Observations on the 



[No. 37, 



The Telugu did not probably cease to be purely vernacular until the 

 cessation of the Magadha kingdom of Behar, and the formation of 

 the old Calinga and Ohalukya dynasties. It is further probable that 

 the Sanscrit assumed its own form by engrafting numerous Pehlevi, 

 or Chaldaic terms of science, or art, or even of common convenience 

 on the old Pali ; and the Sanscrit in this last shape every where as 

 the Brahman colonists spread themselves, has so very extensively 

 enlarged, or enriched the Native dialects, or made them copious and 

 sonorous that it need not cause surprize if in language, as in history, 

 the colonist has been deemed aborigine, and the intruder, Native." 

 — pp. ii., iii. 



That the Telugu is not derived from the Sanscrit has been elabo- 

 rately and successfully proved in the preface to Campbell's Telugu 

 Dictionary, and the proof, it is said, incidentally goes to support in 

 some degree the claims of the Tamil language, also to being an original 

 tongue. The considerations which lead to such a conclusion with 

 respect to the latter are thus briefly, but clearly stated by Mr. Taylor : 

 " radically the Tamil and Sanscrit are entirely different, the compa- 

 rative bareness of the Tamil alphabet, its inability to indicate Sans- 

 crit sounds without borrowed characters, the total difference in pro- 

 nouns, in numerals, in many nouns, verbs, adverbs, technical terms 

 of Grammar, and similar matters." — p. ii. Preface. 



To these remarks may be added one more from the pen of the 

 Rev, Bernard Schmid which occurs in a paper that appeared in the 

 12th No., vol. IV. of the Madras Literary Journal. " The construc- 

 tion of the Tamil, Maleialam, Karnataka, and Telugu (I think also 

 that of the Konkanese and Orissa), is most strictly conformed to the 

 rules of a genuine original language, as the verb invariably concludes 

 the sentence, and although many Sanscrit words are found in these 

 dialects, yet it is evident that before the Brahmins gained any in- 

 fluence over these tribes, their dialects were grammatically formed 

 and fixed, nor did the Brahmanical tribe ever violently interfere in 

 their formation." — p. 123. 



The specimen of the language of the primitive tribes of the Gonds 

 printed at the end of the Sixteenth Report of the Calcutta Diocesan 

 Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 

 Parts, contains so many words bearing a most striking affinity to the 



