1839] 



Essny on Telugu Literature. 



45 



9. But under their dominion which lasted about a century and a half 

 pelugu literature fell very low, and has only gradually revived under 

 the British Government. Yet no part of the ancient and favourite vo- 

 lumes has perished, and a great fondness for their popular poems has 

 been in recent days the motive of continual publications that issue from 

 the presses at Madras. 



10. When we first read their poems we are led to suppose that the 

 dialect used is entirely different from that we daily speak and write. 

 But a little advance in knowledge will shew us that the polished dialect 

 of Telugu used in the poets deviates no more from the spoken dialect, 

 than the language of Milton, Pope, and Byron differs from the English 

 we speak and write. My attention was first called to this fact from ob- 

 serving, many years ago, that a well educated Telugu, fluent in colloquial 

 English, was wholly unable to read a page of Marmion. Now the Bhas- 

 cara Satacam, a common school book, written in flowing verse, and ea- 

 sily understood by boys and girls is parallel in style to the writings of 

 Walter Scott, or Sadi in Persian ; yet perhaps the reader of this page 

 never met with three Englishmen who had read that easy school book. 

 Let us not then call poetical Telugu difficult merely because we have 

 not studied it. 



11. From the harmony of tins language some have called it the 

 Italian of India; doubtless in the poems, and in the pronunciation 

 of retired villages, it is very melodious; but like Italian it has many a 

 rough and coarse dialect : and the Telugu used in our courts of justice 

 is a strange jargon in which English and Persian phrases are thi< kl v in- 

 terspersed, forming a jumble that may be difficult to an Englishman who 

 otherwise may be a good proficient in the language. In another 

 very important re>pect it resembles Italian : for no part of the lan- 

 guage, not even in the oldest poems, has become obsolete. And to 

 a beginner we could not recommend an easier volume than the 

 Prabhu Linga Lila, which is supposed to be about seven hundred years 

 old. Some attribute it to a mot e remote age : but it certainly was writ- 

 ten before the Musulmans invaded the country. 



12. The Telngus themselves think that the dialect used in the 

 northern (or what they themselves call the eastern) part of the country, 

 is remarkably elegant; and the worst dialect is that spoken at Madias. 

 A foreigner may be excused for perceiving little difference: it appears 

 to be everywhere equally corrupted with Hindustani and English phra- 

 ses. Nay some of the modern poets (witness the tale of Bobbili, and 

 the Bhalira Cari Veipa Satacam) are full of foreign words. Indeed the 



