potential, thus mother of all of them.
Different regional languages in India have very different words in the Dēśya category, and they keep generating new words due to situational circumstances. They all share the Sanskrit core, although these “tat” words might have different usage and frequency among their speakers.
Thus, the Indian grammatical tradition sees the Indian languages in a star topology, with Sanskrit at the centre and different “Dēśya” variations in different “Diśas” (directions). The British imposed “historical method”, in contrast, sees languages in a tree coming from a root.
This is a methodological difference in how the two traditions saw the Sanskrit language especially, which became important for Europeans due to a shocking realization that it is connected to their own languages. The outcome was that the Indian grammatical tradition was ridiculed.
This was the situation when Bishop Caldwell developed his racist theory of connecting the “Dēśya” words of South Indian languages to the “Scythian” or Central Asian “tree” (with the heavy work actually done by unwitting Pandits and traditional grammarians of these languages).
Bishop Caldwell invented a “Dravidian tree”, placed Tamil at the very root of this tree, and argued that it is not connected to the “Indo European” tree at all. Why?
A separate “tree” connected to Siberian Shamans was needed by him to insinuate “demonolatry” in the “Dravidians”.
A separate “tree” connected to Siberian Shamans was needed by him to insinuate “demonolatry” in the “Dravidians”.
This racist theory about the demonolatry of Dravidians was gleefully recounted by many racist authors in English literature.
The “demonolatry” of “Dravidians” became academic dogma about Hinduism as a religion, thanks to the work of racist scholars like Monier-Williams.
By imposing the European theological model of “historical method” and saying Indians were faulty for not having it, essentially Caldwell was finding fault with Indian grammarians for not being Christian. This purity of race or purity of language don’t make any objective sense. 
“Not having been comparative (in this peculiar historical sense), the philology of Indians has stopped being scientific and progressive.”
He says this to the grammarians of the languages with the most powerful grammar, not just then but even now ! So what is “progress” really?
He says this to the grammarians of the languages with the most powerful grammar, not just then but even now ! So what is “progress” really?
The native Indian Pandits are capable of rote mechanical labor (going by the analogy of James Ballantyne “the interminable path of an ox in an oil mill”). True creativity is, of course, the possession of Europeans with their “historical method” of ascertaining the purity of race.
Caldwell was puzzled by the fact that native Indian grammarians were not treating Sanskrit language as a dead museum exhibit of utmost racial purity, but as a *live* language, actively bringing “Dravidian roots” into it, and then attributing all Dravidian words to Sanskrit.
Basically, Caldwell missed the point of “tat” or sacred speech in Indian context. The comprehensibility of words down to syllables and their experience as “Mantras” has no meaning for him. The only role he could see for Sanskrit as a chronicle of the so called Japhetic race.
Even this racist “historical” view of language is challenged by a similarity of “Dravidian” (properly, “Dēśya” words) to Sanskrit as well as to words in European languages. There was an active debate between Charles E Gover (translator of Thirukkural) and Caldwell on this point.
Obviously, Europeans never had Sanskrit. From the perspective of traditional Indian grammarians, they only had “Dēśya” words. If there is a similarity to Indian languages, why should it be restricted to Tatsama words only? Caldwell himself lists similarities to some Dēśya words.
In this thread, I discussed the similarity of Dravidian words for numbers with the words in the “Indo European family”.
In this thread, I discussed the similarity of the South Indian Dēśya words for familial relations to their North Indian counterparts.
According to Indian grammatical theory, there is absolutely no reason why Dēśya words should be similar to Tatsama (Sanskrit) words. It can be caused by an inadequately developed grammar, true, but Dēśya words can also be completely random and keep popping up at different places.
But for the “historical method” of European linguists, the similarities between various Dēśya words are an important problem in the Biblical racial history, on where the poor clueless Indians fit in the progeny of Noah. Were they the sons and daughters of Japheth or Ham? And how?
There was a scholarly debate between Charles E. Gover and Bishop Caldwell on whether this “Dravidian tree” of languages (spoken by the primordial “Dravidian race”) was connected to the “Aryan tree” or to the remote “Scythian tree” of Siberian languages (Turkish, Finnish etc).
If the point was to reduce the number of bullshit bonkers assumptions in a theory, connecting a “race” of people in southern tip of India to another “race” in the cold steppes doesn’t make sense at all! Why sidestep the rest of India- the most densely populated part of the world?
