Essay on Telugu Literature. 



57 



rowed from Latin, we may easily fmme a rule according to which Pope 

 and Dryden should be proved illiterate. If we then proceeded lo stuff 

 the English dictionary ad libitum with the Saxon R surely we should 

 render it unintelligible to the common reader ; and this is precisely what 

 Appa Cavi has done. Mamadi Vencaya has without good reason bowed 

 to his decision. As I have already hinted, this rule deviates from the 

 spelling used in all the existing manuscripts of all the poets. It cannot 

 then deserve to be revived after falling into merited oblivion. Among 

 the Canarese it is still in use, but among the Telugus it is so utterly 

 forgotten that its shape is now given to the capital vowel U, and we 

 shall rarely meet with a Telugu who can read words written with R in 

 this obsolete form ; which is called bandi repha. 



51. This forgotten letter has not appeared in any modern editions of 

 the Telugu poets, though a pains-taking Telugu news-paper editor oc- 

 casionally treats his readers to words written in the obsolete mode. 



52. A minor inconvenience of the Andhra Dipica (likewise caused 

 by AppaCavi's refined rules) arises from the use of the semicircle, de- 

 noting the (arddh anuswaram) nasal sound. Thus the words todelu, a 

 wolf, enugu an elephant, vddu he, Sivudu, Brumhanudu, &c, are spelt 

 tondelu, enungu, vandu, Sivundu, Bramhanundu, and so forth. Now this 

 spelling is peculiar to poems, wherein the character used is the circle, 

 not the semicircle : and in modern days, this semi-nasal has been dis- 

 used. In common talking we shall often find illiterate Telugus pre- 

 serve the antique nasal twang, just as the rustic English often do. 

 But the educated classes have laid aside this disagreeable sound : and 

 pedants hlame them for this innovation. 



53. Mamadi Vencaya, likewise uses the marks 1 and 2 to denote the 

 hard and soft sounds of cha and Ja (i. e. 9a and za) but this is quite su- 

 perfluous : as all who have learnt the mode of reading the Telugu al- 

 phabet are already independent of these signs. 



54. I have given these details regarding Mamadi Vencaya's lexi- 

 con out of a respect for the talents and diligence of the writer : which 

 are peculiarly honourable to a man who was by birth and situation a 

 shopkeeper at Masulipatam. He previously compiled a valuable San- 

 scrit and Telugu lexicon called the Sabd Artha Calpa Taru, which has 

 been used in the admirable Sanscru dictionary by professor Wilson. 

 But we shall always find this imprinted dictionary useful as giving Te- 

 lugu synonymes for Sanscrit expressions. 



55. Its arrangement, imitated from the MediniCdsha, is inconvenient 

 to the beginner. The words are classed according to their final sylla- 

 ble :* then according to the number of syllables, and lastly according to 



* As is done in Hoogeveen's Greek lexicon, and in the Arabian lexicon named Kanius. 