Mr. Gover considered not just vocabulary but also grammatical forms, sentence structure etc and argued that the “Dravidian tree” was connected to the “Aryan tree” at an ancient time but developed in isolation for a long time. Caldwell needed a bonkers Finnish/Turanian connection.
None of this makes any sense unless we see the actual objective of Caldwell, which is to discover “demonolatry” in these Dravidians. True to his form, he picked up a bone of contention with Gover on the etymology of “Pey” - a “demonic” spirit that was worshipped in Tamil Nadu.
Gover had a theory that “pey” was originally a deity of light, and later became a malevolent being. Caldwell goes on and on about how this “demonic nature” is inherent to Dravidians and cannot be connected etymologically to “light”. That is the type of debate that was happening.
Unfortunately, Gover was already dead (at a young age) and couldn’t take part in this beastly interesting debate. All of this is, of course, rubbish. But also riddled with bias. If not “light”, “pey” could be easily connected to “fire”, with many Dravidian words to choose from.
In Telugu, the word “poyya” పొయ్య means a stove with firewood. The word for smoke is “poga” పొగ. The word for daytime is “pagalu” పగలు. The biased eyes of Caldwell can’t see it, but there is a Sanskrit word for fire “pāvaka” पावक, that is probably also connected to European pyro.
It is likely that spontaneous combustion seem often in nature, or burial grounds, was assumed to be a malevolent spirit. It is more likely that this word would come from “fire” than from “light”. Of course, any spirit can be pacified in nature worship. Nothing “demonic” about it.
In any case, dumb assertions about demonic spirits or marauding Siberian Shamans are laughable when compared to the commonsense theory of Charles Gover, even if we go by the “historical method” of mapping languages to primordial races. But Gover was rubbished by “philologists”.
I had enough of the “Dravidian demonolatry” of Bishop Caldwell. To hell with it!
My question is simply, what are the Telugu grammarians doing? Why are they absconding from their job even when the Telugu language is on a funeral procession even if it is not fully dead?
My question is simply, what are the Telugu grammarians doing? Why are they absconding from their job even when the Telugu language is on a funeral procession even if it is not fully dead?
Why is the study of grammar and logic (the strengths of Indian education) completely absent today, even for intellectuals and writers!? The study of Telugu grammar must be revived on its own terms, and that includes “tat” or the sacred Sanskrit speech, right at the centre!
I pointed out the two reasons for the decay of Telugu language. I said enough about how the racist bullshit theories of Caldwell completely corrupted the native grammatical tradition. But I also need to talk about the second reason: the blind spot of our own traditional system.
The fact is Telugu grammarians were utterly dazzled by the light of Sanskrit, and for good reason. The highly developed and refined “tat”, which is a legacy of millennia of brilliant grammarians of India, resulted in the Sanskrit language.
*But the work is not finished yet !*
*But the work is not finished yet !*
Our grammars are still inadequate. They have been several traditional grammarians, both from the north and south of India, who developed grammars for various Prākrits and Apabhramsas. This is a continuous process, and we need this for “Dēśya” words in Telugu as well.
We need to make our languages “sāravat” (well watered for cultivation and further growth). That means, firstly, we need a rapid translation of scientific terminology. Dēśya grammars need to be developed for the full range of technical expression. Caldwell’s work doesn’t do that.
I would like to see scientific works appearing in Telugu and in other Indian languages. Personally, I want to translate all of my own scientific publications into Telugu. But before this, the grammar needs to be analyzed and refined, including Dēśya words.
A first rate “Uttama” poet would show creativity / Śakti in the use of language. A middling “Madhyama” poet shows profess in grammar, or the etymology of words. A lower rate “Adhama” poet would show vocabulary or use a dictionary. The same can be said about scientists or artists.
In Telugu, the situation deteriorated even below the “Adhama” class. Beneath the “Adhama”, there is the despicable or “Nikrushta” నికృష్ట निकृष्ट person who doesn’t even know native vocabulary, but foreign words just for the sake of pomp/prestige, without knowing their etymology.
This నికృష్ట nature can be seen in all types of creative output - from newspapers to TV shows, from films to board meetings, from schools to universities.. The Telugu language has been reduced to a clueless pidgin of English, the people havjbd zero clue about their grammar.
This is the end of my thread. But this నికృష్టత్వం should not be the fate of Telugu or of any Indian language. (end of thread)
